On Topic: Flyfishing for Taimen in Mongolia

Thought I'd give this a new thread, as a discussion is starting to
begin elsewhere.

You may remember that two summers ago, I worked with an outfitter in
Ulaanbaatar, Andy Parkinson of Fish Mongolia, to help start to develop
a remote stretch of water on the Delger Muron in NW Mongolia for
sustainable tourism. He already runs small rafts down much of this
stretch for guided taimen fishing, and we were working to develop
canoe trips on that same stretch. We imported a fleet of top-quality
tripping canoes, pfds, canoe gear and paddles, and ran the first
descent of the river in canoes in mid June.

Turns out that its *wonderful* canoeing water, and even more wonderful
taimen and lennok fishing, so this year we hope to run the same
stretch again, but with more of a focus on the fishing than before.
Probably do a few shorter days, with more stops at the best fishing
holes, etc.

The advantage of doing the trip in canoes instead of rafts is
primarily financial; each raft carries one or two fishermen and a
guide, so the high number of guides means the trips are fairly
expensive. But the canoe trips tend to have only 1 guide and an
assistant for 5-8 people, and the costs come down considerably. The
guides still do all the 'camp work'...choosing sites, cooking meals,
setting up the tents, etc. And they carry all the duffel on the guide
raft, so the canoes run almost empty, which is extemely nice. The
fishing success of such a trip will rely on the fishermen not needing
to be individually guided all day, but more interested in striking out
on their own and exploring holes, tributaries, etc.

The fishing is world-class. Taimen are a type of gargantuan trout
(average ones are in tne 40-50 inch range and weigh 20-40 pounds. The
largest ones get over 7 feet in length, and weigh upwards of 200
pounds!) The river also holds lennok (a type of trout) and greyling in
abundance; in fact, you often will catch 5 pound lennok while you are
casting for taimen, as they are so abundant. Sometimes a monster
taimen will take a lennok that is strugging at the end of your line.

If anyone is interested in going canoeing and fishing in Outer
Mongolia this year, let's start talking. We have a lot of freedom to
adjust dates and to fine tune the trip, but the conversation needs to
begin before christmas. I'm thinking of an 8-10 day trip in early
July. Costs will depend on the number of participants, but two summers
ago the trip was $1750 per person, all inclusive from Ulaanbaatar.

Check out Andy's website www.fishmongilia.com (especially the pictures
of the taimen), and you can see pics from our first trip he
http://tinyurl.com/32gps9

--riverman