Kanas Lake Giant fish: The Most Credible Cryptids? 

Move aside Loch Ness, you’ve got nothing on China’s Lake Kanas !

Every fisherman has a tale about The One That Got Away. But no one can beat the stories that emerge from a picturesque lake in China, and what’s more, the evidence to back up the claims is astounding. 

by Martin Harris

Here in New Zealand, we are spoilt with magnificent scenery and a world-famous sport-fishing paradise. The South Island township of Rakaia signals its primary attraction with a huge, realistic sculpture of a leaping salmon towering over the nearby river.  

Far away in the Xinjiang region of China, a similar salmon sculpture adorns the shorefront of a lake every bit as beautiful as comparable bodies of water in New Zealand. And as the sculpture indicates, it too is a popular spot with sport fisherman intent on hooking a magnificent Red Taimen, a large salmonid predatory fish. 

 
However, while the Rakaia salmon sculpture is clearly not meant to indicate the real size of the local fish, the same cannot be said of the monstrous Red Taimen model at the tourist resort of Kanas Lake. 

While few people outside China know of this lake and its inhabitants, Kanas Lake has a reputation nationally that rivals that of Loch Ness in Scotland. Tourists flock to the lake for its fishing, its scenery, and for a glimpse of the famous monsters claimed to cruise the milky-blue glacial-fed waters. 

Of course, most lakes around the world have a monster legend associated with them. Lochs Ness and Morar; the Irish loughs; Lake Champlain; lake Okanagan; Lake Baikal…the list goes on and on. Lake monster legends and actual sightings, sometimes with photos or film evidence, are nothing unusual. 

Yet despite being almost unknown and undocumented outside China, the lake monsters of Kanas are on a whole different level of credibility from most of their cousins. 

Before the Tourists Came 

Kanas Lake is approximately 124 kilometers long, the width is an average of 1.9 kilometers and the depth, an average 196 meters. 

The shores of Kanas have been inhabited for hundreds of years by the Mongolian Tuvan tribe, who herd cattle and have small villages dotting the slopes of the lake. These inhabitants claim to be the descendants of Genghis Khan, who passed through this region on his march Westward, and was so awed by the beauty of the lake that he ordered a temporary encampment there for the refreshment of his army.  It is said by Tuvan legend that Genghis Khan has his tomb at Kanas and that the monster fish said to inhabit the lake are his guardians. 

The Tuvans have many stories, some fairly recent, about attempts to capture one of these giant fish. The tales usually involve huge iron hooks and teams of horses, but the story inevitably ends in failure. It is said that the fish wait just below the surface, ready to ambush livestock that come to the water’s edge to drink! 

The Scientists Arrive 

Early in 1980, an expedition team sent by the Xinjiang autonomous regional government arrived at the largely untouched wilderness of Kanas Lake. Their mission was to catalogue all the local flora, fauna and resources with an eye towards potential future development in the rapidly changing socio-political situation in China. 

While searching for mythical lake monsters was not on the schedule, the team set a net across the lake that stretched for several hundred meters. The aim was to collect and record specimens of whatever fish might inhabit the unexplored body of water. However, the allegedly mythical monster soon made its presence felt. During the night there was a tremendous commotion upon the water, and in the morning, the net was gone. It was found three days later, having been dragged two kilometers down lake and thoroughly mangled, with a great gaping hole torn in a section of it. 

It would be another five years before researchers again visited the lake. But this time, the results would be spectacular.  

The overall leader of this team was Professor Xiang Liye of the Xinjiang University Biology Department, ably assisted by Huang Renxin and Yuan Guoying and their student teams. 

It was one of the aforementioned students who was down at the water’s edge examining flora, when he got the feeling of being watched. Moments later he went galloping up the hill and reported breathlessly to his team leader: “I looked in the water, and there was a fish looking back at me with a head the size of a jeep!”. Professor Guoying roared with laughter. Student pranks upon professors are just as much a tradition in China as in the West, and Yuan Guoying thought his leg was being pulled. “There is no such thing as a fish with a head the size of Jeep!” he retorted. 

The next morning, the excited students summoned the professor to the crest of the hill that was their vantage point over the lake, over a hundred feet below. “The monster fish are back! They are real!”. The professor saw a cluster of vague, reddish-brown blotches rising to the surface of the water. Observing coolly, he thought at first, he was seeing mats of red algae rising as the morning sun warmed the lake. 

Nevertheless, he grabbed the team’s video camera and started filming. On the original footage obtained by CCCTV, the discussion is recorded and translates thus:  

Student- ”Our professor said there must be 200 of them!” 

Yuan- “There are not that many. Maybe 60” 

Student- ”Look, you can see their backs!” 

Yuan- ”Those three are particularly large”. 

Significantly as the camera pans across the scene, it pauses to focus on three indistinct but clearly animate and sinuous shapes apparently swimming languidly just below the surface of the cloudy pale blue water. 

By comparing the objects with the trees along the shore, an estimate of ten meters for the largest of these fish-like shapes is quite reasonable. 

The next day, Yuang Gouying took a color photo of one of the creatures at closer range 

It took the author of this blog considerable time to track down this footage and photos, practically unseen and unheard of in Western media, and to generate enhanced, color-filtered and contrast adjusted screenshots.  (links to actual footage in resources at bottom of blog).

Cropped, filtered and enhanced image from the last screenshot: 

And a closer look at the uppermost object. If this is not a fish, then what is it? 

Photo taken the next day by the same team gives a good sense of scale: 

Now thoroughly convinced of the reality of these colossal fish, the team procured a large meat hook from the local villagers along with a leg of lamb, and attached it a floating log, hoping to snare themselves a specimen (in defiance of the failed attempts in the Tuvan legends!). While several enormous red-brown shapes approached to investigate, there were no takers. 

The more critical reader may question the size of the foreshore trees referenced for scale, so I include a Google Image sourced view of the lakeside with houses and human figures for further verification. 

While the final proof in the form of an actual specimen remains elusive, the arrival of a booming tourist industry and a growing reputation as “China’s loch Ness”, meant corroborating eye witness accounts and images would soon be plentiful. 

The Tourists Arrive, the Evidence Mounts 

As Kanas lake opened to tourism with the dawn of the 21^st century and the modernisation of China, sport fishermen were prominent among the visitors, drawn by the holy grail of hooking a Hucho (Red) Taimen, and catch them they did as the pictures below attest. 

The largest measured specimen was an impressive 2.2m. But sightseers both on the lake in tour boats, and from the lofty turret of the “Fish Pavillion”, were getting glimpses of vastly larger fish, and more importantly, they often recorded, and continue to record their sightings.  

Once again, the recorded evidence often includes valuable scale reference, such as the sequence of three photos showing a slender form, just below the surface, cruising between two tourist boats and a line of buoys.  There are no submarines operating in the lake, yet the size of the object, consistent with the shape of a fish, must be of a size that compares with a Whale Shark, the largest scientifically acknowledged fish. 

A video from aboard one of these tourist vessels recorded disturbances at the lake surface with tantalizing glimpses of an apparent dorsal fin. 

But the best and most publicised footage segments show “pack hunting” behaviour by a group of these creatures. Footage was taken by multiple observers at different vantage points, and show long, pale shapes cruising down the lake creating a considerable wash of glacial silt in their wake.  

This phenomenon has been recorded on several occasions, with the best segment showing briefly but clearly, that the lead object is indeed a large fish. 

And again, I have taken the time to produce cropped and filtered images (blue removal) with contrast enhancement. This is a fish. There is no room whatsoever for doubt! 

However, take another look. What’s even more extraordinary is that it appears to be what the pack is hunting. There is an apparent back breaking the surface, and the head of an even larger fish partially obscuring the prey. An amazing moment in time captured on film, as a very large fish is attacked by another fish of truly monstrous proportions. Hunting behaviour consistent with that of a Taimen. 

The cropped image has again been enhanced by contrast and color filtering. The giant stretches horizontally across the frame, head on the left partially obscuring the smaller fish, tail fin on the right. The back is breaking the surface at image centre. 

For comparison, here’s an image procured from Pinterest of similar fish predation: 

Those wishing to view the video segments from which the above images were taken will find them listed in the bibliography. 

Is a 10 Meter Salmon Scientifically Plausible? 

For starters, let’s have a look at the taimen and why it is the prime candidate for the giants of Kanas 

How big do taimen get?  

Taimen get very big. Siberian taimen appear to have achieved the greatest size of any taimen species, although records are a little spotty. There are a couple of historical records of Siberian taimen in excess of 200 pounds caught in fishing nets in Russia, and several records of fish exceeding 175 pounds. There are also historical records of huchen and Sakahlin taimen exceeding 100 pounds. Sadly, there are widespread declines in body size across taimen species. However, Siberian taimen in excess of 100 pounds are definitely still out there in the healthiest remaining taimen watersheds. 

Taimen start eating fish very early in life, once they get to be around 3 inches in length. From then on, fish comprise the majority of their diet. They are capable of eating other fish that are nearly half their length, and they seem to especially like grayling. As taimen get larger, they are able to eat a wider variety of prey. In Mongolia, they famously chow on mice and lemmings. In Russia, they’ve been known to eat muskrats and ducklings. There is even a report of a taimen that choked to death trying to eat a small dog! In our work in the Russian Far East, we’ve found that large taimen will eat adult chum salmon returning to rivers on their spawning migrations. In fact, salmon appear to be the primary prey for the largest taimen in some rivers.  

Source: Behind the Fish: Taimen Conservation with Scientist Matt Sloat – Flylords Mag 

This information seems to corroborate the stories of the monster fish consuming livestock that come to shallows to drink. It would also seem logical that the very largest fish would hunt and prey upon the smaller members of its own species. 

There is no “maximum” growth to fish, as evidenced by the gigantic goldfish pictured below: 

In migratory species, growth and age are usually governed by the natural life cycle, with the fish expiring after spawning and migrating. So how would we account, then, for a monster-sized salmon?  

For context and a possible theory, let’s look at the case of so-called “Eunuch eels”. This refers to freshwater eels that for one reason or another have been unable to return to the sea to complete their natural life cycle.  

This could be due to an eel becoming trapped in a body of water due to a stream drying up or becoming blocked. As long as the eel has a sufficient source of food, it will simply continue to grow. 

The author has personally heard firsthand accounts from hunters in the New Zealand “bush” (rainforest) wading through shallow water and encountering submerged “tree trunks” that turned out to be outsized eels!  

In the days before Europeans arrived, and in the early days of colonisation, Maori and early explorers alike were familiar with enormous eels, and as the painting below illustrates, the indigenous people even had a method for catching these water monsters! 

Facebook “‘Catching the Legendary Eel at Tangahoe’ (top), a watercolour by Thomas William Downes (1868-1938), showing Maori hunters catching a giant eel at Tangahoe Stream, a tributary of the Wanganui (Whanganui) River. A man dangles a bird on a line in front of the eel to lure it out of the water. Non migratory female longfin eels will occasionally attain lengths of up to 2 metres. The ancient Maori could revere large eels as gods (atua) or fear them as devils (rewera) or taniwha (monsters). Just as easily they could catch and eat them or feed and tame them (Alexander Turnbull Library).” 

“Allen Dedevil 

huge eels would be seen and sometimes caught in the head waters of the Tamar river in Launceston Tasmania,i personally have seen several in the 1960s over 2 meters long,and defied anyone catching them to land them they were so strong” 

Jasen Balloch 

Mystery creek, just outta Hamilton I’ve seen the water swirl like that! Me and me brothers use to pull out some monsters and some would try to pull us in!” 

If this applies to eels, might it not also apply to other migratory freshwater species under certain conditions? 

Perhaps there is something special about Kanas lake itself? The whole Xinjiang region is subject to regular seismic activity, including the lake in question. Might something related to the earthquakes have an effect on any fish inhabiting the lake at the time of a tremor? 

Might it simply be that a few “alpha” specimens grow excessively large preying other fish, then move up to mammals, and become literally too large to exit the lake? 

My Quest for the Kanas Lake Monsters 

Back in the early 2000s I purchased, on a whim, a paperback compendium titled Mysteries of the Deep, a collection of articles from Fate Magazine. There was a chapter titled Lesser Known Lake Monsters, authored Karl P. Shuker, possibly the most prolific Cryptozoologist extant.  

One story in particular intrigued me, as it hinted a bigger story. This was the story of the first scientific survey of Lake Kanas, and while it was scarce on detail, it is a wonder that this story made its way into Western Media at all, being based on a single article from the mid 1980s. 

The article stated that photos had been taken of these oversized fish swimming just below the surface, their backs and fins visible.  

Where were these photos? Locked away a wall of CCP internet censorship? I had no way of knowing until the advent of YouTube and the availability of clips taken by tourists at the lake showing alleged glimpses of the legendary monster fish.  

From there I discovered that if one translates “Kanas Lake” into Chinese, a Google search will display a multitude of entries on the subject from Chinese news media sites. 

The result is this blog. 

Special thanks go to Dr. Shuker for sowing the seed that led to my obsessive search for the Kanas Lake monster-fish. 

Last of the Giants?  

It seemed natural to the author that if these monster fish are swimming around lake Kanas, then images of such might be found on Google Earth. Sadly, most of the aerial footage is rather low-resolution, so while I found a few objects that may or may not be huge fish, there is one image in particular that stopped me in my tracks. A large crescent shape, brilliant white and with a suggestion of fins at one end where one might expect them on a fish. A historical search of the location determined that it is not a permanent fixture and it does not seem to be a wave or wake. 

My interpretation is that this is a huge fish, probably dead or near death and floating belly-up against the shore bank. 

For comparison, here is an image of a dead Beluga Sturgeon: 

If this is a fish though, it is much larger than the sturgeon pictured. In fact it is on a par with an adult whale shark, approximately 40 feet or 12 metres long! 

While everything dies eventually, this is concerning in the context of increased human presence at the lake. Back in 1980 the location was a virtually unexplored paradise. Now it is visited daily by an unending procession of tourists in large sightseeing vessels. The river that exits the lake is a mecca for anglers seeking taimen salmon, with the result that fewer may survive to enter the lake. This in turn means that fewer are likely to become outsize, lake-locked specimens as proposed by my theory. 

There was a time when the Sturgeon used to attain gargantuan proportions:

It seems wherever humans intervene in fish populations, the average size decreases dramatically. Giant Sturgeon like the examples pictured above are now a rarity, with the very largest officially recorded specimens from the late 19^th and early 29^th centuries. 

 Sadly some species dwindle into extinction, like another Chinese giant, the Paddlefish, which only very recently was confirmed extinct. 

Perhaps we are living to witness the demise of the monster Red Taimen of Kanas Lake, tantalisingly close to being confirmed as a reality, destined only to be remembered as tall tales and legends. 

Martin Harris 

RESOURCES: Links culled from many that the author sifted through (mainly with aid of Google Translate) in the search for information on this subject:

unknown creature in Kanas Lake 新疆喀纳斯湖现湖怪群 

Kanas Lake Monster, aka “Xinjiang Loch Ness” 

Kanas Lake Monsters: Haunt Places, First Appearance of Water Monsters, Water Monster Effects, Water Monster Research, Water Monster Mystery, Reproduction of Water Monsters, Related Legends _Chinese Encyclopedia (newton.com.tw) 

360 video (360kan.com) (Contains original 1980s expedition footage, with more below) 

喀纳斯湖水怪影像，专家提出强烈质疑，后来亲自到相关水域抓水怪 (360kan.com)