Since 1966, a regular part of my travels from Scotland to Afghanistan and Pakistan has been the study and enhancement of brown trout, a fish which is native to cold waters from Iceland eastwards to the borders of China. It also thrives as a popular immigrant outwith its native range, and Scottish brown trout are now naturalised in many other parts of the world, including the mountains of the old Northwest Frontier of Pakistan, a forgotten trout fishing region which the Western media tells us is populated mostly by terrorists and madmen. Our story begins on the Indus tributaries of Swat, Chitral, and Gilgit.
The subcontinent lacks native trout, a fact which was keenly felt by British anglers during the time of the British Raj. Great efforts were made to introduce them. Scottish brown trout were taken on a truly epic journey, firstly as eggs sailed by ship to Bombay in 1899, and then up to the cool streams of the Nilgiri Hills, where they were successfully reared. When railway travel started, some were taken north to Kashmir, where they became naturalised, then westwards by mule across the Himalayan passes as far as Gilgit, and finally, in the 1950s, to the old princely state of Chitral on the Afghan border. Interestingly they could have been brought from only a few miles away in Afghanistan, where they are native, avoiding those thousands of miles of rail, sea, and mule journeys from Scotland. This option probably didn’t occur to anyone since, in the days of the British Raj, their presence may not have been well known, and anyway Afghanistan was forbidden territory.
Trout are sight hunters and need clear water, which in Northern Pakistan is restricted mainly to a handful of small streams and lochs in the Hindu Kush, Hindu Raj, and Karakorum mountains. The first one I visited was in 1970. This was in Bomberet Valley, where a fast mountain stream runs down from the Afghan border to the main Chitral River. In those days I only carried a spool of line and some hooks so, after walking 10 miles upstream through a dramatic gorge, I found a 10 foot willow branch for a rod, dug up a few worms, and caught a beautiful 12-inch brown trout which I spotted lying in a clear pool. My friend Ralph and I were then approached by a shepherd boy who milked a nearby goat and gave us a bowl to drink. It was the second day of Ramadan, the fasting month, but he was a member of the Kalash, the local pagan tribe, and was clearly delighted to share a drink with fellow ‘unbelievers’.
An older Muslim boy then appeared, and on seeing the trout became very excited and began talking about thousands of rupees. It seemed very strange that trout fishing should be regulated in this remote place; in nearby Afghanistan, where we were living at the time, fishing permits were unheard of. Not having thousands of rupees, we immediately took off several miles down the valley and turned up into Rumbur, the remotest of the three Kalash glens, where we were received by women in the first village we came to, who placed garlands round our necks.
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