Situated in the country’s far north and rimmed by craggy mountains, rocky shoreline, and thick pine forests, Lake Khovsgol is Mongolia’s largest body of water, so mammoth that it accounts for 20% of the country’s freshwater and .04% of all on earth. Sometimes referred to as “Lake Baikal’s younger sister” because of its similarity and proximity to Russia’s famous big lake, Khovsgol is where Mongolians go to escape from it all, though it’s increasingly drawing international visitors such as our ragged crew.
Most of the ger camps are situated on the lake’s western shore; ours sat on a rise overlooking the icy, clear waters, and while accommodations were basically the same as everywhere else we stayed (white yurt with wooden table and chairs; very basic beds tucked along the edges; cast iron stove in the middle; single electrical outlet for charging devices), the camp’s restaurant was head-and-shoulders above anything else we’d had. Not only was the food good (with vegetarian options for Scraggs and Will, whose digestive tract had been ravaged by the non-stop meat feed—which meant mustard gas farts at night), but the vistas were outstanding. The building was designed like an old-school North American lake lodge, with walls of windows on three sides.
Khovsgol felt up there because it was. If you follow the lakeshore to the northern tip, you’re at the Russian border. The semi-arid landscape that had dominated so much of central Mongolia now gave way to great stands of pines and other conifers. It was an area that clearly saw more rain, and after sunset (which were always spectacular) the temperature would quickly plummet, making a wood fire in the stove a welcome addition to the inherent hominess of the ger.
We spent our first full day at Khovsgol fishing from the shore. The camp’s owner volunteered to guide us, so we set out with Hishgay and him in pursuit of any fish the lake could offer. With the exception of a couple of very small perch, we got skunked, but the day was a stunner. The crystalline waters took on turquoise and deep blue hues as the bottom dropped off from shallow to deep (267 meters [876 ft] in spots), and a chilly Russian wind sliced in from the north and chopped up the lake’s surface.
Khovsgol was a place where the weather could shift in a snap of the fingers, and the sky went from brilliantly bright to ominous gray and back again as clusters of clouds did their best to unleash a bit of rain. But other than the odd sprinkle or two, we remained unsoaked, and retired to camp with the hearty, satisfied weariness of anyone who spends a quality day outdoors breathing in fresh air, soaking up sunlight, and engaging hard with their natural surroundings.
We decided that casting from shore in a lake as immense as Khovsgol was an exercise in futility, so the next day saw us heading south to the Egiin River, which flows out of the great lake. Hishgay encouraged this course of action and we readily agreed, knowing that stalking trout in smaller water would likely produce greater results. Also, because it comes straight out of the lake, the Egiin wouldn’t be blown out from all of the early July rains. We had seen it driving in and it looked to be in excellent shape, so Scott and I were particularly stoked to get onto it. The area would also surely offer some great opportunities to glass birds, but that was a given almost anywhere in Mongolia.
After another long drive down another rough, chewed-up road, we arrived at a beautiful bend in the Egiin where a family had set up camp. The father and son had lines cast into the deep pool formed by the bend, and Hishgay walked over to talk with them and get their permission for us to fish the spot.
Permission to fish is a very important thing in Mongolia. Before departing, Scott and I spent hours online researching just how to secure local fishing permits, but never seemed to be able to get a straight answer. If you hire a big outfitter in order to catch taimen—the gargantuan salmonid that many Westerner anglers come to Mongolia in search of—you’re required to pay hundreds of dollars from your license. The rules for chasing smaller fish are unclear, though—through Murray’s contacts—we did manage to procure permits for White Lake, though the actual documents were handed off in a meet-up in a gravel parking lot like some kind of drug deal. This seemed appropriate, given the Byzantine, and legally-murky nature of it all.
Our permits to fish in and around Khovsgol were an open question; Murray assured us that the ger camp owner would organize them once we arrived, and even though at one point he collected our passports and made some phone calls to the local office in charge of such affairs, the permits never materialized. While at first this made us uneasy, the fact that Hishgay was a former cop instilled a bit more trust in the situation. After repeatedly asking him about the permits, he just looked us in the eyes, pointed to himself, and said, in his best English: “I am your fishing license.”
The family granted us permission to join them in what appeared to be a primo spot, with Hishgay excitedly pointing toward the big channel and then extending his hands nearly three feet, the universal gesture for “There’s a massive fucking fish in there.” As if on cue, I heard a heavy splash, followed by the telltale ripples of a lunker that had just taken to the air. All our eyes shot to the river, and I understood at once that there is only once fish in Mongolia that could achieve such a spectacle: the mighty taimen.
While I love fly fishing perhaps more than any other outdoor pursuit, it’s also incredibly frustrating. It requires a light touch and finesse that I entirely lack as a matter of talent. I tend to be big and obvious and overdo things, so the gentleness that fly fishing calls for is a challenge; perhaps that is one of things that attracts me to the sport. It’s a wonder I’ve had any success at all casting a fly, but I suppose the fact that I grew up catching trout on rivers with spinning rods gives me a leg up. Even if my approach is clumsy and inelegant, I know how to read a stream. I can almost always sniff out where the fish are holding. Whether I can trick them into biting what I’m putting out there is another question.
By far the most difficult aspect of fly fishing for me are the myriad knots required. I’ve always been useless at any kind of spatial mechanics and reading the directions for tying a specific knot and then applying that to real life in 3D is often beyond my abilities. That said, I have the basic knots down, but then there’s the problem of actually being able to see the line. In fact, it was fly fishing that showed me I needed reading glasses in the first place. A few years ago I was back in the States hiking with a buddy and decided to cast a line. I was horrified to discover that I was unable to get the ultra-light three pound test leader through the eyelet of the hook. I couldn’t see shit and had to admit for the first time that my facilities were fading.
I’ve carried readers ever since then, but in Mongolia, I accidentally stepped on my pair of prescription readers when they fell out of my pocket onto the floor of the van during my first day in Khovsgol. They were fucked, which meant I’d have to resort to my backups (I had anticipated the problem), just a crappy pair of magnifiers I had bought for two dollars at a street market in Korea. While they allowed me to see text and other close up stuff a bit more clearly, they weren’t proper glasses and everything was still kind of blurry. This was triply true for the super-thin fishing line and the tiny flies I was trying to attach to it.
This meant that, on this breezy morning, I was having a hell of time getting rigged up, as I kept messing up my fisherman’s knot. The wind also whipped the line around, and since I lacked my proper glasses, I just couldn’t see any of it clearly, resulting in me eventually bellowing a cascade of profanities, cursing my inherent clumsiness that worked so hard against me in a hobby designed for very detail-oriented, delicate people: the exact opposite of me.
I was also bursting with adrenaline, excited to get on what was clearly the fishiest water of the trip so far. We had finally arrived at what appeared to be a perfect trout stream with a mammoth fish leaping out of the water, and I couldn’t tie on my damned fly.
“Hey guys,” shouted Will. “I think I got something.”
I glanced over and saw his rod bent, but figured he was just snagged, as he’d been many times before.
“It feels pretty heavy.”
We all ignored him, accustomed to his dry sense of humor, where surely a big stick or pile of weeds would end up being his catch of the day.
“No, really guys... I got a big fucker on!”
The crack in his voice told me that this was no cheeky prank. I threw down my gear and jogged over to Wil, whose rod tip was now poking under the surface of the water.
“Keep it up! Keep it up!” I yelled.
He pulled up the rod and from the arc it made, it was clear that he indeed had something sizable at the end of the line.
“Reel in!” I said, my heart now pounding.
Will cranked the reel. The fish responded by running downstream.
“Follow it! Go go go!”
Will took a few steps downstream and began to reel in vigorously. The fish suddenly changed directions and shot upstream, causing the line to slacken.
“Reel! Reel!” I commanded. “Hey Scott! Bring the net!”
Will followed my coaching and brought in all of the loose line. He pulled up on the rod, and for the first time I could see the form of the fish. It was reddish brown, and, like Hishgay indicated, about three feet long.
A river wolf.
Will—the least experienced angler in the Fellowship of the Ger—had hooked what some people pay tens of thousands of dollars for just the chance to go after. He’d never caught anything in his life, and now, for his very first fish, he gotten into a taimen.
And then just like that, it was off.
Things cooled off at the big hole after Will’s taimen episode. Despite the fact that the waters looked like they should be holding loads of fish, no one got so much as a nibble after the monster predator snapped off Will’s lure. One thing I’ve learned about river fishing is that if you pull out a fish, it often spooks the hole. Any others hanging out in the same stretch of water quickly clue in to the fact that something unnatural is going on and either flee or hide out.
In this case, your best bet is to move on. This constant movement is one of the things I love about fly fishing. Make a few casts, then take a few steps. Hike down to the next fishable water (holes, seams, ripples, shelves) and do it all over again. You really have to work the river to have any success, and I find this process immensely gratifying.
The Egiin meanders through a wide valley after leaving Lake Khovsgol, with only the odd tree and herds of cattle to get in your way. While over-your-head deep in parts, most of the time I could just wade across, so that afternoon I made my way upstream looking for spots that might hold fish.
While not blown out, the river was running pretty fast—shallow channels of rapidly moving water—exactly the kind of places where fish don’t hang out. So it became my mission to walk and eyeball the water for little channels and pools where some fatties may be laying.
Just about a kilometer up I came upon a nice pool where the things got deep and relatively slow. A few clouds had also moved in, obscuring the sun that had mercilessly beat down. The sun is not the fisherman’s friend, as it increases outside visibility into the water and makes the easy-to-see fish vulnerable to predators—which includes anglers. The fish know this and hide out accordingly. Overcast days are really what you’re looking for, and the bank of clouds that slipped in provided me with the cover I needed to get into it.
You’ll usually get any action on your first couple casts, and it was on lucky number three that I felt the line suddenly go taught. For a moment I thought it was a snag, and then I felt it moving. I’d hooked something sizeable, and my heart began to race in that way that only happens when you got a nice one on.
While I was adequately geared up, I lacked waders (it was a warm day so they weren’t needed) and more importantly, a net. Scott had bought one for himself back in UB, but looking to keep costs down, I opted to go without. I knew that landing a fish without a net can be tricky—or even impossible—depending on its size.
Lucky for me there was a sand bar nearby, so after a brief fight, I reeled in the fish and pulled it up onto the sand, where it flopped and gasped. As I expected, it was a lenok, the species of trout native to Mongolia that was my target species on this trip. Despite the fact that I enjoy catching most any kind of fish, trout are what really get my blood pumping, and this one was a healthy, thick specimen, probably measuring in at a good eighteen inches. I quickly unhooked the fly from the fish’s front lip and released it back into the stream.
Modern fly fishing is built around the ethos of catch-and-release, though I don’t always stick to the guidelines here. Unlike, say, pike or bass, trout are easily stressed, and a lot of them will die after release anyway, especially if indelicately handled: this is one reason why you should usually carry a net (mea culpa).
Trout also happen to be delicious, so I am very willing to harvest a nice fish or two if it means a nice dinner. I intended to bring some back to the ger camp if possible, but I also follow a strict tradition where I always let my first fish go. I consider it a sign of gratitude, and feel free to call me a hippy, but these small gestures just make sense to me.
On my next cast I felt the same thump and pull as before, and found myself fighting another lenok. I whooped and cheered in order to get the attention of my compatriots who were still working the taimen hole in the vain hope of pulling out another, and after pulling this fish onto the sandbar, I released it like the first one.
While I wanted to bring back a fish that day, sometimes the decision to harvest (a nice euphemism for “kill”) comes down to an impulse. There it was, a gorgeous, chromed creature that I consider one of the most beautiful life forms on the planet, at my mercy, in my hands. In the moment I decided to let it go, confident that there would be many more that afternoon, since the first pool I’d moved to had been so immediately productive.
My confidence that this river would easily give up more fish was the kind of hubris that is the angler’s curse. I spent the next several hours hiking up and down the banks, wading, casting, and working the hell out of that stream, only to get no love. I blame part of this on the conditions. After landing my second fish the clouds burned away, and the Elgiin was subjected to a relentless blast of sun that surely had the rest of the lenok hunkering down until the evening. I figured my chances would be best once the sun began to sink in the sky, and I was right.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s not as if the river suddenly came to life and I was pulling fish out left and right. But I did hook into the kind of trout that keeps you in this game, a girthy, spirited specimen that slammed my bugger as it swung underneath an overhang on the embankment. It hit like an electric jolt and ran straight downstream. I was wading the middle of the river and followed it in pursuit, but—like the pike at White Lake—this one was determined to take out more line than I could reel in. Feeling its size, I just let it wear itself out, secure in the knowledge that I’d hooked it as well as you can with a little barbless fly.
The fish began to slow down and yield, and I knew it was mine. There was only one catch: I didn’t have a net. I was standing in the middle of a rushing river with a huge trout on my line, and both sides of the stream were hedged in by four foot embankments. I’d have to trudge through the water to a spot where it was possible to land this fish.
Patience is often described as the most important quality of a fisherman, and it’s an attribute I totally lack. And not only is patience required to catch fish, it’s also totally necessary to land them, especially when you’ve got a big one on. So as I moved this fish downstream looking for a place to haul it in, I wasn’t seeing a lot of options. I was also afraid of it breaking free in the river, so I was keen to get it out of the water as soon as possible. Fuck it, I thought, and made my way the bank, where, bowing rod in hand, I scurried up the side, and proceeded to yank the fish up.
It was beautiful: fat and shimmering, a monster trout that would surely rank among the biggest and best I’d ever landed. It was big enough to feed all of us, and I knew in an instant that I wanted to harvest it.
I also knew that the 3.5 test leader I had tied on was far too thin for such a behemoth, and despite the fact that I managed to lift it up out of the water, as soon as the fish hit the crest of the grassy bank, the line snapped.
I dove with both hands in a desperate attempt to snatch the impossibly slippery lenok, but it easily wriggled out of my grasp and then dropped back into the surging waters.
Another one got away.
I returned to van invigorated, yet exhausted, recounting my stories of success to the other members of the fellowship, who took it all in the the jaundiced eyes of people used to hearing exaggeration.
“He was THIS big!” I gasped, desperate to get them to believe me. “I almost had it, I swear…”
As I slid out of my river shoes and wet socks, I took a few steps to the van’s open side door to retrieve my regular shoes and dry clothes. Just then I felt a sharp pain in the bottom of my foot and let out a yelp. I had stepped on the top of a broken beer bottle. This spot was popular with campers and fishermen and was no place to walk barefoot, but abuzz in my post-fishing glow, I didn’t think about it and now was gushing blood from a nasty cut in my foot caused by a chunk of old, filthy glass.
Fortunately, we weren’t short on first-aid supplies. We had a whole host of creams and antiseptics which we were forced to rub all over Scraggs’ scabbed-up, oozing torso (the result of his horseback riding mishap) each day, and Will had come prepared as well. He carried a big bottle of iodine which he used to douse the cut before wrapping it all up with tape and gauze. We’d have to do another dressing back in camp but would do for the time being, and I just silently prayed that I could avoid infection, as the last thing I needed—in the throes of blood poisoning—was to hunt down a hospital in remote Mongolia.
Despite my wound, we returned to the lake just in time for the sunset to work its magic, that time of day in Mongolia that never ceased to drop our jaws. A pack of clouds had moved in, blanketing the sky like pillows. The slipping sun bled into their forms in brilliant blasts of fuschia and salmon that set the firmament afire. This was then perfectly reflected on the glassy surface of the lake in a mirror image that only served to amplify the photogenic wonder.
The tranquility of the sunset was soon shattered by an electrical storm that rolled in over the hills on the eastern shore. As the day’s light seeped away, huge thunderheads rumbled forth and throttled the lake and far ridge with jagged fingers of lightning, flashing the horizon every few seconds with dazzling effect. It was a natural light show that put any fireworks display to shame, and a fitting final moment to a day that—despite my throbbing, bloody foot—had come about as close to my idea of perfection as possible.
did you eat taimen while you were there? is it easily found in restaurants?
Great post Chris! I can’t wait to travel to Mongolia one day!