We put the boats in as far upstream as we thought we could fit the pontoons between the banks. John Hill pushed my boat out into the current, then climbed into his seat. Black-hatted Brian Davis was right behind him.

The Metolius River’s current swept me under the bridge and between grassy banks lined with willows and pines. Backlit by the sun, caddis and mayflies fluttered above the water. My feet were planted in the frame of the 10-foot Steelheader pontoon boat. “Point the bow at what you don’t want to hit and row away from it,” I reminded myself.

There was plenty to row away from: boulders, islands, snags, gravel bars, bridge pilings.

Between obstacles I looked into the shifting strands of current that opened windows into the world of trout. River left was a narrow trough where the bottom was shovel-scooped by the hydraulics of winter flows.

When the river pulled the boat right, I drew the oars up through the oarlocks to clear the banks, then righted the trajectory of the pontoons. Around the next bend, I saw a fly-fisherman and two more. They hailed from Vancouver, Wash., and seemed to think I was nuts. I had run over the water they were fishing and didn’t have the heart to tell them there were two more crazies behind me.

The boat drifted to a stop at a submerged log that spanned the river side to side. With the pontoons lined up between stobs, I rocked it into the next pool, a 12-inch drop.

In shallow slack, I pulled up to wait for John and Brian. A merganser with 11 children scuttled downstream when she saw me. Three little babies rode in the down on her back while the others trailed behind. I wondered how many wild rainbows and baby salmon would go down their gullets.

Minutes later, we walked over two small pines. Near the mouth of Lake Creek, we crossed between the branches of a big Ponderosa.

I knew we were through the worst of it when I saw Cold Springs Resort on the left and the rustic cabin we’d called home one Christmas.

Low bridge ahead. I bent down and went under. Behind me, John folded his seat and rode under on the foot board. Brian, a bull rider, leaned back all the way, his nose inches from the timber, his hand on his hat.

Next it was the Metolius River Lodges on the right and, to the left, in front of the Metolius River Resort, the run where last summer I coached young Trystan O’Neil in the art of the fly rod.

The road runs parallel to the water and I knew from the truck odometer that we’d hit the bridge at Camp Sherman right at the one-mile mark.

Jennifer Wilson, the owner of Steelheader Boats and our shuttle driver, was there to catch the back of my boat when I backed into the willows upstream from the bridge. I didn’t think I could float under, so we portaged. John and Brian made it through and when they floated into sight, I pushed off again ahead of them.

Below Camp Sherman the river widens. This was water I had fished, but hadn’t seen from a boat. There was a deep channel river left, a bucket in an otherwise shallow gravel bed. A back eddy there, and there, a ledge with deeper water where bull trout might hold in September. Places to remember.

Another family of mergansers in the second mile. Perhaps that was the proper proportion, I pondered. Around the bend, I saw another merganser mom with her cold-hearted kids. They scuttled away.

A snarl of leader, tippets and flies hung from a wire. There for all to see dangled a bobber, testament to at least one lawbreaker on this fly-fishing-only stream.

Hikers followed the left bank. In fast water, I out-paced them. They caught up between rapids. We passed a fisherman, changing flies. He looked up, surprised.

River left, I looked for a long run and a meadow where, 20 years ago, I walked through a cloud of butterflies and pondered how I might one day live in Central Oregon. Around the bend, I floated over a hole that had held a downed tree where the trout used to stack in the current seam. My favorite fly in those days was a Stovepipe, fished slack-line.

There was much more to this two-mile stretch of river than I imagined. I thought I knew it well until I read the water at the speed of the current.