Letter from John - Angling Travel expeditions 2001

Dear Angling Traveller,

Just a few words from me in retrospect on the Mongolia trip and in anticipation of India coming up…oh, and a word or two about Spain as well.

Mongolia was absolutely as splendid as ever. Previous travellers will be pleased to know that we had Jan with us again and the Bear is even more adorable than ever, if that's possible. He really was on top form and, when I collapsed from some mystery bug in Ulan Bataar, managed to get us all on the plane with a minimum of fuss.

The flight arrangements this year were absolutely first rate without a single hitch. The weather, too, was stunning. A couple of cold days but a lot of sunshine, snow on the mountain tops and a river falling and clearing day by day. The camp food was unbelievably good this year. I think most of us went back with an inch added rather than subtracted from our waistband!

The fishing. That's the important thing! Well, there was a lot of fly fishing going on this year and that inevitably cut back a little bit on numbers and sizes but not much. Leo, bless him, recorded a fish of 1.26 metres on the nymph. Blast, how does he do it?! Reuben (a really tremendous addition to the team this year) managed one or two crackers on the streamer. One of not much less than a metre really sticks in my mind. How much he deserved that one. Joe from Ireland had never caught or even seen a grayling before. You can guess he remedied that fairly quickly. Was it first cast Joe? Mick Roberts looks pretty youthful anyway but somehow managed to look younger each and every succeeding day. We felt it was a good job there was no snow to delay our return or he'd have gone home wearing shorts and sucking a lollipop. He also managed a tremendous fish of 1.20 metres or thereabouts. Christopher (my dear fish smoker friend from North Uist) insisted on wearing his wolf-skin cap and prowling round the forest like a man possessed. We couldn't nail him down to do much fishing but he spent two minutes attached to one of the biggest taimen I think I've ever seen hooked. Bless him, when the hooks finally fell out, Christopher merely looked round and said that was the most exciting couple of minutes of his life! He wasn't even fazed when all his rods were broken in transit. That's the type of angler I like to see! Now we come onto the absolute slayer of monster fish - John Chester. We began to believe that John could have cast his bait into the forest and it would have been picked up by something big. Here was a man who could do absolutely no wrong. Despite all his points of personal distinction, John, it has to be said, was a bit of a dead bait mugger. And, also, one has to ask whether a scruffier fisherman has ever fished the Shiskid! The rest of the group looked and fished like gods…but it was the arch drifter that caught all the fish! Ah well.

It's something of a surprise to me that each and every year we keep finding more and more water. Of course, our forays downstream to the bottom cabin have certainly helped and I think it would be distinctly possible to spend two or three nights down there so that we can move even further. Apparently, way below one kilometre pool there is some stupendous water where a series of small rivers runs in. We didn't make it this year but we definitely will next. Also, upstream on the far bank is beginning to produce more and more fish. Our best fish this year was inevitably one of John's - 1.35 metres - but I'm quite sure we're going to better this in the next couple of years. We've just got to. There are so, many big fish about that have never seen a bait.

Various points of interest? Is it right that we carry on dead baiting do you think? Should we only dead bait as a last resort? How about dead baiting with singles or at least with barbless trebles? I suppose I'd be loathe to see dead baiting forsaken totally... Reuben and I shared one extraordinary forty minute spell when I (totally inexplicably) had eight takes and missed the lot. What was going on there? Leo continues to make headway into the lenok potential. But, I'm sure he'd agree with me that we know very little about this extraordinary species. He had two fish over 80 centimetres this year which has to be good going. I recorded what was almost certainly a personal best on the grayling front - one of 49.5 centimetres. This was a quite magnificent fish but, yet again, none of us really know the ultimate size of these. So, in short, I'm already looking forward to next year. My own feeling is that the end of September and beginning of October on the river is probably the best - the weather does seem more settled, all being well the river is at its lowest and most fishable and the taimen do appear at their hungriest.

On to India. Leo, Alan, Mick, David, Pankaj and I are already looking forward to this trip which I sense is going to be historic. Don't ask me why but I just have this feeling. Okay, we certainly have it firmly in mind to move to the top camp for at least two or three nights. This will give us a really tremendous crack at an extraordinary piece of water that hasn't been properly fished now for decades. Anthony and the crew of guides certainly believe there are fish in there well over a hundred pounds and they should know. They even talk of fish nudging a hundred and forty or more. Could that be possible? What is for sure is that we are going to need to be really well kitted up. Uptied rods, sensible multipliers and nothing less than fifty-pound mono are needed. It's very much on my mind that whether we're after taimen, mahseer, barbel or whatever I think we've got to make more hook-ups count. I'm increasingly twitchy about fish that break away and have hooks left in them. I'm sure the majority come free but it's a real concern nonetheless.

As you're all well aware we're very keen to put something back into these remarkable places. The Indian school project continues to be discussed. There's money waiting to be donated and we're really just waiting for the final decision on how best to spend it. In Mongolia there's a real need for all sorts of things, especially for the children of the area. I'm very keen that we do something - if all are agreed - to put something back here. Then we also have the thorny issue of Batsokh himself. There's no doubt about it that Batsokh's life in the winter without a jeep is very hard indeed. He is looking after the camp for us and he does need one if he's to see anything of his wife and family through the winter months. There's also a pressing need for some way to get children to hospital, for example, in case of an emergency. I'm not sure how people feel about this: perhaps we can help in some way towards a vehicle though I guess maintenance is always going to be a problem.

It was suggested by the guys on the Mongolian trip that we have a reunion in February 2002. This would be nice because we could combine news and a slide show from both the latest India trip and this last Mongolian one. And, hopefully, there'd be a lot of guys who'd been on previous trips to both destinations. And anywhere else too come to that. I think it would also be a good time to meet because I'd be able to report back on yet another Spanish barbel discovery. Tragically, for personal reasons, the trip back to our Andalucian river could not go on this October. I feel very, very apologetic about this especially to the great guys who'd been looking forward to it. Heart felt apologies and please forgive me. However, with Peter, of course, we've located a stretch of stunningly beautiful water where comizos are there to be caught on fly, float and lead. These are very big fish. Initial recces produced them to just under double figures but we saw plenty within the fifteen to twenty pound bracket. The biggest from the river is pushing forty. Yes, forty.

So I do see a lot of excitement to come…far more exploration is needed on the Shiskid. That magical top camp on the Cauvery. The comizo river as well as our 'own' river that we're beginning to get to grips with in Andalucia. We really would love the February get together to go ahead.

Let us know as quickly as possible if there are dates that anybody cannot make so that we can try and work round people as much as possible. In the meantime, we'd love to hear from you by phone, email, or a good old-fashioned letter?!

Take care of yourselves,

Joy and John
October 27th, 2001

In our efforts to control nature we separate ourselves from it and do great damage to ourselves. Imposing control on living things, to render them convenient, pliable, dependent; to destroy spontaneity; to diminish unpredictability - leads to murder of the spirit.

The wild stands as an antidote to control. The word "wilderness" means will-of-the-land, or self-willed land. Land that is not dominated. Wild animals, wild water and wildlands are free from control. Let us remember that love and control are opposites. To connect with wilderness is to be nurtured. It is to connect with our sanity. It is to connect with our deepest selves. Sea water flows in our veins. The wild is our true home. If we lose wilderness, we are lost.

David Johns :
"The necessity of changing what is possible"
Living Lightly, issue 19 (Spring 2002)