North Fork of the White River

The North Fork of the White River is the best wild-trout stream in Missouri, and it earns that on the strength of its rainbows. This is the state's strongest naturally-reproducing rainbow population — roughly 75% of the trout in the Blue Ribbon water are wild fish, no stocking truck involved, at densities that have historically run near 500 rainbows per mile. It's a spring creek at heart: the cold comes from Rainbow Spring (a.k.a. Double Spring), the fourth- or fifth-largest spring in the Ozarks, pushing about 137 million gallons a day of 55–58°F water in near river mile 33.5, with more coldwater added downstream from smaller springs and feeders like Brant Creek. Below that spring the river holds trout year-round; the trout water ends where Norfork Lake backs up near Tecumseh. The reach above Rainbow Spring near Dora isn't reliable trout water — the coldwater fishery effectively begins at the spring. With the Dawt Mill low-water dam removed in February 2017, no covered reach sits below an operating dam, making this one of the last all-natural, largely undammed coldwater fisheries in the region.