“What should I do for tippet? I’m running a nine-foot, 5X,” I said.

“You’ll want 1X, 12-pound test,” Darren said. “We’ll slide an indicator up the line then go 1X to the golden stonefly nymph then 3X, 8-pound test, to the dropper. These fish are not leader-shy.”

We hit the Keno Reach of the Klamath River two days before it closed for the summer, with the river dropping and the fish back on the feed. At river’s edge, I knotted a shiny No. 14 Spitfire to my 3X dropper.

Jenifer Roe of Roe Outfitters took the front seat, while her husband Darren manned the sticks and I slid into the back seat. Behind us, Caleb Coaty shoved off while Brad Douglas and his son Drew buckled into their lifejackets.

We drifted into the main current and a fast escalator ride down to the first run we could fish.

About 50 yards across, the Klamath isn’t what you’d call intimate. It’s big, brawling water the color of whiskey. Don’t expect much in the way of classic riffles, pools and tailouts. There’s none of that; only big rapids, choppy runs and pocket water.

The Klamath Basin is well-known for big rainbows in the Wood and Williamson rivers that feed into Agency and Upper Klamath lakes. Ten-pound trout are not uncommon and every year someone ties into a 20-pounder. There’s a lot of food and the trout put on weight fast.

All that trout potential is tamed by a dam at Keno. This much, most of Oregon’s well-traveled anglers have sampled. But downstream you’ll find the Keno Reach, 6½ miles of big, rough, protein-rich pocket water. The fish don’t get as big in the river as they do in the lake, but the river trout can reach six pounds or more.

If you like to read pocket water, the Keno Reach is like the American Heritage Dictionary. You can pick it up anywhere and start reading, but you’ll never read the whole thing.

Definition shows in the amber water. A rock catches a pillow of water and diverts it around to create a slick behind and a seam on each side. There will be a trout or two or three or 10 on the seam.

Jenifer hooked the first fish and lost it. The second came quickly behind it. Her indicator jabbed sideways in the current. “Pull, pull, pull!” Darren said. She set the hook and the fish went airborne, tail-walking, twisting and flashing. Brought to hand, it measured 19½ inches. Darren turned it loose.

I missed the first few grabs, hooked one on a stonefly, then promptly lost it.

“Don’t think you have to cast a long way,” Darren said. “They might be close.”

With rod held high, I followed the indicator, four feet off the side of the raft. It stabbed upstream and I set the hook. This one measured right at 17 inches.

We drifted. Darren bounced us off boulders then backed into runs for casts into boulder-choked runs. At one spot, we hooked 11 big rainbows, including one that probably would have weighed five pounds. Behind us, beside us, in front, Brad Douglas rolled with his big Canon camera, hoping to get some of the frenetic action for a DVD.

Darren coached his wife. If it had been anything but fishing, she’d have hit him with an oar, but she took the instruction with a smile.

“Cast short, cast short. Take that seam around the rock. Follow it with your tip. Let it drift, feed it, feed it. That’s right. Pull! Pull! Pull! Missed it. That’s OK.”

Jenifer rolled a cast upstream, lifted her rod chin-high and followed the indicator with the tip. The float jabbed sideways; she set the hook. The fish ripped toward the north bank then reversed and launched into the air in a four-foot arc that ended in the raft.

The Keno Reach is virtually un-runnable with a drift boat. Only with the forgiveness of a raft can you make it through. But don’t try it with just any inflatable. Halfway through the drift, we found the remains of someone’s four-man bargain-bin bad idea wrapped around a lava boulder the size of a pool table.

Since our lunch break, we’d taken the bumpy water in stride, but downstream, the river dropped out of sight. Darren let the anchor fall in an eddy and we shrugged into our lifejackets.

There was a passage between the jagged lava teeth. Darren pointed the front of the raft at a rock the size of a piano and pulled away from it. We hurtled toward a boulder that stood house-high in the middle of the river, like a giant fist. For 300 yards, we slammed through drop after drop after drop then drifted into the pool behind the J.C. Boyle Dam.

I let my two-fly rig drift through the last of the pocket water. A trout ate the dropper, turned and was gone. That one last grab defined my first drift of the upper Klamath. I’d managed to bring seven trout to the net, but lost three times that many.