Jesse Brison had noticed a pattern with big rainbow trout he'd seen mounted by other anglers and displayed in restaurants and businesses around the White River in north Arkansas. "The thing I've noticed," he said of the plaques indicating where the fish was caught, " the big rainbows that are mounted, Shipp's Ferry is where they were caught."

Naturally, he decided this particular area, a boat launch on the White River about two miles upstream from the confluence of the Norfork River and the White, might be a great place to start in his quest for a big rainbow. He'd long since narrowed his search to an area between Rim Shoals and two miles below that confluence for big trout, and in the last month or so he decided to narrow his target area to Shipp's Ferry.

"It's underpressured there," he said, adding that the biggest rainbow he'd caught there before this night was between 6-7 pounds.

He guided two older anglers from the region recently to that area, and one day "when we were zoned out," throwing Rooster Tails on ultra-light rods, he spotted a giant fish chasing one angler's Rooster Tail. "Right when one of those guys got the lure to the boat, that fish turned around. They thought it was a big brown trout. I said, 'No, browns don't have pink stripes down the side.' I knew that fish was over 30 inches. I knew I'd never seen pictures of one that big. I made a mental note of it and said I would be back."

It's beginning to sound like Captain Ahab in his quest for Moby-Dick, or at least a monster rainbow.

Fast-forward to July 29. In the days leading up, he felt like he'd landed Ol' Moby-Trout a couple of times, but just "bad luck" intervened and both times it came off the hook. "I've night-fished three or four times to see if it would bite on a Mouse or a topwater."

His multiple day trips were over this particular day, and he still had some energy left for a midnight run up the river. "The water was falling out, the moon was full, the pressure was coming up. I had zero expectations of meeting that fish that night."

He made one run up the river below Shipp's Ferry and figured he'd give it one more pass, and then "I was out." It was nearing 12:30 a.m. There were trips in the works with clients on the river in a few hours.

"I went up on a second drift and, three casts in, it's like a shark ate my Mouse," he said. For those unaware, a Mouse is like a topwater plug that bigger trout love. This particular style of Mouse, he said to the AGFC's Trey Reid in another interview, was built for him by a friend. This time, the trout stayed hooked, he got the fish to the boat, got his photos, safely returned the fish to the water, and then started calling "everybody in my phone list; I either talked to them, FaceTimed, or texted. It was something."

The fish weighed 17 pounds, 7 ounces. The state record for rainbow is a 19-pound, 1-ounce fish caught on the White River on March 14, 1981, by Jim Miller of Memphis. Our personal research does not indicate any trout of the size of Brison's catch, or near it, being caught on the White in the past decade, unless people have just been keeping quiet about it. Why would anyone keep quiet about a monster rainbow?

"It was just a blessing," he said. "I run three trips a day. The guys say I'm crazy, but it was nice just to know there are fish in there like that. And especially, being a guide, when you think you know everything that's down there, there are fish in there we don't even know about."

For most anglers on the White, they may be fortunate to land a 23-inch brown trout, while with many of your rainbows, he says, "everything looks like a stocker."

This one was 32 inches. While photos are often staged to make a fish look much larger in perspective to its actual size, Brison said of this trout, "Pics actually make it look smaller. The girth of the whole fish was insane."

Brison runs the White River Nation guide service at Cotter, and that's the name for his Facebook page. He has videos of other trips and loads of photos on the site. Fishing at night seems like a successful way to go about things, based on videos he's posted, and especially during these warm days — though the White River below Bull Shoals Dam has nice, chilled water for the trout that also helps bring the overall air temperature down while you sit in a boat.

Brison is all about catch-and-release, too. He might keep some client's fish if a shore lunch is scheduled, but that's it. He also fishes elsewhere beyond these trout waters, such as offshore fishing in Louisiana and Florida for tuna, or back here bass fishing on Bull Shoals Lake, or going on trips with buddies. "I like to fish," he said.

Someone that devoted to the sport and who is committed to conservation deserves something like a monster trout.

"It's a true once-in-a-lifetime fish," Brison said. "I would think I'd have caught a close-to-record brown trout before a rainbow that size."