Fishing Story in Mongolia

The first fishing trip was in the last week of May 1992 to the Orkhon river, close to the Orkhon waterfall, 80 km SE of Kharkhorin, the ancient capital of the Mongol Empire dating from 1220. The second trip was in the third week of June, some 200 km driving NNE from UB where we fished the Iro-, Hongiin-, and the Sharlan river.

 My interest was to fish these rivers with the flies, -the Klinkhamer and the Leadhead. An article of Nail Jones in the Grayling Society Journal stimulated me to try this out as Jones reported good results with grayling on a small Gold-ribbed Hare’s Ear and any classical dry-fly patterns in the river Tuul. Ade Bristow furthermore wrote in an article on Mongolian grayling of parachute flies tied on size 10-12’s and about the rule: ‘the bigger the better’.

The only slight worry I had was how to fish the Taimen. Klinkhamers and Leadheads are for trout and grayling but what fly to use for this bigger member of the Salmonidae family? A friendly tackle shop in USA, Traditional, advised me to tie an imitation of a small mouse. Hence, I bought zonkerstrips Mouse Grey and salt water hooks of size 3/0. I also invested in a Multi-Tip Orvis wonderline #8 to be able to fish deeper pools.

The first trip to the Orkhon river was unsuccessful. It was still too cold in May. There was no insect life, probably also because the landscape was rather bare. During two fishing days, only a handful of lenoks were caught on spinning rods by my two Mongolian fishing mates. Whatever I tried with the Leadheads it was in vain. It seemed that only with making sturdy spinning movements under the surface one could attract some fish.

 My Mongolian fishing mates fished for Taimen during the nights using a bloc of wood of about 15 cm in length around which they had wrapped a black hairy skin. This bait had two eyes at the front -that could glow by shining a flashlight on them- and two trebles at the end. Unfortunately, they did not catch any Taimen. My own imitation mouse did not work either.

The second trip to the three rivers in the Selenge Basin was much more successful. The South Siberian landscape showed birches and rare plants; it was a totally different environment from the Orkhon riverbanks. Since we were later in the season it was also warmer and there were insects between 5 and 8 PM.

The second trip was also more adventurous. We were with one Russian car and had only food for the first day, with the exception of rice, carrots and onions, and of course Mongolian vodka. In other words we had to fish for the pot as well. We slept in small tents.

My first Lenoks I caught on the Leadhead casting across and letting the cased caddis imitation flow down the river while slowly retrieving the floating line. The rhythm of retrieval was stopped at a bite and no further effort was required to hook the Lenok trout. The Lenoks are rather awkward fighters, they stay under the surface, but they fight long. The drill of my largest Lenok of 54 cm took me ten minutes to complete. Just before netting this Lenok both fish and angler had to pause for a while, fish staying motionless at the bottom and angler keeping the line tight and holding his breath. After the surrender and taking the measure of this Lenok, I calculated that I had a fish in my hands of about 18 years of age; Lenok has an end length of 60 cm and can become 20 years old. A nymph that also worked well with Lenok was a gold bead-headed copper ribbed rabbit fur pattern.

The nicest experience was to fish with the floating Klinkhamer on the Arctic grayling in the smaller stretches of the rivers. Enthusiastic and fast takes. In addition, the Arctic grayling was very elegant in the drill making numerous graceful leaps. Although the Artic graylings were not large, between 30-35 cm, I had never seen grayling with such bright yellow coloured stripes at their belly. Graylings also were caught on the Leadhead. An alternative for the Klinkhamer that I tried also successfully was the yellow balloon caddis fly of Roman Moser with black dyed deer hair as wing. Especially in fast water I like this fly because of its good visibility. The Arctic grayling liked this Roman Moser dry fly fished dead-drift equally well as the Klinkhamer of Hans van Klinken.

In total during the second trip (of four fishing days) I caught fifteen Lenoks, seven Arctic Graylings and two Daces. Still a meagre result when compared with the catch of my Mongolian fishing guide, Amaara, who on his self made spinning rod caught four Taimens on average about 75 cm, one beautifully coloured pike of 85 cm, and countless Lenoks and Graylings. He used a self-made spinning rod, a simple small spinner blade nr. 3 attached to a monofilament fishing line of 40/00. I had two Hardy travel rods with me, a Gem Smuggler fly rod #5 and an Ultralite fly rod #7.

In conclusion, the Klinkhamer proved to be successful for Grayling and the Leadhead for both Lenok and Grayling. On the other hand, there appears to be a paucity of –Dutch- flies for catching Taimen. Perhaps, I can invite Hans van Klinken to also create a fly for this specimen just like he did for the ‘Thymallus Aggressivus’ of the Yukon Rivers.