Flies only since 1907
The North Branch had the first flies-only gear restriction in Michigan, enacted in 1907, and the DNR's 2020 status report says it has been managed as a brook trout stream ever since and is now widely recognised as one. The water starts at the Otsego Lake outlet south of Gaylord and gathers 262 square miles of catchment, 96 percent of it coarse ice-contact and outwash ground that feeds the river groundwater, before Big Creek joins just above the mouth and the whole thing enters the Au Sable mainstream near Rainbow Bend, a few miles below where the South Branch came in. Above Sheep Ranch the river is an unlisted Type 1 stream. Below it, everything is gear restricted.
Lovells: Twin Bridges, Dam 4 and the Outing Club
Lovells is the village on the North Branch, on County Road 612 north of Grayling, and the DNR's survey stations map the fishing water around it: Twin Bridges just upstream of town, Eamans Landing just downstream, and Dam 4 about four miles below, where a logging-era dam left its remnants after the last drive around 1906. Sheep Ranch, the upstream line of the flies-only water, is an access about half a mile north of the Twin Bridge Road crossing. The newer canoe launch on Twin Bridge Road, Kellogg's Bridge in the middle of the reach, and Morley Road toward the confluence round out the thirteen public accesses the DNR lists in its Trout Trails app. The North Branch Outing Club at 6122 East County Road 612, built in 1916 by T.E. Douglas and hosting the Fords, Firestone and Edison in its day, has been owned by the Fuller family since September 1996 and is on the National Register; it runs the fly shop and guide service, full-day floats at $525 for one and $575 for two in 2025, and mousing trips at $495. On Twin Bridge Road the Lovells Museum of Trout Fishing History, the only one in the state, opens Saturdays from the last Saturday in April to the last Saturday in September.
Sheep Ranch to the mainstream: the rules
The 2026 Michigan Fishing Regulations list the North Branch under Crawford County as gear restricted from Sheep Ranch, T28N R2W Section 12, downstream to the confluence with the mainstream, 20.7 miles. The reach is open to fishing all year; brook and brown trout may be possessed only from the last Saturday in April through September 30 and rainbows all year; tackle is artificial flies only; the limit is two trout with no more than one 18 inches or longer; brook and rainbow trout must be 10 inches and browns 18. On gear restricted water it is unlawful to have live, dead or preserved bait or processed food with you on the river or the bank, and on flies-only water scented material is banned as well. The digest defines an artificial fly as a single-pointed hook or two single hooks in line dressed with natural or synthetic materials. There is no separate rule at Kellogg's Bridge; the AuSable North Branch Area Foundation restates the same single reach. Chumming is prohibited.
Wide, shallow, and 167 feet across at Dam 4
The DNR describes the North Branch as a wide river that is fairly shallow and easy to wade almost everywhere, and its September 2018 measurement at the Dam 4 station was an average width of about 167 feet with an average depth just over one foot. Mean July water temperature at Dam 4 that year was 66.4 degrees. The same report is frank about the fish: brook trout density at Dam 4 in 2019 was 715 per acre, one of the lowest since 1985, after a decline between September 2017 and May 2018, and survival of browns from age 0 to age 1 had dropped from 33 percent in 2005 and 2006 to 13 percent in 2017 and 2018. Gates Au Sable Lodge still calls August through November some of the best brook trout fishing of the year across the system, and its September 17, 2026 report had the upper North Branch falling back into shape after rain.
Drakes above Lovells bridge, Isos and Tricos by mid July
The Outing Club's river journal is the closest thing to a North Branch hatch chart. Its May 16, 2025 entry had the Hendrickson hatch winding down with light Hendricksons still going, Black Caddis, Mahoganies, an occasional stonefly and the first Sulphurs of the year. On June 6, 2025 the Brown Drakes were just getting started with consistent hatches reported above Lovells bridge, and the first week of June brought a mix of Sulphurs, drakes, Mahoganies, caddis and stones. By July 16, 2025 it was Isonychia, olives and Tricos, with mousing picking up on the dark of the moon. Gates' system-wide chart frames that: Hendricksons from about April 22, Sulphurs from mid May, Brown Drakes May 22 to June 22, Hex June 15 to July 15, Isonychia mid June through August, Tricos from late June into September, flying ants at the end of August and fall olives into October. Old Au Sable calls the North Branch a quality dry-fly fishery with slick pools, and the Hendrickson and Brown Drake temperature triggers on its hatch page, low 50s and around 50 degrees, hold here as on the mainstream.
What Kellogg's Bridge reads
USGS 04135800 sits at Kellogg's Bridge on 140 square miles of drainage and has only reported since 2019, so its record is short, and no shop publishes a wading number for it. The 140 to 220 cfs band here is that record: monthly means of roughly 168 cfs in January, 159 in February, 175 in March, 199 in April, 185 in May, 163 in June, 161 in July, 158 in August, 155 in September and 163 in October, a spread so flat that it explains the river better than any adjective. Groundwater holds it near 160 cfs most of the year and April only lifts it by about 40. A reading much past 220 means rain on the sand, and on a river averaging a foot deep that is the difference between wading anywhere and wading the edges. The gauge was reading 217 cfs on September 23, 2026 after a wet week.