190 Poachers and Poaching. 



net a " dub " he carefully examines every inch 

 of its bottom beforehand. If it has been thorned, 

 he carefully removes these small thorned bushes 

 with stones attached, and thrown in by the 

 watchers to entangle the poachers' nets and 

 so allow the fish to escape. At night the 

 poacher comes, unrolls his long net on the 

 pebbles, and then commences operations at the 

 bottom of the river reach. The net is dragged 

 by a man at each side, a third wading after 

 to lift it over the stakes, and so preventing the 

 fish from escaping. When the end of the pool 

 is reached the trout are simply drawn out upon 

 the pebbles. This is repeated through the night 

 until half-a-dozen pools are netted, and maybe 

 depopulated of their fish. Netting of this de- 

 scription is a wholesale method of destruction, 

 always supposing that the poachers are allowed 

 their own time. It requires to be done slowly, 

 however, and if alarmed they can do nothing 

 but abandon their net and run. This is neces- 

 sarily large, and when thoroughly wet is most 

 cumbersome and exceedingly heavy. The 

 capturing of a net stops the depredations of the 

 poachers for a while, as these being large take 

 long to make. For narrow streams pretty much 

 the same method as that indicated above is used, 

 only the net is smaller, and to it are attached 

 two poles. The method of working this is 

 similar to that of the last. 



