Salmon Fishing in Mongolia

The Best Fishing Article

"This article will appear in the June/July 2001 issue of Salmon, Trout, and Steelheader magazine."
Salmon Fishing in Mongolia

My home town of Juneau, Alaska has some of the best salmon fishing in the world: We may not get kings as large as those on the Kenai, but the Spring run is predictable and there is considerably less pressure than on the Kenai. But it’s the coho run that Juneau is really known for. The cohos begin to arrive in numbers around the middle of July and by September are beginning to clog the many streams around town. With salmon fishing like this, it might seem crazy to travel half way around the world to catch another salmon, but I did just that. And I’m glad I did: Salmon fishing in Mongolia is an experience not to be missed.

The fish I was looking for was the landlocked taimen (hucho taimen), the largest salmon in the world. Taimen are found only a few rivers in Russia, China, and Mongolia. Taimen look much like a salmon, but they differ from the Pacific salmon I am used to catching in a couple significant ways. First, they do not die when they spawn. This is one reason why they can grow to monstrous proportions. The world’s record, caught in a net, weighed over 200 pounds. Second, mice, lemmings and other small rodents make a significant portion of their diet. This, coupled with their size, may explain why they are called "river wolf" by Mongolians.

There are a few U.S.-based outfitters that offer taimen fishing trips in Mongolia but the price of those trips was way beyond what I could afford. This meant that if I was to fish for taimen that I would have to go with a Mongolian outfitter. Fortunately, finding a Mongolian outfitter was an easy Internet search. After asking several questions and checking with references, I chose Samar Magic Eco Tours and a 12 day trip which included 6 days of fishing for taimen, lenok
(a trout like fish) and grayling.

In late August my girlfriend Joan and I flew from Juneau to Seattle to Tokyo to Seoul where we spent two nights eating sushi and trying to adjust to jet lag. We then had a 3 hour flight to Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia. The next day we met the third member of our party, a Polish engineer named Grezegorz, then climbed aboard a Russian-made 4 wheel drive van and headed west. It would take us two days to reach the confluence of the Chuulut and Suman rivers where we planned to fish. The Chuulut drains into Lake Baikal, the huge lake in Siberia. Baikal is not only the one place in the world with fresh water seals; it is also thought to have the largest taimen in the world.

In the morning, Joan and I woke up before anybody else, grabbed our rods, and made the steep 15 minute hike down to the river. When we got to the water’s edge, I realized one thing immediately: The river was too fast and deep for me to fish with a fly rod. Fortunately, I had a heavy bait casting outfit and Joan was using spinning gear. It didn’t take long for action: I made my ninth cast across a deep pool, reeled fast to get my lure down, and got a strike. The taimen jumped as soon as it felt the hooks. And what a jump – it was tail walking like a marlin. Then it went deep and made several runs around the pool. Fortunately, it stayed away from the rapids and I was able to land it in 10 minutes. I took a photo before releasing it. That first fish wasn’t big for a taimen –perhaps 45 inches long and 35 pounds – but it gave me more enjoyment than any fish I have ever caught. About an hour later, Joan caught a fish. It was, as she still reminds me, considerably larger than mine.

We stayed at the confluence for three days and four nights. We had luck fishing two ways. Most of our fish were caught on large wobbling minnows – Magnum Rapalas and Bomber Long A’s. The key was to run them deep in the seams between white and dark water at the edges of deep

Salmon Fishing in Mongolia

Salmon Fishing in Mongolia!

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