I think I'm zeroing in on where he caught it...
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This was a 1D on behalf of the Taimen Conservation Fund. Very little is known of Taimen. We went into a virgin watershed that had never been fished by non-natives. To get in I flew to UB from my office in Hangzhou, China:
Then a a puddle jumper to an airstrip, where I connected with Andy Parkinson who owned Fish Mongolia at the time. He took care of all ground travel, I was in charge of all river logistics and safety. After we met it was 4 hours in a Russian 4WD van:
To a small town where we had a two day blizzard in early June.
When things cleared we jumped on a 6Wd Russian troop transport for an 11 hour drive across several passes. That 11 hours allowed us to cover 110 miles.
Then to a small outpost in Outer Mongolia whrere we hooked up with the wranglers, our horses, and armed Mongolian border security. The area that we were going into was frequented by a gang out of Russia known as the Tuvans. After four days on horseback we were in. We fished our way out, floating the river in duckies, and recording fish caught.
There was a film crew that went in to this river that fall. They produced a program - I think it was "River Wolf". They went on about how no one had fished that river before. I had to laugh, because Andy and I opened that river up.
The next year Exo, which provided us and many of the Mongolians that we interacted with, with clothing, ran a national ad campaign on the trip. This was in most fly fishing magazines and wall coverings in their stores.