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"Hunting in Pakistan, Old Tales" - continued

PART THREE.- A RECORD WITH TROOPS

The last part of the trip to the wonderful Pakistan occurred on an isolated location of the Punjab Province called (please Iqbal, correct if wrong) Kalabajh. This small town is placed northwest of Lahore, and accessible by a beautiful old iron “railway-like” bridge over the Indus River, probably built by the British when India was part of the Empire.

Right before crossing the bridge, two trucks full of soldiers where waiting for us, and surprisingly were there to conduct us to the palace of the Azam Khan family which was going to serve as a base camp. AND WHAT A CAMP!!! A fantastic small Palace stopping the waters of the Indus River, surrounded by the dry mountains typical of that part of the Country. So we got there flanked by a numerous “de Corps Troops”.

I don´t think I can describe the inside of our camp. Don´t imagine gold filled walls and things of new rich´s bad taste like that. The high class of the building was based in very different things. I don´t know what but it was on the air, I could smell it.

"At the palace´s back door dressed with the pakistani suite" That was my best discover for mountain hunting. I still use it weather permiting. It is just about like going nude, or isn´t it Iqbal"

So we spent 3 days there, where we had the chance of having a formal dinner with our noble host, a Cambridge educated gentleman that gave us his best treatment during our stay with him. As a farming engineer he was very proud of his farm´s projects based in the introduction of a great number of Tropical fruit plants of a very wide world´s origin, that we had the chance to carefully see by ourselves.

On the first hunting day I got familiar with the Punjab Urial, of which I saw a good number of rams. The measures I took as a good reference from the SCI Record Book was anything bigger than 25 inches.

For some reasons the population of the Punjab Urial, concentrated in the Salt Range (also called Salt Range Urial) has seculary suffered from different sickness and ills, that sometimes lowed the sheep numbers to a very severe levels, concerning to big males mainly. This is what I was told but I ignore the reason why mainly to old rams.

We hunted accompanied with the 2 trucks with soldiers when the Nwabazada Azam Khan came with us on the first morning. And more over, I saw medium-heavy artillery placed in the tops of the mountains like to prevent an attack.

So I asked and so was told, than the brother of our host (that was the head of the family) was killed by a kind of guerrilla when he was driving around somewhere. So our host increased the level of protection of his family (Iqbar, maybe you can put some light in this).

On the second day, 4 or 6 soldiers went with us for the hunt, serving as protection too. Around 10 in the morning we saw a group of three big males, where manly one looked huge to me. After half an hour stalking I had the chance to take a difficult shot that I missed. The animals where going up a gullet and never stopped. So I took the shot to the back of that big ram. They passed over the other side.

Along with my hunter Nassir, we re-found and approached the group close to two and a half hours latter. I saw the big one again and this time I promised that I thought I was watching an Argali instead of a Moufloniform sheep. Close to a 200 yards one shot kill made the Urial kiss the ground.

"The fantastic Punjab Urial"

Nassir and I were one man when we got embraced; we shouted, we danced and we thanked Allah for being so lucky. We measured the horn, just for curiosity (as I´m not too fond about measures and that stuff, except for having a valid reference), and it was well passed 31 inches long.

This part of the Country is definitely not the Caucasus, the Himalayas or the Rocky Mts., but as well as almost all sheep and goats of the world, the hunt can get tough if you don´t comply with the first animal you see. If not because of a big mountain, a certain hunting situation can make you sweat as you may do in the highest mountain.

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