76 MAKING A FISHERY. 



laws bearing on the subject — when and under 

 what conditions he is legally entitled to seize 

 nets or other illegal implements, or to search 

 the offender ; the conditions under which the 

 poacher can be charged with illegally taking 

 fish ; when trespass only can be proved ; and 

 when he can legally be only warned off. 



A first-rate keeper knows too that it is not 

 good policy to keep on bringing charges before 

 the magistrates, and he therefore often acts 

 so as to prevent, instead of detecting, poaching. 

 He sees men known to him as adepts in poach- 

 ing making for a point in the river, and, taking 

 a short cut across the meadows, he arrives 

 before them and waits in ambush. If he desired 

 to charge them he would, of course, keep out of 

 sight until they had perpetrated the offence, 

 but, as soon as their preparations are made, he 

 suddenly appears on the scene and orders them 

 off, calling them by name if possible. They 

 are usually thus scared and beat a headlong 

 retreat ; and the continual recurrence of such 

 action will soon convince them that it does not 

 pay to poach on this keeper's beat. After all, 

 the whole question is whether it pays, as there 

 is no pretence at anything like sport in wiring, 

 groping, or otherwise securing unseasonable 

 trout, or in taking them out after the water is 

 lowered to within a few inches of the bottom. 



