The Beaver tailwater is northwest Arkansas's home trout water — a short, cold tailwater below Beaver Dam that gives the Fayetteville, Springdale and Bentonville crowd a real trout river without the drive to the White. It's a stocked-rainbow numbers fishery first, with a quieter brown-trout undercurrent for those who put in the time. Like every Ozark tailwater it lives and dies by generation: low water opens up the wading and the technical midge-and-scud fishing, while a release turns it into drift water. It's smaller and gentler than the White, which makes it a good place to learn the generation game without the big river's consequences — but the principle is the same. Check what the dam is doing first.

• Limestone