Mustangs in the Russian Far East

Everybody knows that mustangs are horses which have become wild.  Big herds of those used to live in the American prairies. Horses can survive in the wild in much more severe climate, for example, in the Russian Far East. For example, I met these very handsome horses at the mouth of the Koppi River near Sovgavan. They did not let me to approach, and in general behaved watchfully. I’ve got info from local fishermen, that this pair lives here already a few years. Their owners, geologists, had gone long ago, and the horses still live at the meadow between the forest and the Sea of Japan.

Sakhalin Island looks like an enormous sturgeon: it has the nose (Shmidt Peninsula) directed north, wide opened mouth (Sakhalinskiy Bay), long and sharp dorsal fin in the east (Terpeniya Peninsula).  The tail of the fish is almost reaching Japan. The western blade of this caudal fin is named Krillion Peninsula. Here I met the Sakhalin mustangs. A few horses were living for many years near an abandoned settlement at the mouth of the Naychi River. In June, when is this picture was shot, the horses feel good, but how do they survive the long Sakhalin winter, when the island is heaped up by deep snows?

Into the tundras of north-western Kamchatka the horses got not by chance. Someone suggested to utilize them for herding the reindeer, and the idea appeared successful. The Yakutian breed of horses feel fine in a strange climate – not as harsh as in yakutia, but windy and damp. The whole year round they graze in tundra without every care or additional feeding. The Koryak reindeer herders mastered a new mean of transportation. It is much easier to work with the semi-wild herds from the horseback than on foot.  

Late autumn; the horses are crossing the freezing Utkholok River

 It is not Texas and not Mongolia. The Yakut horses graze in tundra of western Kamchatka.

Some of the native Koryak reindeer herders now ride horses as well as the Mongols.   

New "fly" - Anti-wobbler

When working with wobbler flies (see the post dated January 12, 2010), I had made several ones with a blade put “wrong way” - it was directed to the water surface.  Here you can see "normal" wobbler-fly (bottom) and Anti-wobbler (top).

 

What did I want to get?  Just a new type of a surface skater.  When I was testing them in the water,  some of the flies with an upright blade were showing much more complicated behavior than just coming to the surface and skating.  Some of the sinking varieties during retrieve had characteristic “hunting” movements – wide sweeping action.   These were the flies of completely new type. 

The base of Anti-wobbler consists  of a hook and plastic blade; attached with 0,1 mm mono line & clear glue. The best blades are concave ones; I make them out of disposable syringes.    When the glue will be dry, you could built on this hook with a blade any fly: streamer, imitation of squid, prawn, leech, or insect larva. 

 On this simple base you could tie Anti-wobblers of 3 main types: 1- with a foam back, 2 - Matukka style with a back out of a feather,  and 3 - the simplest fly  which has only hook, blade, body & tail.   All 3 flies below imitate little Cyprinid fish; I use them for catching pelagic predators in the Amur River.    

Anti-wobbler is excellent choice for catching pink salmon in the Sea of Okhotsk, far from fresh water.

This fly was most effective on that day - yellow skinny Anti-wobbler.  

Anti-wobblers were catching pink salmon in the river as well.

 Fresh silver pink salmon often jumps when feeling a hook. 

School of salmon running up Ola River near Magadan

Sunset at the Amur River.  Anti-wobbler could be presented near the bottom, in the middle layers of water, under the surface, and on the surface as a skating fly.   

On the base of Anti-Wobbler (blade & hook) you can tie any streamer, fantasy fly, leech, or nymph. The tail is usually made out of marabou or soft synthetics, sometimes with some flashy fibers.  Comparing with normal wobbler flies, anti-wobblers do not need the buoyant foam back; many of them I make with no foam at all.  

Anti-wobbler is one of the best flies for skygazer from the Amur River.

On some days this strange fly works much better than any spinning lures.   

Fine-tuning of the Wobbler flies and Anti-wobblers is done same way: by cutting the blade.  It is necessary to get flies with a stable wiggling action on retrieve.  A good fly is not falling on one of the sides, and is not rotating even on strong current. 

There is one more option – using a floating Anti-wobbler with foam back with sinking line in shallow areas.  The line goes on the bottom, and the fly is moving above it.  This is one of the best approaches to predators of big rivers.

Good size Siberian taimen with a fly, Tugur River, Russian Far East

In June 2010 I was lucky to participate in a float-trip in the Tugur River, which flows into the Sea of Okhotsk north from the Amur River.  Tugur is, I think, the best taimen river of the world.  Recently some fish over 40 kg were landed here.  The weather was rainy, and the water rather high and murky.

Regardless to non-favorable water conditions, I have landed a good size taimen: 137 cm (57") with 68 cm (27") girth.  Calculated weight - about 27 kg (60 pounds).  Tackle - 15' 10 weight rod, 15' sink tip, 0.42 mm tippet, 15 cm long "articulated" streamer.   

 

This is the fly

Sorry, no more details for now, I am going to Kamchatka!

One more trophy taimen

This trophy 40+ kg Siberian taimen was landed (gear, not fly, sorry) in October 2009 in the middle reaches of the Tugur River. The fish had probably a couple of chum salmon in its stomach. Taimen was released, so I can not tell it for sure. Chum salmon is numerous in Tugur; this is why there are so many big taimen in the stream - they have plenty of food. Some fish were observed moving behind a school of running salmon - exactly as a herder with a herd..

Manoma River, Amur River drainage. Part 1 - upper reaches of the river

Manoma River is tributary to the mighty Anyui R., which joins Amur River 200 km below Khabarovsk. Upper reaches of the Manoma are mountainous. This part of the stream is populated by selection of fish species which are typical for the "trout region" of the Far East: bluntnose lenok, sharpnose lenok, grayling, and Chekanovski's minnow.

In hot weahter of mid July it is a good idea to fish till the dark hours. In twilight you could expect bites from the most careful, older fish. Tributaries and side-channels of the Manoma River are small; here we catch mostly grayling

Creek fishing is rather hard and requires lots of hiking and climbing. The casting is difficult - in many areas there is no room for backcast. The best tackle in this situation will be 7' or 8', 3 or 4 weight rod. Here I am using only furled leaders: common tapered ones does not allow to present the fly properly. Chekanovski's minnow is biting small flies, if you present them in bays and sloughs of a creek Lower-Amur grayling is easy to distinguish from other grayling species by its rounded dorsal fin with two red strips along the upper edge. This is very bright fish, which do not grow big - unlike the Arctic grayling. Cherry salmon in the Manoma River is rare fish - Manoma and Anyui are the uppermost spawning area of this salmon in the Amur drainage. This large smolt is, probably, a dwarf male which has "decided" to go out into the salt water after one or several spawnings with anadromous females. Typical cherry salmon smolts are much smaller. Lenok is sitting mostly near the bottom; it is not possible to catch this "Siberian trout" with dry flies every day. By the subterminal mouth one can see that this is the sharpnose species of the Brachymystax genus. This fish bit a heavy nymph, imitation "something edible" - probably, scud.

This is the flybox of one of my friends. This fisherman can tie excellent superrealistic flies. Such fly models very popular in many regions of Siberia. The fish simply can not resist.

Yudoma River

Yudoma is a big river – it is 820 km long. Yudoma is the biggest tributary of the Maya River, which flows into Aldan. Aldan belongs to the Lena R. drainege. The name "Yudoma"comes from the word “edoma” which means “steep bank with deposits of ancient ice”. Exactly in the layers of this type of soils the frozen carcasses of wooly mammoth and other extinct animals were found.

Middle reaches of the yudoma River

Yudoma is very diverse: it has complicated falls (rated at least III), short canyon stretches, areas with “braids”, long deep pools with sandy bottom and slow current. The most interesting stretch of the river is 150 km from the Yudoma Gates (small spectacular canyon) to the Dikiy (Wild) Falls. The only way to get to the river is helicopter charter from Okhotsk. The upper part of the drainage is not populated. Here there are only some native Even reindeer herders. The river valley has about 5000 lakes.

Unloaded helicopter comes up, and the group is left on the gravel bar on small pile of gear

"The Gates" - the most spectacular part of the river "Braided" area with numerous channels "Wild Falls"

Fishermen go through the "Wild Falls"

The river has typical fish fauna of mountainous Siberian streams: taimen, sharp-nose lenok, Arctic grayling, whitefish, and burbot. Numerous lakes of the wide valley of the Yudoma host Northern pike, yellow perch, and roach. The fish density in the main river channel in summer is rather low - most of Salmonids spend warm part of the year in tributaries.

This little taimen was landed with "Articulated Streamer" Sharp-nose lenok from the Telgi River, tributary to Yudoma

Northern pike is numerous in slow backwaters, and can be caught in the main stream as well

Trophy yellow perch was found only on some lakes

Tugur River - home of Siberian taimen

Siberian taimen in the Tugur River can be rather big. This healthy-looking fish was landed in September 2008.

The Tugur River basin is practically unpopulated (there is one small village near the river mouth), there are no roads (except winter roads). There is no mining and tree-cutting here too. There are 23 species of freshwater fishes in the river, including such numerous populations like chum, pink salmon, lenok and Siberian taimen.

Tugur River is flowing into the western part of the Sea of Okhotsk; its mouth is situated near the Shantar archipelago. The main source of the river is called Konin; it is rather slow forest-type stream with colored water & only few side-channels. Its main tributary, Munikan, is swift and has many log-jams. Below the confluence with the Assyni River the Konin River turns almost 180°. It’s direction is sharply changing from the southern to the north-eastern. Slow-flowing Konin becomes swift stream with numerous channels & log-jams. Only from this point the river has the "official" name Tugur.

Tugur below the confluence of the Konin R. with the Assyni R.

Upstream view to the confluence of the Konin R. (middle) & the Assyni R. (on the left).

The same confluence in big flood. Assyni R. is murky, and the dark water of the Konin R. is almost clear.

Huge unpassable log-jam at the Konin R. requires long portage through the dense forest...

129 cm taimen landed with a streamer in the evening (Konin R.)

My longest fish landed in the Tugur River (133 cm)

Oleg Abramov (oufitting firm "Krechet" from Khabarovsk) is happy - it was hard to land this 135 cm fish!

Diversity of Charrs in the Russian Far East

Charrs (genus Salvelinus) are salmonid fishes with very small scales. To the touch all charrs bear no scales; Russian name of this group "golets" means "naked". On the territory of the Russian Far East there are about ten different charr species. On the contrary to Pacific salmon charr can spawn several times during the life span, although some fish die after spawning. Anadromous charrs spawn and spend winter in fresh water, for 2-3 summer months they feed in salt water, not far from the sea shores. Fish from landlocked populations spend the whole life in lakes or rivers.

Arctic charr from the Mainopilgino Lake (south-eastern Chukotka)

Arctic charr (Salvelinus alpinus) has huge range, including the whole Arctic Ocean Sea coast of Europe, Asia and North America. There are anadromous and also landlocked (lake-resident) forms of this species. Some fish biologists consider Arctic charr of the northeast Asia (Chukotka) to be a separate species - Salvelinus taranetzi.

Arctic charr from the Amguema River drainage (Chukotka). Two fish are lake-resident and one - sea-run.

Two forms of charr from the Ekityki Lake (Chukotka). Above - 2 predatory charr, below - 2 benthos-feeding charr.

Dolly Varden charr (ripe male & female) from the Inya R., Sea of Okhotsk

Dolly Varden charr (S. malma) is the most widespread and numerous charr in the world. Natural range of Dolly Varden is huge; it covers both Asian and American coast of the Pacific from about 45°N to the Bering Strait, and also the coast of the Arctic Ocean from Kolyma River in Asia to Mackenzie River in America.

3 species of anadromous charrs from the Yama River (Sea of Okhotsk): Dolly Varden (above), yellow-mouth charr (middle), and white-spotted charr (below).

Comparing with Dolly Varden, white-spotted charr (S. leucomaenis) is “warmth liking” species. This charr live only in Asia, from Kamchatka and Sea of Okhotsk to Japan. The northernmost population of the species was found in the upper part of the Penzhina River (63°N).

Yellow-mouth charr (S. Levanidovi) is anadromous fish;`it has small range and was found only in three river drainages of the northern part of the Sea of Okhotsk. Yellow-mouth charr was not known the scientists until 1984.

Neiva or red charr (S. neiva) from the Korral lake.

Neiva is not big, brightly colored lake-resident fish; there are no anadromous or river-resident stocks of red charr. Neiva was discovered in the lakes of the Okhota River drainage. Similar charr forms were found in different clear lakes situated on the mainland coast of the Sea of Okhotsk.

"Big" deepwater form of charr from the Hel-Degi Lake (Inya River drainage)

"Small" charr from the Hel-Degi Lake.