The Au Sable's Holy Water is exactly that to a Michigan trout angler — the special-regulation water below Grayling where Trout Unlimited was founded in 1959, on the banks of a river worth founding it for. It runs through the jack pine and cedar of northern Michigan as a clear, cold, spring-fed river of remarkable evenness — the sand-country geology gives it a steady flow and a steady temperature, and the wild browns and brook trout rise to its famous hatches with reassuring regularity. The bed is sand and gravel, the water tea-stained and gentle, the banks lined with cedar sweepers and the long-tailed Au Sable riverboat drifting through. The current is mild, the gradient soft. Wading is easy on firm gravel, with soft sandy pockets to mind. This is classic, civilized, deeply loved eastern trout water — the kind of river you measure other rivers against, and a few of them come up short.

Wading: Soft sandy pockets among the gravel