Fly fishing in Mongolia  My prize catch, a 40-inch Siberian taimen! More than five thousand miles on the other side of a remote part of the world, I made a lengthy cast towards the river’s shoreline with my Echo BAG 9 wt from the anchored jon boat. At the end of my 25 lb test tippet is an obscure dry fly that was supposed to mimic a mouse or some small rodent. As the current pushed the line to drag it downstream, I would elicit a twitch on the fly line to “jig” the fly causing more push and commotion on the water. Suddenly, the quietness of the drift is erupted by an explosion! KA-POW! The river wolf has made a grab for the fake lifeform pretending to be a swimming rodent, but misses. In the split second it happens, I’m processing what happened when, again, a second explosion occurs! In the excitement of feeling the tension, I forget all about the proper hook setting and immediately respond with the Western trout set! Uh oh, fish is gone and I look stupid. Fortunately, there would be other chances. Many, years ago when I discovered what a “taimen” is, (as in the world’s largest salmonid) this vicious, freshwater predator was placed on top of my bucket list! The taimen is not a trout or a salmon. They are in their own group, Hucho, which is in the salmonid family (other groups include Huchen and Parahucho). There are five types of this fish that are scattered over regions in Slovenia, Kazakhstan, Russia, Mongolia, China, North Korea and Japan. There are a few options of places in the world to go to catch a taimen but after conducting thorough research on the internet, it became obvious Mongolia was the best place to catch one!  Flying over taimen country is breath taking. It's no wonder that a river this size has huge fish! I booked my trip for the end of September through Montana Angler in Bozeman, MT with Brian McGeehan. I highly recommend them for fly fishing travel! He prepped my trip with Sweet Water Travel Company, which has two base camps on beautiful taimen rivers in Mongolia. My stay was at the upper camp, about 40 miles south of the Russian border. I opted for the base camp experience, which, uses jon boats equipped with 40 horse Yamaha jet pumps to run the river. Very similar to an Alaskan fish camp. Each guide has their own beat. You fish with a different guide and partner every day. The beats cover many miles of river so you experience different fishing and scenery. I chose this package verses the float trips offered by other outfitters because the Sweet Water camp has a good record of catching larger taimen on average and catching a big taimen was in tall order for my trip.  The upper, Sweet Water Travel, taimen camp, showing the dining hall on the left and gurs to right. The fish camp accommodates up to 8 anglers but we had six in our group. I was in great company with four Swedish anglers and another from Pennsylvania. One of the Swedish anglers was Christir Sjoberg, former founder and owner of Loop fly reels and rods. He is quite the comedian and all-around fun guy to fish and hang out with. He keeps quite busy with multiple fishing lodges worldwide (Solid Adventures), and just started a new fly rod and reel company called Solid Tackle. The camp houses its anglers in traditional Mongolian gurs with a woodstove, which, are very comfortable even as temps fell below freezing at night. There’s a large dining hall for meals, socializing or just hanging out. The food is what I consider, comfort type meals, but tasty none the less. The camp is also plumbed with flush toilets, hot showers and a nice sauna! A generator operates in the morning and evenings, for modern conveniences in camp, such as WiFi! Thank goodness for WhatsApp! All the comfortable accommodations an angler needs while fishing in the boon docks. You receive 6 full days of angling, plus a few hours when you arrive on the first day.  The taimen camp is just a few steps from the river, Excellent lenok fishing and grayling if you make time. The only down side is the arduous plane rides to get there, from my home state of WA, a 17-hr difference! I left on a Thursday and arrived on Saturday, there was no Friday, lol! I’m always the guy who arrives early so there’s a safety valve for setbacks, but since there were none, I had in extra day to spend in the Mongolia’s capital city, Ulaanbaatar (UB). My travel people set up a tour and I visited the famous equestrian statue of Genghis Khan. The statue is made of stainless steel and stands 130 feet tall, the largest statue in the world! I also visited the fairly new GK history museum, very impressive. The trip includes lodging in a very nice hotel, The Ibis, for the night before you leave for fish camp and when you get back to UB. The six of us (plus one of the camp guides) and the two pilots boarded a Cessna Caravan for a about a one hour and 45-minute flight to the fish camp. There are roads to the camp and I was told it is a 15-hour road trip. No thanks! Plus, it’s not paved and is very rough. Some anglers who have ventured this route say it makes for wonderful sight seeing as part of the trip! I’ll pass and take the plane any day.  Ulaanbaatar, capital of Mongolia, half of the country's population of 3.4 million live here. It continues to expand at this very time!  Standing in front of the 130 ft statue of Genghis Khan. The basic day of fly fishing is breakfast around 8 am, boats leave about 9 and you fish till about 5:30 pm to be back at camp by 6. Lunch is provided and was always something different but very tasty! I loved the soups they served and on two days when it was sleet and snow, it was especially delightful. You can bring your own gear and flies or use gear from the guides. I did bring many flies for the taimen, but honestly, the guide flies caught all the fish. But I now have a much better idea of what patterns work best for the next trip . . . WF floating lines are what you use most of the time, but sink lines in 300-400 grains are also recommended and best to use for the streamer fishing. It is highly recommended to go up one line size for the floating line, which helps load the rod better casting large flies. In my week there, I raised 7 taimen to the top and landed 3 of them, plus one fish on a streamer. That’s about average catching. The fish are pretty well scattered up and down the river. I would say the type of water you fish is a close match to steelhead water. The river was very wide but shallow, low gradient, no white water to speak of. If I had to take a guess, I’d say the average depth is like 3-5 feet with some pools maybe reaching 10 feet. While we were there, the water was slightly off color, so you couldn’t do any sight fishing, although the guide would motor over some spots just to take a peek and sometimes a taimen would dart out, some being the size of a log, like 50 inches! I’d rather not know there was one there after making hundreds of casts all day! Lol.  Fly fishing a long stretch of a gravel bar identical to steelhead fishing, but without any competition! Other exciting salmonids include the lenok trout and grayling. The lenok can grow as big as 30 inches long but even a 24 incher can grab the mouse pattern with an ought size hook! Unless you request fishing for the lenok and grayling, the guide will focus on the taimen. If you want to try for the other trout, you are better off fly fishing in front of camp. There are plenty there to catch. Save the guided days for maximizing your chances on taimen! On the fly out day, the plane arrives around noon-ish. One of the guides told me if I wanted to fish, he had an extra trout rod and waders, so, heck ya, I fished for an additional 2 ½ hours. I ended up catching a six lenok and one grayling! Of course, I regretted not taking advantage of this during the week too. There are many interesting moments on the river besides the fishing. Lots of cool looking horses roam the river banks. I was told the owners gather them up when needed, but they do have the “wild” look. A Mongolian man is seen crossing the river in his green flat bottom jon boat using a push pole to ferry people, motorcycles, camp gear, carts, etc. Talk about a workout! Another means for the local people to ferry the river was a big, army type truck with 4-ft tall tires. It could also tow other vehicles across too. There seem to be quite a few people moving to the other side of the river and when I asked why, I was told it was “pine nuts” harvest time. Evidently, the pine nuts are in high demand and fetch a nice profit.  The beautiful lenok, similar to our whitefish but more colorful.  Horses along the shoreline are a common site, but they are not wild. The one thing that struck me funny was seeing the same bird species in Mongolia that exist back home and they are native too! One of the first birds I saw arriving to camp was a magpie. I couldn’t believe it, where do they NOT exist? You also see the same birds of prey there as in the US, osprey and golden eagles. Amazing! We never saw another motor boat and only a few anglers on the shore, so for the most part, things are wild and scenic there. Mongolia has Siberian taimen that inhabit the northern regions as well as in Russia and a small part of China. They are the largest of the taimen group, reaching lengths up to six feet long and over a 100 lbs! Russia is noted as having the largest taimen and they have been known to prey on adult chum salmon! These fish are very long lived, some reaching 40-50 years! They don’t even reach maturity till after 7 years! The appearance of the taimen is pretty cool, large black dots over an olive and grey-ish body set apart with a striking red tail, anal and adipose fins. Their head reminds me of a big bull trout but the taimen eyes are larger and positioned higher towards the top of the head to aid in those aggressive grabs of swimming prey overhead, be it fish, rodent, bird, or reptile. If it moves, it’s dead!
As mentioned previously, I landed four taimen with the largest one at 40 inches! I was overjoyed to say the least and extremely satisfied for such a beautiful, large specimen. But knowing there are bigger ones existing is enough to seriously consider a return trip. But that taimen strike on top with a skater mouse, is something I’ll never forget! While fishing with Christir, I witnessed him catching his largest taimen as it tore up his mouse three times before he was able to set the hook on it! Phenomenal! Mongolia has thankfully adapted conservative regulations that restrict harvest of the taimen. Poaching is still an issue but they are doing their best to minimize and eliminate it. Fly fishing outfitters also help in the conservation of this mighty fish with portions of their earnings going towards conservation. The fishing license, the most expensive I have ever purchased, is a whopping $450! But it is for a great cause. The Mongolians are wonderful people and know how to survive and make the best of things and are grateful in what they have. The taimen camp has 3-4 Mongolian fly fishing guides, who speak very good English. The camp also uses American guides. It was very interesting getting to know the Mongolian guides, they all started their guiding careers going to a fly fishing guiding school in the US and learned the fly fishing trade from there. Two of them have been doing this for at least 25 years! They know the rivers and the fish extremely well and are wonderful teachers. Located on the wall of the dining hall is large poster board displaying images of taimen 50 inches and longer. It’s called, the “50 Inch” club. Though a 40 incher was fabulous, I still had that deep desire to be on that board! It’s another bucket list item for sure! Best wishes to your fly fish pursuit! Joe Travel Notes: --Traveling from Carson, WA, I flew from Portland, OR to Los Angeles, CA, then hopped on Korean Air for almost 13 hours to South Korean, Incheon Int. Airport, then to Mongolia. I highly recommend Korean Air! Plus as you travel to South Korea, you don’t have to recheck your luggage while resuming to Mongolia. BUT, always double check! --I highly recommend getting a prescription for Traveler’s Diarrhea! I have never had a problem while traveling many times internationally, but this time it happened! The prescription took care of my guts quickly and I was back in business in less than a day! --For your first trip, I would not bother bringing flies and a lighter trout rod, the guides can set you up. I packed 8, 9, 10 and 12 weight rods. I brought a 12 wt. only because I was casting an extremely large rodent fly (might mouse). Unfortunately, there were no takers. Also tried a very large musky fly resembling a lenok. If you are experienced with hooking and landing big fish, the 8 and 9 wt rods are sufficient. If you have not had a lot of experience on large salmonids, in excess of 15 lbs, take a 9 and 10 wet. The majority of the time, I fished with my 9 wt. Also, if you want to fish a two-handed rod, they have them at camp and there’s no need to bring one. You always rig 2 rods, one with the floating line and one with a fast sink line. --You can carry one your rods and reels going into Mongolia, but it’s a different story leaving the country! They will not allow fly reels or any type of fishing line on carry on. Don’t forget to pack these into your check-on luggage! Also, no lighters, AT ALL! I was able to carry one in my pocket on the way in. It’s screwy. --Jet lag was very serious when I returned home as I woke up at 2 am for three days in a row! Fortunately, I am retired so adjusting back to my normal time zone worked out. If you are on a working schedule, keep in mind this affect you will experience!
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