WESTERN WATERS 147 



a sheep net weighed down with a ploughshare 

 to these and similar ignoble methods have 

 many gallant fish succumbed from time to time. 

 I have counted them, on one day, in a pool 

 from which there was no possibility of exit 

 except from above, and on the morrow have 

 mourned over their reduced numbers, and the 

 scars of some of the survivors. Still, poaching 

 is not very common, and the course of the river 

 is so open that it is easily detected. 



I wonder whether I shall ever recover the 

 gaff I lost in the " Irishman " last year ? I had 

 hooked a fish, and was playing him in bright 

 sunshine, when suddenly, and without the 

 slightest warning, down swept a squall from 

 the hillside, accompanied by torrents of rain, 

 straight in my face, so violent that it was diffi- 

 cult to stand and hold my rod upright. Before 

 I had got my fish I was soaked to my wading- 

 stockings ; my mackintosh, alas ! lay on the 

 bank above me, and my fingers were numb, 

 and my rod sending rivulets of water down my 

 sleeves. I brought the fish within reach, and 

 gaffed him, but the slippery landing-handle 

 escaped from my grasp, and it bobbed up and 

 down three or four times in the deepest part of 

 the pool, and then sank to rise no more. The 

 fish, however, was still on, and gained nothing 

 except the sweets of revenge ; for he was out 

 on the bank in a minute more, receiving a 



