A Good Haul. 187 



During the spawning season, as was observed pre- 

 viously, jack go in pairs, and now and then in trios, 

 and of this the poacher avails himself to take more 

 than one at a haul. The fish lie so close together — 

 side by side just at that time — that it is quite practic- 

 able, with care and judgment, to slip a wire over two 

 at once. When near the bank two may even be cap- 

 tured with a good withy noose : with a wire a clever 

 hand will make a certainty of it. The keeper says 

 that on one occasion he watched a man operating just 

 without his jurisdiction, who actually succeeded in 

 wiring three jacks at once and safely landed them on, 

 the grass. They were small fish, about a pound to a 

 pound and a half each, and the man was but a few 

 minutes in accomplishing the feat. It sometimes 

 happens that after a heavy flood, when the brook has 

 been thick with suspended mud for several days, so 

 soon as it has gone down fish are more than usually 

 plentiful, as if the flood had brought them up-stream : 

 poachers are then particularly busy. 



Fresh fish — that is, those who are new to that 

 particular part of the brook — are, the poachers say, 

 much more easily captured than those who have made 

 it their home for some time. They are, in fact, more 

 easily discovered ; they have not yet found out all the 

 nooks and corners, the projecting roots and the hollows 



