I have been a keen fly fisherman since I was first introduced to it while camping at Tom Groggin Station back in the early 1980s. During the 8 years I was in and out of Mongolia working, all I had seen was Ulan Bataar on the bus ride to and from the mine. In 2010, through a local travel agent I got a fishing guide for 4 days. The guide had come over from one of the international fishing camps where the anglers helicopter in and pay USD$10,000 a week and picked me up from the camp I’d been staying in at Lake Hovsgol. I wasn’t in that league and much preferred an adventure where we stayed in a ger or camped in tents.
We headed down towards the River Eg and some of the rivers feeding into it, that was after stopping at an outpost to get some provisions (4 cans of beer and some chocolate). The first day was bitterly cold with snow dusting all the peaks around us. From guys I had met in Mongolia, I had heard so much about the famous Taimen that was to be found in these rivers. The taimen along with the marble trout in Slovenia are 2 of the most sought after by keen fly fishers. I am fortunate to have caught both.
Friends in Ulan Bataar who had fished for them often said that if the river was up sit in the ger (yurt) and drink vodka and not waste my time. The rivers were up but I had no vodka. So I soldiered on knowing it was going to be difficult but having come this far I had to try.
The meat for our meals was a leg of mutton that the guide kept in an esky with no ice strapped to the roof rack. That got hung under a tree each night and the required meat for dinner hacked off and chopped up.
I had bought 2 rods with me. A 9 weight and a 6 weight, plus a few trout flies. I’d assumed wrongly that the guide would be stocked up with flies but all he had was a small bag with half a dozen fies for Taimen. He commented that my flies were on the small side. That didn’t stop me catching dozens of fish, greyling and lennock. I guess had I have had bigger flies I may have caught bigger fish. The greying were similar to the European ones and the lennock a bit more like a trout.
With the rivers up the current was fast and casting streamers and popper flies for taimen was tiring. I would switch every couple of hours and go back to a lighter rod to chase graying and lennock. After 3 full days I had only one strike and a miss on a taimen on what must have been 1,000 casts. The last evening when I’d all but given up, on my last cast I hooked a taimen on a frog pattern. Literally at my feet. The feeling was just incredible. Even though it was small by taimen standards it was a big fish.
Driving between locations was basically by the most direct route you could find. Often tracks are formed over the summer as there are camps scattered everywhere with small holdings of cattle, yaks, goats and camels. The animals are milked every day and the milk made into several products. We came across a woman milking one of her cows. She seemed alone but the men were probably out shepherding their other animals. Milk is sacred in Mongolia and much is processed for the winter months. Aaruul or dried curd is often seen drying out in the sun on the tops of gers.
We had to backtrack and find another route at one stage as a truck had broken through the timber planks of a bridge.
Another time we came across a group of men on horseback. It was a Sunday and they were heading off to visit friends camped further down the valley.
At the top of a pass we came across an Ovoo which is cairn used as border marker or shrine in mongolian folk religious practice. This ovoo consisted of a mound of stones and a mound of sticks. When travelling, it is the custom to stop and circle an ovoo three times, moving clockwise, in order to have a safer journey. Usually, rocks are picked up from the ground and added to the pile. Also, one may leave offerings in the form of sweets, money, milk, or vodka. This one had money wedged under rocks along with sweets and blue kahdag, a ceremonial silk scarf symbolic of the open sky and the sky spirit Tengri.