Mountain Home, Ark.
The Big-Fish, Easy-Living Town

Nestled in the scenic Ozarks, Mountain Home is consistently rated one of the best places to retire to in the country. It's affordable, beautiful, safe, and laid-back. Taxes are low, and the fishing is off the charts. Norfork Lake and Bull Shoals Lake teem with largemouths, as well as stripers and walleyes. The kicker, however, is that you can also catch big trout with flies in the White or Norfork (North Fork) Rivers. It's fair to say that these tailwaters-part of a 170-mile network of coldwater streams-are some of the world's best trout fisheries. The Norfork served up the former world-record brown trout (38 pounds 9 ounces) in 1988; the White has stretches that hold hundreds of 5-plus-pound brown trout per mile. Obviously, with fish like that, Mountain Home's reputation is well understood by serious anglers. But the area isn't overcrowded, overpriced, or overdeveloped.

Photo courtesy of: Gastons