96 The Confessions of a ^Poacher. 



here, if overhung by trees, there is always 

 abundance of food. Whenever it was our 

 intention to net a dub, we carefully examined 

 every inch of its bottom beforehand. If it had 

 been "thorned," every thorn was carefully 

 removed small thorn bushes with stones 

 attached, and thrown in by the watchers to 

 entangle nets. Of course fish-poaching can 

 never be tackled single-handed. In ''long- 

 netting" the net is dragged by a man on each 

 side, a third wading after to lift it over the 

 stakes, and to prevent the fish from escaping. 

 When the end of the pool is reached the 

 salmon and trout are simply drawn out upon 

 the pebbles. This is repeated through the 

 night until half-a-dozen pools are netted 

 probably depopulated of their fish. Netting 

 of this description is a wholesale method of 

 capture, always supposing that we are allowed 

 our own time. It requires to be done slowly, 

 however, as if alarmed we can do nothing but 

 abandon the net. This is necessarily large, 

 and when thoroughly wet is cumbersome 

 and exceedingly heavy. The loss of one of 



