WHAT IS POACHING. 263 



there is a slight dimple in the water below, a sound in 

 the dead stillness, as if a drop of water had fallen into 

 a well, followed by a considerable splashing and a rush 

 under the bank if you do not prevent it, and you must 

 play and get your fish out in the best way you can. If 

 he is a very good one, your chance of losing him is con- 

 siderable. Daping is in some places called ' shade-fishing.' 

 It is as great a stretch of a permission for a day's^Zy-fishing 

 as any gentleman could be guilty of more this deponent 

 sayeth not. It would be thought that where worm-fishing 

 is prohibited, every other species of bait-fishing would be 

 also prohibited ; yet is this not the case, for on many waters 

 dibbing with the natural fly which is, perhaps, the most 

 deadly style of fishing of any in experienced hands is 

 permitted, while minnow and worm are excluded, and even 

 called poaching. I have noticed that the piscatorial mind 

 has a strange way of looking upon the word poaching. 

 With many people ' poaching ' means fishing in any other 

 way than that favoured by the appellant. It, in fact, as 

 Hudibras has it, 



Compounds for sins they feel inclined to, 

 By d ing those they've got no mind to. 



Had I my will I would never allow a trout to be caught 

 with anything but the artificial fly, and should, under 

 such circumstances, look upon all bait-fishing as poach- 

 ing, no matter how employed. But as men are consti- 

 tuted, each has his favourite mode of fishing, and all must 

 be served. The only things I resolutely bar, and will not 

 hold admissible under any circumstances, are salmon roe 

 and wasp-grub. The first because it is illegal and destruc- 

 tive of the salmon (for to bait your hook with three or four 

 salmon to catch one trout is very bad economy) ; while 

 the second spoils the sport of others, for where wasp-grub 

 has been used to any extent sport ceases. In all other 



