Kaghan as I saw it

The 240-kilometres-long valley of Kaghan looms large on the tourist map of Pakistan. Easily accessed on a wide metaled road by even small Suzuki cars, it beckons thousands of visitors who cram the bazaars and hotels that have mushroomed along the River Kunar. But sixty years ago it was a very rustic and peaceful valley with far more primitive facilities. And it was a veritable paradise for fishing – glorious fishing!

My father Maj Gen Syed Shahid Hamid was a keen sportsman and my mother Tahirah a great organizer. During the 1950s and ‘60s, a week’s fishing at Naran after or before the Monsoons, figured prominently on our calendar. It was planned as an expedition since nothing except eggs and scraggly chickens could be procured in the valley. Cartons were packed with bread loaves, butter, biscuits, sweetened condensed milk, flour, tea, coffee, ghee, condiments, tinned food and everything else that we could possibly need - including DDT powder for bed bugs! Quilts, blankets, sheets, and towels were packed in big bedrolls and apart from warm clothes, large brimmed hats were a must (against sunburn). My mother, who had studied medicine for a couple of years at Lady Harding in Delhi, filled her Vanity Box with an array of medicines of the day, including tincture of Iodine, Dettol, Mercurochrome, Sulphur powder, Penicillin, eye- and ear-drops, aspirins, bandages, cotton wool and sticking plaster.

The small metropolis of Naran had only a few government rest houses and offices, and a police post. There was a detachment of Frontier Constabulary that came up for the season to protect the valley from brigands who crossed over the mountains from Kohistan.    The only private residence of any consequence was of the great politician Sardar Shaukat Hayat, which was perched on a mountain spur amongst the pines. There was no petrol station or general store worth its name. Every couple of days, the GTS Office at Balakot sent us fuel and fresh provisions on order. Communication with the outside world was maintained through a large wireless transmitter on which every sentence had to end with ‘OVER’. We booked the four-bedroom Inspection Bungalow in Naran or the Armoured Corps Hut eight kilometers ahead, and hired WW2-vintage Willey Jeeps from the Government Transport Service (GTS) for the duration of our stay.

During the Raj, the artery to Gilgit and Skardu was from Kashmir and though the Burzil Pass into the Astor Valley. After Independence, a mule track to Gilgit through the Kaghan Valley and over the Babusar Pass was developed into a jeepable road. Balakot was at the entrance to the valley and became a reloading point for bulk supplies to Gilgit and Skardu which could only be transported during the four months that the road was not snow-bound. Jeeps overloaded with jerrycans of Kerosene and petrol, tins of ghee (butter oil) and sacks of flour departed every day. Between Balakot and Naran the road was too narrow for two vehicles to cross. To regulate the traffic, a barrier at Balakot opened between 7 to 8 a.m and the convoy of jeeps barreled halfway up the valley to another barrier at Mehndri, where between 12 a.m. and 1 p.m. they crossed the jeeps which had been released from Naran the same morning.

Brown Trout (Salmo trutta) was introduced into the rivers in Gilgit and Skardu in the early 1900s and brought to the Kaghan Valley from Kashmir in 1928

It was a long day’s drive from Rawalpindi to Balakot where we spent the night and our baggage was transferred to the jeeps. Early next morning we scrambled into our vehicles to be at the front of the queue and avoid the dust of over 30-40 jeeps. It was a dangerous un-metaled road that traversed rickety suspension bridges, dropping down to the rushing river and then back up through hair-raising hairpin bends. In the 16 kilometers between Kaghan and Naran, the jeeps struggled across 8 to 10 large and small glaciers. Earlier in the season which began in mid-June, traffic had to compete with herds of goats driven up to high pastures by the Powindas. As they crowded past, the smell was overpowering. But all this aside, it was a great adventure and we relished the dust and wind in an open jeep, and the lovely vistas. Along the way, my sister Shama led us through a variety of melodies she had picked up as a Girl Guide; Kookaburra sits on the old gum tree; She will be coming down the mountain when she comes singing Ay Ay Yippee Yippee Ay.

One of the first chores on arriving was to unpack the fishing gear, and we were assisted by a couple of local fishermen who knew the river well and accompanied us daily. They helped in assembling the split cane rods, fit on the Mitchell and Dam reels, test the line and attach the Mepps spinners and artificial flies as well as small lead weights to ensure that the lures sank deep enough in the fast flowing river. The more experienced amongst us (and I joined that category by the age of 14) carried two rods and reels and a small box of spare weights and lures – golden spinners for clearer waters in the morning when the river was low and sliver for the evening when the melting glaciers made the water muddy. I used to also fill my pockets with sweets and toffees. Fishing was best from dawn till about 9 a.m. The valley breeze then picked up and the trout stopped rising because the flies that they fed on no longer skimmed the water. We fished again when the breeze subsided in late afternoon - and some of the best catches were close to dusk when the trout would bite even if you cast an old shoe!

Shortly after our marriage, in 1976 I introduced my wife Shama to fishing in Kaghan and she relished it. On our last afternoon, after a mild drizzle she wanted to cast below the famous Cunningham Pool, named after the thrice governor of the NWFP. The sun had dipped down behind the mountains, the air was calm and the trout was rising. On her second cast she hooked a 1.5-pound trout and landed it on a sandy bank like a pro. While removing the hook, I handed her my rod and after a couple of long clean casts she hooked another. For the next memorable half an hour she landed close to a dozen, but in the tradition of good fishermen, released the smaller ones.

Brown Trout (Salmo trutta) was introduced into the rivers in Gilgit and Skardu in the early 1900s and brought to the Kaghan Valley from Kashmir in 1928. Initially fry were transported in matkas (round baked earthenware containers) on mules but their vertebrae were damaged during the long journey. Subsequently eyed ovas were successfully reared in a hatchery established at Shinu. In the decade after Independence, the river was virtually un-fished and Trout was not only plentiful, it had grown to a good size. A license of Rs.10 per rod per day could be purchased from the one-room office of the Fishery Department. It allowed a catch of six trout but any below six inches (approximately half a pound) had to be released. The Fishery’s record book had some amusing remarks. One frustrated angler had threatened to use dynamite the next time he came and another had entered the angler’s prayer, a fervent plea, prompted by unfulfilled hope: God give me grace to catch a fish so large that I, even I, when talking of it afterwards, may never need to lie.

The river was divided into fishing beats of 5 to 6 kilometers patrolled by wardens. The finest fishing was in the Soje beat above Naran and the Phludran beat below. In Soje the river spread into channels and the best spots were the relatively still water where two channels met. To get there we paired-up to safely wade through a channel or two of fast and freezing water sometimes rising up to the hips. We preferred to wear ‘PT’ Shoes (now called sneakers) of canvas with rubber soles which allowed greater mobility than rubber waders, and enabled us to feel our way over the slippery boulders in the bed of the river. The downside was that the shoes and socks were perpetually wet and our feet painfully frozen.

Our record was 25 good-sized trout within three hours

Hassan my elder brother and I made a good team as we worked the rougher but less fished Phuldran Beat, clambering over largish boulders to pools where a trout or two might be lurking. He had been taught to fish by the famous Aziz Shikari, a short stocky man from the NWFP, whose features had an uncanny resemblance to a trout! At one time he had been in the employment of another great huntsman and fisherman, the unforgettable Brigadier Sir Hissamuddin. Aziz kept reminding my brother “Hassan Saeeb. Yaad rakho. Har pathar ke neeche machli hai” (Remember, there is a fish under every boulder). Heeding his advice, we casted into every pool large and deep enough to conceal a trout and were often rewarded by a nibble on the first cast and on the second – BANG! – it was hooked! Fishing the waters was not easy as the lure could get trapped within the boulders or stuck in the brush and logs embedded below the surface. If a few strong jerks on the rod did not set it free, the only option was to wade into the freezing water to release the lure.

We remained within hailing distance as the river was dangerously fast but there was also another reason. The trout is a fighting fish, difficult to land amongst the boulders. When one of us shouted ‘Fish!’, the other rapidly reeled in his line, ran with a net which was on the end of a long pole and waded in to net the fish when it was coaxed close enough. Our record was 25 good-sized trout within three hours. The wardens did not object to a large catch as long it was within the collective total of the four to five licenses we purchased daily. The fish did not bite when the valley breeze was strong or when it rained and the water became muddy. On such days we either drove up to the meadows at Lalazar with its carpet of wild flowers and butterflies, or to Saiful Maluk Lake where the trout were much larger but more difficult to catch and didn’t taste as good. Much of our catch was cleaned, salted and packed into wooden cartons with ice from the nearby glaciers and transported back to Rawalpindi.

On some of our trips, we were accompanied by relatives or close friends. Early in the 1950s, Mir Jamal Khan, the last ruler of Hunza State and his graceful Rani Sahiba, broke journey at Naran on their way down from Gilgit. Malka Pukraj, and the famous artist and mother of Tahirah Syed, was also there that year. President Ayub Khan enjoyed shooting and fishing and in 1962, joined us in Naran for a much need rest. With him came the trappings that accompany a head of state but it was a fraction of what it is like now. He roughed it up in a jeep and the only helicopter was one that arrived daily with important mail. My brother’s fishing skills amused him no end and watching him catch three to his every one, Ayub Khan would say to my father with a chuckle, “Dekho! Hassan ne aik aur pakar li” (Look! Hassan has caught yet another one).

When I am in a pensive mood, like Wordsworth’s daffodils, Kaghan flashes upon my ‘inward eye’ and I am back standing on the banks of the sparkling river under a blue sky, relishing a toffee while gently reeling in the line and patiently waiting for the fish to bite. Behind me a thick forest of pine fir rises up the mountain and high above I can hear the drone of an aircraft heading to Gilgit over the Babusar Pass …and then my heart with pleasure fills.