Another version of flies I prepared - using Intruder's steel shank as the body (spine).

The solid steel shank is easy to tie anything on, including EZ body tube, doubled up, to make the head portion bulky. It has a open slit, through which I can easily replace the hook(s) by the water. The hook can then be held stable by the rubber tube, keeping hook point up, when fishing in snaggy waters.

With overdose of enthusiasm we fished on. But no fish, not even a hint of Taimen after the first 2 full days. Taimen are not easy we knew. But the complete absence of their response started to puzzle us.

No, we cannot judge rivers we visit for the first time, but we sure can judge the competency of the fishing guide. It became soon apparent our guide, Ivan, did not understand flyfishing. The way he drifted the boat was not at all ideal - he was happy as long as the boat was drifting safe in the middle of the big fast current, did not care if the likely spots, most often the slower current right by the banks, were within the fly's reach or not. True, he was resourceful enough to improvise an anchor (which he lost in the log jam) using his old wader filling it up with rocks, but it did not give enough traction to slow down the drift to support flyfishing.

Mikhail is a famous flyfisher / Taimen guide who lives in Khabarovsk. His tours are focused on trophy waters I cannot possibly afford, but he was kind enough to give me valuable free advice.

Taimen are voracious predators that love big, bigger, and the biggest meal. Best rely on the bulkiest fly you can cast. They often attack their preys from the back. A trailer hook on the tail was recommended, and with good reason, because some of his flies are 40cm long!!

Not to our liking but we mostly had to fish from the boat - the water was high for the season making wading difficult. Likely fish lies are sometimes far between, hence, fishing from a drifting boat was the most effective method.

Any GT flies will do if only needing to be big, and they are easy to tie. But to meet other requirements - rigging up extra hooks on the belly and the tail while reducing the risk of tangling with each other, needs some thinking.
(Place the pointer on the pic and see my attempt)

Another important thing, which proved even critical, is weed guard. The field are full of sunken logs. You cannot wet a fly without a good weedguard, much less, let it sink.

Brought along with me were 3 tackle sets - a 9ft 10wt with heavy sink tip to shoot big flies, a 9ft 8wt with intermediate tip for flies a little smaller, and a solid casting outfit to throw seriously big swim baits.

A deer crossing a fast current. We never thought deers could swim so well!

As mentioned earlier, the whole area surrounding the river Annyui is designated as a national park. Many wild animals, including bears and even tigers call this wilderness home.