Crane Creek is one of the quiet treasures of American trout fishing — a tiny, brushy spring-influenced Ozark creek near the town of Crane that holds wild McCloud-strain rainbows, descendants of some of the original California rainbow stock brought east more than a century ago and now among the purest such fish anywhere. They are small, wild, achingly wary fish in skinny, clear, overgrown water, and the whole point of the place is the heritage genetics and the challenge, not size. This is conservation water that asks for the lightest possible touch: fine tippet, small flies, a stealthy approach, barbless hooks and gentle handling, and no hero-talk about a creek where every wild fish matters. Fish it with humility, tread lightly through the brush, and treat what you catch as the living history it is. Catch-and-release ethic throughout.

• Limestone

• Aquatic life: Impaired