Biggest Taimen I’ve Ever Seen

I’ve been working on Fly Rod & Reel’s Angling Adventures issue and I assigned a piece on fishing taimen in northern Mongolia, the old stomping grounds of Gengkis Khan. While doing some research I came across a blog called Pike First. There’s a lot of pike info on this site, but there’s more—shots of taimen that are bigger than any I’ve ever seen.

Now, I thought about not running these images because it looks to me like those fish aren’t being respected, nor cared after properly. I could be wrong. I do know that there are huge issues with taimen poaching in Russia, where many rivers don’t even have taimen anymore. It does look to me like these guys released their fish, so there’s hope. I ran these images and provided a link to more so that you could see what a truly great fish the taimen is. They are being cared for in Mongolia but in Russia it’s anyone’s guess whether they’ll survive or not. Enjoy these pics. Dream big. Check out more imges at http://pikefirst.blogspot.com/