The methods of the fish poacher are many. The chances of success, too, are greatly in his favour, for he works silently and always in the night. He walks abroad during the day and makes mental notes of men and fish. He knows the beats of the watchers, and has the waterside, as it were, by heart. He can work as well in the dark as in the light, and this is essential to his silent trade. During summer and when the water becomes low the fish congregate in deep "dubs." This they do for protection, and if overhung with trees there is always here abundance of food. If a poacher intends to net a "dub" he carefully examines every inch of its bottom beforehand. If it has been thorned, he carefully removes these small thorned bushes with stones attached, and thrown in by the watchers to entangle the poachers' nets and so allow the fish to escape. At night the poacher comes, unrolls his long net on the pebbles, and then commences operations at the bottom of the river reach. The net is dragged by a man at each side, a third wading after to lift it over the stakes, and so preventing the fish from escaping. When the end of the pool is reached the trout are simply drawn out upon the pebbles. This is repeated through the night until half-a-dozen pools are netted, and maybe depopulated of their fish. Netting of this description is a wholesale method of destruction, always supposing that the poachers are allowed their own time. It requires to be done slowly, however, and if alarmed they can do nothing but abandon their net and run. This is necessarily large, and when thoroughly wet is most cumbersome and exceedingly heavy. The capturing of a net stops the depredations of the poachers for a while, as these being large take long to make. For narrow streams pretty much the same method as that indicated above is used, only the net is smaller, and to it are attached two poles. The method of working this is similar to that of the last.