A Mongolia Floattrip

A Mongolia Floattrip
by Tom Gorman

Mongolia remains one of the globe's great undeveloped fishing frontiers, but a variety of factors have combined to limit the influx of international sport fishermen despite its "discovery" more than 10 years ago. Constraints to its growth and development as a fishing destination include its relative remoteness, the associated cost of getting there, the logistical challenges once you are in-country, the shortage of qualified fishing guides and outfitters and a volatile continental climate that can make fishing conditions unpredictable and highly variable, sometimes resulting in disappointing results. Add to this the fact that the taimen, Mongolia's huge land-locked salmonid, is an elusive quarry, and the result is that many would-be international fishing visitors are still debating whether to make the long trek or not.

     Between 500 and 1,000 sport fisherman (including fly and spin fishermen from Europe, North America and Asia) visit Mongolia per year, according to outfitters and suppliers I spoke with there last month. That does not equate to much fishing pressure for a country the size of Alaska with a total population of less than three million people, most of whom are nomads who traditionally do not fish or eat fish.

     With a tiny, slow growing network of asphalt roads in the existing national transport grid, versus the vast majority of unpaved dirt tracks, chances are good that Mongolia will remain an exhilaratingly beautiful and completely uncrowded destination for quite a long time to come. The good news is that, beginning with the Vermillion brothers of Sweetwater Travel (www.sweetwatertravel.com), a small but growing handful of capable fly fishing guides and outfitters are offering expert and reliable services to visiting fly fishers, with a commitment to catch-and-release fishing for taimen. Taimen conservation is a major concern, not so much due to sport fishing pressure as to local poachers with a commercial agenda, and a fragile, delicate ecosystem.

     Having just finished my second Mongolian fishing trip, I can confirm this is a must-do destination for anglers who truly love the outdoors, can swing the time and money for a trip like this and enjoy rivers and lakes loaded with fish that are virtually unfished, at least in many places. Mongolia is not a destination for those in a hurry, for those who insist on only 5-star food and accommodation or for those who demand military precision in all arrangements.

Mongolia - especially the parts most often frequented by visiting sport fisherman - has aptly been compared to Montana 100 years ago. Not only the terrain, but the flora and fauna of the two have much in common. What's missing are the fences, roads, ranches and homes, not to mention the sight of other anglers on the river.

Imagine driving cross-country through rolling, hilly grassland and semi-forested low mountain ranges on dirt tracks, hour after hour, without seeing fences, road signs, boundaries, no-trespassing signs, county lines, telephone poles or power lines. You'll see only the occasional Mongolian tent-style dwelling, or ger. A small corral is the biggest man-made enclosure, or structure, you're likely to see in the Mongolian countryside. It's not hard to see why Mongolia is often called The Land of the Blue Sky, although with average daily temperature swings of between 30 to 40 degrees Fahrenheit, it's also often described as a place where you can experience four seasons every day.

My First Visit to Mongolia

The planning process for my first visit, in 1998, was assisted by sourcing some data on Mongolian fishing, fauna, ecology and outfitters from the internet, but solid data on topics like fishing conditions and species distribution were very hard to come by and often vague or unreliable. Our outfitters, Nomads Tours of Ulan Bataar, Mongolia, are very good at adventure travel outfitting but were frank in admitting up front that they lacked in-house expertise on fishing.

     Lesson number one: If you want to visit Mongolia primarily for its outstanding fly fishing, line up a specialized fly fishing outfitter rather than an adventure travel group which does not specialize in fishing. One good resource is the Association of Mongolian Angling Guides (www.taimen.mn), which is relatively new but already has four member guides and outfitters committed to catch-and-release fishing for taimen.

     My brother, Bob, and I ended up have a great adventure and a lot of fun in 1998, but spent endless kidney-bending hours chasing the blue horizon on dusty, pot-holed tracks in old Russian jeeps, driving from one fishing spot in search of another. The fishing ranged from superb to so-so from place to place, due largely to fast-changing weather and river conditions. We spent way too much time prospecting for good fishing spots - by jeep and sometimes horseback - and not enough time fishing good areas with advance planning based on solid local knowledge.

     We caught lots of fat and feisty lenok (hopper patterns worked magic in mid-August), plenty of grayling (Mongolia has six sub-species) and a few small taimen. Because of our uncertainty about local fishing conditions, we packed and brought enough fishing gear to stock a new Bass Pro Shop outlet in Ulan Bataar.

     We were well prepared on that first trip, for every conceivable fishing contingency, which was partly overkill due to not knowing what to expect. As usual when you are that well prepared, none of the worst-case scenarios happened: no broken rods, no fly lines busted loose on monster taimen runs downriver, no gale force winds rendering fly fishing impossible, etc. The vast majority of the gear stayed in our body-bag-sized duffel bags.

     One thing I gained on that first trip was a great respect for this beautiful country and its remarkable people. I decided I'd be coming back to Mongolia before long; but I was determined to be much better informed and prepared the second time around. In the intervening years, the articles on fishing in Mongolia that I read in US and international fly fishing publications - including The Angling Report - seemed to confirm that our experience the first time was not unique in its mix of sweet and sour. So, I was intrigued a year or so ago when I learned - via the net and mutual Mongolian connections - about Andy Parkinson's Fish Mongolia operation.

Andy is a native of Lancashire in the UK and has a Masters degree in ecology, speaks Mongolian and has solid experience in organizing and guiding fly fishing trips in Mongolia, centering around but not limited to the base camps and associated fishing rights he has access to on the Delger River system in northern Mongolia. He is an active promoter of catch-and-release fishing and a founding member of the Association of Mongolian Angling Guides. He is one of a half dozen or so out of the numerous outfitters in Mongolia who actually pay proper rights fees to the Mongolian government for fishing rights to the areas he fishes.

Most of all, I like the fact that Andy lives in Mongolia, giving him local knowledge, more face-to-face time to train local staff, and to develop the relationships so key to building an effective outfitting operation in a developing country like Mongolia. Andy and I struck up an e-mail correspondence, and I found him not only knowledgeable but patient in answering my endless questions. He shared detailed information on successful fly patterns and tying methods for taimen, including one myth-shattering pattern which I will discuss more in a moment. Over time, I developed a sense of trust in him as a fly-fishing outfitter, which turned out to be well founded, as well as a sense that he'd be an easy-going but well-organized type to travel and fish with - which also proved correct.

My Floattrip With Andy Parkinson

This time my friend, Joe Vicic, and I decided to aim for early September 2005 and book Andy's inaugural fly fishing floattrip down the Delger River in northern Mongolia. We flew into Ulan Bataar from Beijing (Seoul or Moscow are also connection gateways) and connected the same evening to the town of Moron (unfortunate-looking name in English, but pronounced "Mooo-run" in Mongolian, meaning "big river"). Moron is the capital of northern Mongolia's water-rich Khovsgol Province. From there, we drove two-plus hours to Andy's lower ger base camp on the river. Andy's bright, friendly English-speaking staff met us in Ulan Bataar and took care of us from one point to the next. The camp has a shower tent with hot water, as well as toilet tents. We slept in gers that were kept toasty warm by wood stoves. Next morning we took the longest driving segment of the trip: about five hours (which seemed like the average daily driving time during my previous trip). This got us to Andy's upper ger camp, less than 50 miles from the Russian border.

     Khovsgol Province boasts Mongolia's largest and deepest lake, Lake Khovsgol. The area nestles up to the belly of Russian Siberia, and consists of 62,000 square miles of land area with about 120,000 residents. Larch, birch, cedar, pine, cottonwood and Russian olive trees dot the shores of more than 300 lakes and four large rivers (Selenge, Delger, Ider and Tes), as well as hundreds of smaller ones.

     Three cattle rustlers from the Russian side of the border were shot dead last winter by the Mongolian border patrol in the border zone. The AK-47-toting bad guys had rustled a sizeable number of Mongolian cattle and horses and were preparing to take them back across the remote border to Russia, having underestimated the reach and firepower of the border patrol.

     It occurred to me after some reflection that "cattle rustler" would probably be my last choice among possible career paths in Mongolia. Here in the land of the great Genghis Khan, who together with his offspring used bows and arrows on horseback 900 years ago to fiercely conquer a vast empire stretching from Beijing to Baghdad and beyond, I think the smart choice would be to leave these herds to their rightful owners. The cattle rustling incident notwithstanding, Mongolia is a very safe country for travelers.

     The next morning, September 2, Joe and I wadefished from shore while Andy and his crew readied the boats. We'd been joined en route by an American entrepreneur and long-time resident of Mongolia, John Karlson, a keen fly fisherman and hunter, and two handsome English setters (Hugo and TT), recently imported to Mongolia by Andy and John as bird dogs. This was their first floattrip and doubled as a training mission to some extent. Andy is considering offering bird hunting as a new option for visitors next season.

     In the following seven days we floated about 60 miles down river in two purpose-built rafts and an inflatable kayak, making camp in a different spot (all breathtakingly beautiful) each night. We slept in one-person tents, and had a fine Montana canvas tent with propane-powered stove as the cook tent. Food was good, solid, tasty fare, although Mongolian cuisine is fairly sparse on fresh vegetables (packing suggestion for the middle-aged angler: Metamucil or something similar). Fishing was a combination of casting from rafts and wading each day.

     Fishing was excellent, particularly on the inaccessible (except by raft) middle stretch of the water we fished. Three days of rain before we put in had left the river level high and a bit murky, so fishing got off to a slow start. It improved each day after that, and when the water temperature hit 50 degrees Fahrenheit, the action really opened up in the now vodka-clear Delger River.

     Contrary to popular belief, you don't need to be a tournament fly caster to catch taimen on the fly. The bigger fish generally do not seem to concentrate in groups. They tend to be scattered ambush predators, dispersed across fairly wide stretches of river, hanging in reasonably large pools, at least outside the winter months. That's where the floattrip approach excels in giving anglers access to more pools and stretches than could possibly be covered by vehicle or even horseback within a comparable time frame.

My fishing buddy, Joe Vicic, had previously been fly fishing probably six or seven times in his life (although he's an expert offshore fisherman with keen eyes and instincts) and was initially averaging casts of about 30 feet. That did not stop him from catching five big taimen on the fly. He was five for five on takes, catches and healthy releases using barbless hooks. His largest taimen was a 50-inch brute, which, perhaps weary of the catch-and-release photo session, turned and bit Joe's upper arm, leaving two neat, V-shaped tooth marks in his T-shirt sleeve and skin, before swimming off into his deep pool.

The other surprise was taking big taimen, as well as lenok and even grayling, on a topwater gurgler pattern. While this pattern has been popularized by Jack Gartside, Andy Parkinson first saw its application in taimen fishing. And, boy does it work! It seems to imitate the mice and ground squirrels that local fish like to dine on, and it has better flotation, action and castability than a large deer hair mouse or verminator. The majority of our taimen were caught on gurglers, with all others caught on a large streamer pattern which imitates a lenok. Andy's foresight in pioneering gurglers in Mongolia was first written up in the September, 2004 issue of the UK magazine Fly Fishing and Fly Tying. Hats off to Andy Parkinson for pioneering this new application for a well-established fly pattern. And hats off to him for providing us a great floattrip. - Tom Gorman.

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