6 FLIES AND FLY FISHING. 



somewhere, and his night poaching was, as a rule, con- 

 fined to night lines, or the rod and worm : but principally 

 the former ; as from being out all day he did not care so 

 much about being out at night. I do not mean to say 

 that there was at that time no netting at nights, but owing 

 to the difficulty of disposing of any quantity of fish, it was 

 comparatively speaking very seldom practised* 



As to the keepers. On private trout streams the 

 owners seldom have a special water-keeper, but rely for 

 the preservation on their gamekeepers. Now, in former 

 days, these were sufficient to prevent much poaching, or 

 at any rate netting ; the only poachers about being men 

 who lived in the immediate neighbourhood and with 

 whom they were probably intimately acquainted. 



But a gamekeeper does not often think much about 

 water preservation and cannot be very often by the river, 

 and is therefore not sufficient to keep a water at all safe 

 now; whilst on club or association waters, although the 

 water-keepers are often honest hardworking men, and 

 earnest in their wish to do their duty, yet they have 

 everything against them. You very seldom hear of a 

 poacher being taken up, and yet every man you question 

 as to the reason for the scarcity of fish in a river near 

 where he lives, will account for it by the fact of its being 



