This story unveils the personal experience of Shahid, a fly fisher (angler) by personal inclination, who over a span of two decades became a witness to a crumbling world of trout fishing at natural sites (trout beats) here in the Valley of Kashmir.
Introduction
Fishing is engrained in Kashmiri culture just as harvesting grain has historically been a part and parcel of the bid to survive for a vast majority here in Kashmir. Throughout history, most Kashmiris have been fishers just as we have been farmers, harvesters and cultivators. In this culture of people seeking subsistence by all means possible, a relationship with nature has developed, bonded together by the pursuit of grain and fish as well as the breeding of farm animals. Yet a different turn has shifted our priorities and our understanding of how important harvesting and fishing and such forms of subsistence are to us, and it is nature that has paid the price. In the evolution of labor and the transition from blue collar (manual labor) to white collar (office) vocations over a few decades, natural means of subsistence through harvesting and fishing have been relegated to a secondary position, and possibly respect as well.This also has to do with the shifts in class dynamics and the prestige attributed to desk jobs and to chained seats of tenure-track bureaus.
It is in this context, of people sitting at work desks, that certain people dream of buying the new iPhone X as a marker of class and power, while others, in a doctor’s coat, like Shahid Shah, dream of commingling with nature to seek solace and peace from this path we have taken. A path forged by governments and markets, with their tales of progress, illusions of modernity, and shifts in social values that are not particular only to Kashmiris, but belong to notions of modernization at a global scale. Many people seek ascendance into such a world. Others, like Shahid, placed and locked well within it, seek to descend and go back in time, for the duration of however a brief or long moment, as daily obligations permit, to recover that which has been experientially lost as an everyday practice at the expense of progress. But what of new knowledge, high levels of institutionalized education, and a surgical precision to leave aside fishing by hand as is the tradition, to then take on the discipline, science, and rigorous sport of fly fishing as a serious side-career and a professional vocation?
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Meanwhile, the situation is such that, for readers such as you, the sight of a young boy fishing after Fajr prayers at the banks of a drought-struck and water-depleted river like the Lidder, may seem tragically poetic. But behind this poetry and this sentimental metaphor of loss, is a brutal reality of decades-long ecological devastation due to improper state regulation and institutional failure towards proper preservation of natural sites in a zone of ongoing conflict.Along with that comes the abuse of fishing licenses by people who in a bid to subsist, fish far more than nature can supply, and that too primarily due to a lack of basic awareness. As such, in a premonitory tone, this story unveils the personal experience of Shahid, a fly fisher (angler) by personal inclination, who over a span of two decades became a witness to a crumbling world of trout fishing at natural sites (trout beats) here in the Valley of Kashmir.
Beginning from the Beginning: A Boy Who Became a Professional Fly Fisher
When Shahid, the central figure of this story, was in the fourth grade in 1983, he used to play hide and seek with his friends regularly near the housing quarters of a visiting team of engineers from Srinagar, steps away from his house in Islambad (Anantnag).
One day he “accidentally barged into their housing quarters” during his hide and seek game and saw a fishing rod with a line and a handle resting in a corner.Upon inquiring, the shahrik engineers, while entertaining the curiosity of a child, told him all about fishing technology developments and their particular style of fly fishing.
Having already been acquainted with fishing by hand and line the traditional way just like other more senior fishers in his locality, Shahid sought his own engineering avenues to get a critical advantage in fishing more effectively, in order to ascend in the neighborhood ranks of older boy-fishers. An idea struck in the mind of the grade four student, and it came from his own rooftop, where a huge aluminum television antenna with two parting metal branches (for greater signal reception of Pakistani broadcasting) was waiting to be disassembled, and reassembled and bonded with screws as a make-shift fishing rod, all while mom and dad were at their day jobs. Thus began Shahid’s practice of fishing with a rod, with a line hooked on the other end to a bait of wet flour.
Years later, at the age of 23, Shahid developed his childhood interest in fly fishing even further, while being enrolled at the local medical college. It was the year 1997, and in the middle of a conflict, with all that that entails, Shahid and his young friend, Dr. Faisal, planned a trip to Phrislan, a place inadequately associated more with the name of Betaab Valley (title courtesy of a Bollywood film). It was there while fishing with a rod manufactured from bamboo and locally acquired, that Shahid and his small group of friends each caught their first trout as homegrown self-trained Kashmiri fly fishers. And for Shahid and his friend Faisal, from that very moment in 1997, fly fishing became a passion, the way cricket, football or social media scholarly debate is for many.
In the following years, from 1997 to 1999, the band of homegrown anglers, led by Shahid and Faisal, began a three year expedition in their free time to locate and identify sites for fly fishing (trout beats). In the process, they built a reputation with the Fisheries Department that issued them fishing permits each time they went from trout beat to trout beat.
Around that period of time of the late 90s, social media began having a presence in the Valley, with Google-owned Orkut as the main network for online social interaction, a platform that served to initiate conversations between fly fishers and anglers from all around Kashmir. Soon a miniscule community, part of a hidden away subculture, and that too within a far greater culture of historical and traditional fishing, began to integrate online. From that generation of fly fishers from the late 90s and early 2000s, there are currently around 20 established senior-level professional anglers, who are fully recognized by the domestic departments of fisheries and who have two decades of homegrown self-cultivated experience in fly fishing.
Going Global: A Brief Insight
The indigenous fly fishing tradition of Shahid’s late 90s generation had been cultivated and had developed to the farthest of its extents within its own Kashmiri fishing subculture, with core self-cultivated knowledge from Kashmir’s soil and its trout beats. It was the year 2013 and a Kashmiri radiologist named Shah Humayun, a friend of Shahid’s, was flying in to a job interview to Hobart, Tasmania.
As oddity of fate would have it, Dr. Humayun was seated on the plane next to a gentleman named Malcolm Crosse. A cordial introduction branched its way into a conversation that led to Mr. Crosse inquiring about the possibility of fishing in Kashmir. He was aptly delighted to find out about an embedded culture and tradition of fishing and within it a handful of anglers who took fly fishing as seriously as some or many take cricket, football or fundamental justice.
Malcolm, as fate would have it, turned out to be a recognized Australian fly fishing champion, member of the major fly fishing organizations from Tasmania and greater Australia. Among his published books are Australia’s Best Trout Flies Revisited (written in collaboration with Rick Keam) and his early claim to fame in the fly fishing scene as captain of the Australian winning team of the “World Fly fishing Championships in the Snowy Mountains in 1999”. As such, a momentary acquaintance on a plane resulted in the eventful cultural exchange between Kashmiri fly fishers and their Tasmanian counterparts, who had a far more technically developed discipline and knowledgebase on the vocation, which is engrained in their culture as leisurely activity, professional sport and favorite pass-time. This first meeting on a plane bloomed into new friendships across cultures from Australia to Kashmir and vice versa, leading also to a series of collaborations involving intensive training from abroad, spearheaded by Malcolm himself and a few others.
Malcolm then went on to visit Kashmir thrice, in 2013, 2014 and 2015. With him came a completely different turn to the sport of fly fishing as it had been practiced independently by Shahid and his mates, for many years in Kashmir. Given Malcolm’s engagement with Shahid’s small fly fishing community here in Kashmir, angling became a sport of surgical precision, acute dexterity, and very refined knowledge, establishing a shift in the tradition of Kashmiri fly fishers like Shahid, who had till then been developing their own isolated practice, far detached from the rest of the world. Apart from person-to-person interaction, a series of video conferencing sessions to disseminate knowledge on fly fishing all the way from Australia, allowed for further developments on the Kashmiri side. During his time in Kashmir, Malcolm brought with him professional fly fishing champion, guide and instructor Christopher Bassano who in collaboration with Malcolm gave significant instruction on the techniques of Tasmanian fly fishing. Denver-based cinematographer and fly fisher Nick Clement also joined the cross-cultural dialogue on the subject, while producing a series of fly fishing short films from around the world.
Applying New Knowledge
From the interactions between Tasmanian fly fishers like Malcolm and Kashmiri fly fishers like Shahid, a new science to fly fishing began to have its impact on this particular late 90s generation of anglers from the Valley. All of a sudden entomology, the study of insects, and fly-making and fly-tying became a discipline to be pursued. For Shahid, going from fixing flour as bait on a hook as a child to now attempting fly-making and fly-tying became the next chapter of knowledge to be acquired on this vast subject. Shahid and his angler friends from Kashmir started looking at sites of fishing with different eyes. As Malcolm would tell them, they had to grasp the “reiki” of the stream and the river. They had to study the habitat, intimate themselves with the surroundings of distinct water bodies, understand insect anatomy, behavior and entomology, and figure out their hatching seasons and their life cycles. All this in a highly strategic attempt to get the fish to bite the bait.
As expected, the fish had to be studied as well, along with the movements and patterns of flowing and still water, from high currents to low ones. An expedition for an unexplored trout beat required four to five days of advance planning grounded in extensive site survey. A brief example of such a study would be to identify the boulders and big rocks along the river, where whirls are created in the water, resulting in high concentrations of oxygen, naturally preferred by the trout. The junction where two different streams meet was also determined as a dwelling space of fish. In addition, as Shahid recalls, “before we used to use wet (organic) flies that just attract the trout and then we started using nymphs and worked on making our own synthetic flies from different materials tailored to imitate the fauna of the fishing site”. The “dead-drift technique” was also habitually used to cast a fly(bait) into the dead flow of the water such that the trout would perceive it to be a dead insect flowing down with the current.
The variations of natural behavior of different fish were highly important as well, and it all became much like a study in fish psychology. The trout, a predator fish, known for being very quick, suspecting and attentive to threat in its surroundings, was examined through this new knowledge from Tasmania. In particular, Shahid engaged in the active pursuit of the Wild Brown Trout, which he still calls “chaalaakh gaed”, renowned for “being the smartest predator fish in the trout family and the hardest to catch”. For such fishing trips, the expedition would commence at “300 HRS” to gear up the fishing line by the first sunrise when the trout was hungry for breakfast. Unlike the trout, which fed itself at first sunrise when the light first illuminated the water, the catfish had antlers that it used to sense the prey to fish for food at night.The trout was a “seer” relying primarily on its vision while the catfish was a “feeler” dependent on its barbels.
Camouflage was equally important, primarily for the trout that shifted its direction away from the most miniscule perception of danger, such as a suspicious shadow casting itself over the water. Getting inside the stream or “wading in the water” also was a factor. The fishing season in Kashmir had to be followed precisely as well, from April 1st till 30th September. With such encyclopedic knowledge and surgical precision, a passionate angler like Shahid would make it a habit of fishing in such a manner twice a week, becoming obsessed with the propensity of success. At the same time, after having studied a trout beat extensively, even “catch and release operations” were put into play, to give back what was taken from the water in order to ensure its future survival, in case fish populations were not at an adequate number. All this data involving site surveys, “getting the reiki of the river”, understanding “the flora and the fauna” of each site required copious amounts of note-taking, and in Shahid’s case, it entailed a whole archive of such information and analysis stored electronically on his Note 5 tablet, with a dossier for each fishing site.
Fishing in the Turbulent Waters of Conflict
Going from trout beat to trout beat, in an attempt to explore all the opportunities for fly fishing in the Valley over the years did not go unperceived by the authorities on certain occasions. Shahid recalls how in the year 2000 he went to fish alone at upper Phrislan, unaware of the fact that the ongoing Yatra at the time would have an impact on his movement in the area. Reflecting back, he introspects “on that fateful day, I went about without keeping these complexities in mind, which may land you in all sorts of trouble or even get you killed”. He remembers walking towards the beat around a local school where Indian troopers were stationed. As a devout fly fisher, he was dressed in full fly fisher camouflage. Moving about the fishing site, attentive solely to his purpose of being there in the first place, an unsettling command coming from the nearby woods stopped him in his tracks: “Hands up!”
Soon enough, as he recalls, “an armed trooper barged in front of me and let me know I was being watched from up-top by a sniper on standby”. A small group of army men descended onto the fishing site and let him know that
he had put them on alert. They told him that from a distance they were unsure if the fishing rod and gear in his hands were something else. The fishing camouflage he was wearing did not relax their level of suspicion either. After they checked his identity, Shahid was ordered to keep them informed the next time he showed up. In an earlier incident in 1997, he was again confronted by Indian troopers who gave him and his friends a definite warning for appearing at a site where there was a military presence. These were very peculiar instances of direct confrontation, apart from the recurrent identity checks at various checkpoints along the road in Shahid’s two decades of fishing trips.
As a result, fishing in a highly militarized place has turned out to be quite tricky in the last two decades and there is a protocol to be followed to ensure basic safety. Shahid says, “Sometimes we leave at three in the morning for our fishing trips. Along the way, we drive very slowly and every now and then we have to prove our identity in case we are stopped”. At such early hours, the roads are clear from traffic, so any vehicle moving around is looked at with greater suspicion. In addition, access to different water bodies that have fishing potential has also been limited since for certain sites one is required to get written authorization each and every time a visit is to be made. That ordeal involves submitting all sorts of documents and being on the radar of the authorities each time one wishes to fish in such restricted areas.
Rewinding Back to The Official Story of Trout Fishing in Kashmir
In a publication dated 1988, the then Director of Fisheries, Dr. N.A. Jan, gives a detailed account of “spring fed and snow fed Trout Fishing”, in an extensive text that not only surveys the various fishing sites in Kashmir in the late 80s but also recounts the story of how trout fishing arrived in Kashmir. In his editorial note, Dr. Jan cites that the “first batch of Trout ova of 10,000 eggs arrived from U.K. in 1899 with the courtesy of Duke of Bedford, to whom the Kashmiri Maharaja presented an excellent Kashmir Stag trophy through Sir Adelbert Talbot, British Resident at Srinagar”. As narrated by Jan, the first batch of trout “perished enroute due to non existence of air transport[sic]”. Then a second and successful shipment was made from Scotland on December 19th, 1900 by “Mr. J.S. Macdonall”.
The trout were distributed between Panzagam Dachigam (Harwan) and between the residential premises of a man named Frank Michel, “a private carpet factory owner” living in Baghi Dilawar Khan, near Khankai Moulla. Michel became known as the “Father of Kashmiri Trout Fisheries” and he assembled a private fishing club while also setting up a trout hatchery at Harwan in 1901. According to N.A. Jan, Gaffar Mir and Sodama Pandit “were the first locals to be trained in fish culture in 1905” by “Mr. Mitchel [sic]” himself, “at a salary of Rs. 5/- per month”.
Eventually, with these early attempts, failed and successful, 24 fishing beats were “established by 1938” along with the foundation of the first Department of Fisheries. With such developments in trout fishery, localized Kashmiri trout “fingerlings” were then sent to Kulu, Himachal, Kagan, Astore, Gilgat, Bhutan, Nepal and Parachinar, as Jan reports in his writing. By the early 50s, a species of “rainbow trout from Canada” was introduced.
According to Jan, it requires three to four years “for a trout to grow about one pound” in a natural habitat. After significant progress in introducing the trout, by the 50s, harsh challenges emerged in their up keep and in the sustainability of their populations. This was due to “soil erosion, floods, over exploitations, removal of boulders, use of insecticides, weedicides, pesticides and excessive use of inorganic & organic manures, as the trout streams” were “passing through the terraced rice fields and fruit gardens”.
In this 1988 publication, Dr. N.A. Jan then goes on to inventory all the trout beats in the different districts of Kashmir in a numbered list, with District Anantnag having 60 such sites, District Srinagar with 16, District Baramulla with 18, as the major areas for trout fishing. In total, the Director of Fisheries lists 112 trout beats that were identified, developed and maintained by the Fisheries Department in the late 80s. The report also contains a numbered survey of snow-fed streams from all over the Valley while also listing records in sizes of trout caught by 43 notable anglers of the past, from 1939 to 1979.
The Unmediated Continuation of Ecological Devastation
For fly fishing researchers like Shahid and his band mates, the writings of Dr. N.A. Jan became a key reference and crucial to starting expeditions to such sites from the late 90s onwards and all the way to present day. After such extensive developments in the knowledge of these particular anglers, a trout beat became a site that on one side provided avenues of therapeutic meditation, ritualistic sportsmanship and leisurely escape. On the contrary, the same sites led to utter sadness and disillusion, as they assessed the devastated conditions of such sites through their extensive surveys. From the figures listed in Jan’s 1988 report, the number of trout beats had gone from 112 naturally occurring sites to a mere 20 sites adequate for fishing in the present. And Shahid had explored them all.
The reasons for such devastation were due to failed regulation or lack of stricter implementation of fishing licenses. N.A. Jan had already pointed out in his 1988 editorial note the impact of soil erosion, floods, the removal of rocks and boulders, over-fishing, the use of pesticides and over use of manure flowing into trout streams, as the main causes in the depletion of fish populations. Now added to that were dredging and sand extraction. As Shahid observed, “in their reproductive cycle, fish rubbed their bellies against the sand to deposit their eggs, and with that sand gone, their ability to reproduce was severely hindered to the point of extinction”.
The general apathy of those in charge of placing stricter rules in the middle of an ongoing conflict did not contribute anything positive by any means. Added to that, the general initiatives to raise awareness among the masses in order to incentivize locals to not overfish were not in place because of institutional failure in the years of general upheaval. In the last three decades, the aggregate number of plastic-based products from beyond Kashmir arrived at an unregulated and alarming rate. From polythene bags, wrappers, to plastic bottles being discarded without foresight, the lack of avenues for proper waste disposal made the situation even worse.
In his trips, Shahid recalled the times he cast his line thinking of having baited the fish, only to pull out plastic bags and cloth rags from the water. The use of bleaching powder also contributed severely to mass scale fish depletion. Unregulated construction of buildings, roads, and public sites in a bid for poorly planned urbanization equally impacted these natural sites resulting in the disappearance of entire schools of fish and their general populations. As if this were not enough, the graduation of traditional forms of agriculture into more industrial scale agriculture for greater crop output has also increased by a massive scale the use of fertilizers and non-organic pesticides that contaminate naturally occurring bodies of water.
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As a direct consequence, the disappearance of the trout meant the disappearance of the beat, as another type of enforced disappearance that no one in power wanted to recognize, resulting in a serious loss to the ecology of Kashmir. Entire populations of trout were gone from natural sites, with their hatching seasons destroyed, their migratory paths blocked, and their movement hindered to the point of suffocation. And with that came the domino effect of destruction on entire habitats around such trout beats. With the trout gone from numerous sites, their natural predators (identified in Jan’s 1988 writing mainly as “Kingfishers, Herons, Fishing Eagles, Otters and Cormorants”) also felt the cascading impact of devastation. An alternate solution was the development of more fish hatcheries and fish farms to keep the supply running.
In witnessing all this ecological loss, Shahid recalls how Malcolm Crosse in one of his visits proposed a clean-up plan that required two years of state investment. Malcolm suggested that an incentivized program of plastic collection be put in place, based on a simple idea that required no in-house manpower whatsoever: to pay one rupee for each item of plastic collected by neighborhood kids and locals, and that too only operational on Sundays, when there is a general holiday. That plan was never implemented, much less considered. During his visit, Malcolm also described the protocols for environmental sustainability in his homeland, such as the construction of a hydroelectric dam in Tasmania being preplanned with a step ladder for the salmon to hop across in order to preserve their migratory path. On the other hand, as Shahid observes, the migratory path of the Mahseer fish swimming into Kashmir via the River Sindh all the way from Pakistan was blocked.
Hope Beyond Despair is What Dreams Are Made of
At the rate of steady ecological degradation exacerbated further by lack of proper care, awareness of and attention to fishing sites all over the Valley, Shahid and his fly fisher friends are utterly disillusioned with the possibility of a positive change. He laments the loss by saying, “we cry because of this huge devastation. The government doesn’t consider ecology when making development. Unplanned dredging has taken a toll on fishing. And it takes 100 years in the making of a proper fishing beat through natural means, to revive its flora and fauna by restoring its habitat”.In conversation, he argues that the Fisheries Department has not been able to enforce laws due to the ongoing conflict that has led some people to take advantage and build drains along the rivers and other bodies of water. Further unplanned construction of houses and buildings has also impacted the encroachment of riverbanks. Sitting in the shade of his fly fishing laboratory, he recalls a recent incident where dead fish were seen floating in the river Jehlum as an immediate example of the devastation we are headed towards. He identifies the cause to be excessive use of bleaching power to catch multiple fish at once, while the official story attributes the dead floating fish phenomenon to oxygen depletion.
Shahid sees the trout as our natural heritage that we are duty-bound to preserve. He believes that if there is any light of hope, it will come from trout fishing being “recognized as high-end tourism, and not simply fishing”. In terms of employment opportunities, only developing fisheries and trout farms to create jobs will not suffice, and there is greater potential in recognizing trout fishing and fly fishing in Kashmir as part of the luxury tourist industry and as a type of adventure sport. That requires raising awareness and creating an environment of ecological rehabilitation and maintenance. Every summer, the Fisheries and Tourism departments organize a fly fishing competition for experienced anglers called the “Esteemed Anglers Competition”, during which anglers compete to catch the Wild Brown Trout. However, as Shahid posits, this is not nearly enough to raise the level of awareness needed for a required recovery. For that, institutional, governmental, public and social mobilization is required.
To lament yet be hopeful is a synesthetic expression of grief and aspiration that Kashmiris are all too familiar with. And in Shahid’s case, as a professional Kashmiri fly fisher, he has much to lament and be hopeful for in what concerns his infatuation with fishing at naturally-occurring trout beats. In the firm look of hypnosis of someone who is about to take on a project, he says “I will improve or change the laws on fishing that were enacted in 1964, and that basically amount to 10-15 INR in penalties in the court of law”. And if it is up to him, he affirms “I would like there to be a non-bailable offense so no one tries to cut corners and fishing license regulations are more strictly followed”. He also sees re-distribution of staff as a positive solution, with more guards in place across the trout beats that have survived thus far. Another idea to preserve not only trout beats but other naturally occurring bodies of water is what Malcolm Crosse proposed in his incentivized ‘one rupee per piece of trash’ collection program on holidays.
The End of the End
The death of the trout beat is just one example of loss and the cascading effects of damage to water bodies and their flora and fauna requires greater study and considerable amounts of research. In this unfolding of time, a hurt in Kashmir exists beyond utter human devastation.It is the hurt of a dying river that no longer has sufficient water to wail a whisper as its flow has been silenced by scarcity.
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A 67 year old man in a hat sits in a house down by a Lidder River that used to soothe people to sleep with the whispery flow of its abundant waters once the gunfire ceased to roar from the nearby hills back in the 90s, “In my childhood I used to fish for the cherished Anood, a flat-headed fish”, he laments,“but we have no such things anymore. It’s all a memory and nothing else”.
And yet it is from this peculiar nothingness that something is to be found, perhaps as mere hope, perhaps as a will to change, and perhaps as volition to drive towards a different course of action, all grounded in the memory of that which once was. In the case of the dying ecology of Kashmir, its devastated trout beats and depleted water bodies, an intermediary is required; a witness. In this particular Kashmiri fly fisher’s tale, Shahid has been that witness.
1)http://www.tasfish.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=334:top-5-anglers&catid=57:issue-31-dec-2000&Itemid=104
2)http://jkfisheries.in/Former_Directors.htm
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