192 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME. 



When it has risen up towards the surface sufficiently far — 

 the tench must not be driven too near the surface, for it 

 does not Hke Hght and will glide away — the poacher 

 suddenly snaps as it were ; his thumb and fingers, if he 

 possibly can manage it, closing on the gills. The body 

 is so slimy and slippery that there alone a firm hold can 

 be got, though the poacher will often flick the fish out of 

 water in an instant so soon as it is near the surface. 

 Poachers evidently feel as much pleasure in practising 

 these tricks as the most enthusiastic angler using the im- 

 plements of legitimate sport. 



No advantage is thought too unfair to be taken of fish ; 

 nothing too brutally unsportsmanlike. I have seen a pike 

 killed with a prong as he lay basking in the sun at the top 

 of the water. A labourer stealthily approached, and 

 suddenly speared him with one of the sharp points of the 

 prong or hayfork he carried : the pike was a good-sized 

 one too. 



The stream, where not strictly preserved, is frequently 

 netted without the slightest regard to season. The net is 

 stretched from bank to bank, and watched by one man, 

 while the other walks up the brook thirty or forty yards, 

 and drives the fish down the current into the bag. With 

 a long pole he thrashes the water, making a good deal of 

 splash, and rousing up the mud, which fish dislike and 

 avoid. The pole is thrust into every hiding-place, and 

 pokes everything out. The watcher by the net knows by 



