6o STAGHUNTING WITH THE 



this same deep pool one might have seen in 

 years gone bv, after an October spate, a salmon 

 or two secured by a noose of copper wire passed 

 above the tail and cleverly attached to a bending 

 alder bough, to be retrieved after dark by some 

 cunning poacher. At spawning time salmon run 

 freely up both Exe and Barle for many a mile, 

 if only there is water enough to float them, to 

 the tiny streams that trickle down the moorland 

 combes, and in the shallow pools beneath the 

 rocks the great hsh may be seen, sometimes 

 quite landlocked, if the flood falls rapidly. The 

 river Haddeo in its wildest floods seldom has 

 volume enough to be unfordable, but will often 

 rise quite unexpectedly, when perhaps there has 

 been a heavy rainfall on the Brendon hills, 

 while the Exe and Barle still remain placid and 

 uncoloured. 



Beaten deer seem to realise that a heavy 

 water is their safest refuge, and in the wide 

 stretches near Dulverton it is often a very 

 difficult matter indeed to handle a stag that 

 stands at bav far out from the dripping banks. 

 These are the occasions on which hounds are 

 apt to suffer from the exposure to the chilling 

 stream, and from being caught at a disadvantage 

 by the antlers of a fighting stag. In particularly 

 dry seasons stags appear to know where 

 the deep weir pools, few and far between, 

 are to be found, and doubtless they bathe in 



