John F.L.S. Watson
Poachers and Poaching
Of all our British birds none is so beautiful or so secluded in its habits as the kingfisher; and its presence is peculiarly in keeping with the rapid, rocky trout streams which it loves to haunt. Although glowing with metallic lustres, and beautiful in its adaptation and every movement, the kingfisher builds but a careless nest, a loose structure of dry fish bones—the hard indigestible parts of its food which, in common with birds of prey, it has the power of ejecting in pellets by the mouth. Again, let us look out the bird in its haunts. We follow the course of the hazel-fringed stream over a mile of its pebbly reaches; now a dipper flits from a green mossy stone, and a pair of sandpipers start with tremulous wings and skirt the shingle-strewn banks. Among the flags the water-voles gnaw the sweet saccharine aquatic plants, and the water-hens run and hide under the friendly roots of an overhanging thorn. The May-fly is upon the stream, the silvery fresh run fish are all animation, and even the great black trout in the "willow dub" condescends to take a fat blue-bottle that is spinning round and round the pool. Dragon-flies dart hither and thither, bronze fly and bee are upon the wing, and the carpet of grass and flowers is alive with innumerable insects, all busily engaged in fertilising their floral friends, or revelling in nectar, and gilded with golden pollen. The lime-trees are "a murmurous haunt of summer wings," and the breath of summer is on our cheek. Over there is an overhanging, leafless bough and upon it has just alighted a kingfisher. At first its form is motionless, then it assumes more animation, and anon is all eye and ear. Then it falls, hangs for a moment in the air like a kestrel, and returns to its perch. Again it darts with unerring aim and secures something. This is tossed, beaten and broken with a formidable beak, and swallowed head foremost. This process is again and again repeated, and we find that the prey is small fish. From watching an hour we are entranced with the beauty of the fluttering, quivering thing as the sun glints from its green and gold vibrations in mid-air. We gain some estimation, too, of the vast amount of immature fish which a pair of kingfishers and their young must destroy in a single season.4 Later in summer the young brood may be seen with open quivering wings, constantly calling as the parent birds fly up and down stream. Their food consists almost entirely of fish throughout the year, though during the rigour and frosts of winter they betake themselves to the estuaries of tidal rivers, where their food of molluscs and shore-haunting creatures are daily replenished by the tides. Kingfishers are among the most persistent of trout-stream poachers, and as many as eighty of these beautiful birds have been killed in a season on a famous nursery in the midlands. As in the case of the heron, nothing will save the fry from these marauders but covering in the rearing ponds with the finest wire net. However one may wish to protect the kingfisher, there is no denying the fact of its penchant for fish, especially the fry of salmon and trout; the bad habit is bred in him.
The fact of salmon and trout devouring the spawn of their own kind has been already referred to, and unfortunately the practice is continued after the eggs are hatched. The big fish sometimes so terrify the tiny trout and samlets that the latter throw themselves clear out of the water and lay gasping on the pebbles, while the would-be devourer beats about the shallows disappointed at losing his prey. An old "kelt" salmon has been seen to devour fifty of his own progeny for breakfast; and the pike is a greater water-wolf still. This fish has been known to increase at the enormous rate of from eight to ten pounds a year when favourably placed for feeding. So voracious a creature is the pike, and furnished with such digestion, that it will destroy a half-pound trout a day for twelve months—a terrible drain upon any stream. Then it has an all-capacious maw for silvery smolts as they are making their way down to the sea, and of these at certain seasons it devours myriads. Of course pike keep coarse fish under, which are indirectly injurious to trout, and in this way confer a benefit upon the angler. There is another way in which he is beneficial, and that is as a scavenger. A diseased salmon or trout never lives more than a few minutes in his presence, for he gulps down fish, fungus, and all. In this connection there is one fact which ought not to be overlooked. Of late years disease has played terrible havoc in some of the best rivers in the country. In one of these, known to the writer, scarcely a fish is caught which does not show scars left by the disease—want of tail, partial loss of fins, and white patches where the fungus has previously grown. That numbers of the fish attacked do survive there can be no question; and that the disease may be prevented at the cost of a few fish we have but little doubt. This may be considered a bold assertion; but in these days of artificial rearing, re-stocking, and preservation, anglers and angling associations are apt either to forget or to ignore the balance of nature. Now, nature rarely overlooks an insult. Destroy her appointed instruments and beware of her revenge. That the salmon and trout may live a whole host of stream-haunting creatures are condemned, and that often upon the most insufficient evidence.
The creature against which the angler "breathes hot roarings out" is the otter. But how few fish does the otter really destroy! The evidence to be gathered by those who live along its streams all goes to show that eels and freshwater crayfish form the staple of its food. In search of these, it wanders miles in a night and will not partake of soft-bodied fish so long as they can be found. The economy of the otter ought not to be overlooked in connection with sport and our fish supply. Probably its increasing rarity has as much to do with the disease alluded to as had the extermination of the nobler birds of prey with the grouse disease. A falcon always takes the easiest chance at its prey; and an otter captures the slowest fish. In each case they kill off the weakest, the most diseased, and thereby secure the survival of the fittest. Most of the newspaper paragraphs anent the doings of otters are mere legendary stories without any foundation in fact. The otter is not a "fish-slicer." Salmon found upon the rocks with the flesh bitten from the shoulders are oftener than not there by agents other than Lutra. A great deal of unnatural history has been written concerning the "water-dog," mostly by those who have never had opportunity of studying the otter in its haunts. That it occasionally destroys fish we will not deny; but this liking has become such a stereotyped fact (?) in natural history that it is glibly repeated, parrot-like, and has continued so long, that most have come to accept it. Ask the otter-hunter, the old angler of the rocky northern streams, the field naturalist who has many a night stretched his length along a slab of rock to observe the otter at home—and each has the same answer. Abundance of otters and plenty of trout exist side by side; and where the fastnesses of the former are impregnable, there disease is foreign to the stream. Many otters, many trout; this is a bit of nature's economy there is no gainsaying. Here is an actual incident. There is a certain reach on a well-known trout stream which is so overgrown with wood and coppice as to render it unfishable. This reach swarms with handsome well-fed trout; and yet far back among the rocky shelves of the river a brood of otters are brought forth annually, have been in fact time out of mind. And yet another incident. Of forty-five dead otters killed in hunting, in two only were there remains of fish food, and this consisted of eels—deadly enemies either to trout stream or salmon river. These forty-five otters, for the most part, were killed before six in the morning, and consequently when their stomachs were most likely to contain traces of what had been taken in their night's fishing.
One of the most curious enemies of our freshwater fishes is a small floating water-weed, the bladderwort. Along its branchlets are a number of small green vesicles or bladders, which, being furnished with minute jaws, seize upon tiny fish, which are assimilated into its substance. This is a subtle poacher, the true character of which has only lately been detected. The bladderwort is a fairly common plant, and no very special interest attached to it ere its fish-eating propensities were discovered. Its tiny vesicles were known to contain air, and the only use of these so far as was known was to keep the plant afloat—a belief, be it remarked, all the more reasonable because many aquatic plants actually have such air receptacles for that very purpose. The tiny bladders attached to the leaves and leaf-stalks are each furnished with a door, the whole acting on the eel-trap principle, entrance being easy but exit impossible. There is nothing very formidable about the delicate green jaws of the vegetable trap, only that any tiny water creature that ventures in to look round out of mere curiosity never by any chance emerges alive. The first time that the bladder-wort was actually caught at its fish-poaching proclivities, so to speak, was by Professor Moseley, of Oxford. He and a friend had, in a large glass bowl, a plant of this species and also a number of young roach just hatched. The murderous plant held several of the tiny fish in its jaws; and upon an experiment being tried in a separate vessel, it was found that a single plant had captured no less than a dozen fish in the space of six hours. One of these was caught by the head, another by the tail, a third by the yolk-sac, and in another instance two bladders had seized the same fish, one holding on at each extremity. In spite of all this tiny ferocity it must be admitted that this little plant poacher is more interesting than dangerous, and so long as it confines its attention to coarse fish neither the salmon-fisher nor trout-angler will concern himself much about its aquatic depredations.
There is one wholesale method of destruction which particularly affects salmon, which cannot be passed over. This is done by almost innumerable nets, and is usually practised at the mouths of rivers and generally without the slightest regard to the economy of the fish supply. And it has been found that as salmon and the means of transit increase, so does the number of destructive nets. Theoretically, legislation is levelled against this wanton destruction, but practically the law is a dead letter. At every tide, in certain seasons, hundreds of thousands of salmon-fry and smolts are sacrificed; and in a certain firth it is recorded how a fisherman in his nets walked, in many places, knee deep in dead smolts, and that the ground for a considerable distance was silvered with their scales. Under these circumstances the samlets sometimes accumulate to such an extent that they have to be carted on to the nearest land and used as manure. This waste of valuable fish food is so great that it can hardly be reckoned, and in future years must tell greatly upon the British yield of salmon. Mill-wheels5 and hatches, too, are often great sources of destruction.
Another enemy to salmon and trout is the great black cormorant—a poacher that studies their migratory and local movements, and acts accordingly. It is the habit of this bird to visit small rivers which flow into the sea, especially during the late winter and early spring months. At these seasons the smolts are preparing to come down, and the kelts of salmon and sea trout are assembling in the large pools prior to their return to salt water. A brace of cormorants which were shot at their fishing were found to contain twenty-six and fourteen salmon smolts respectively, and a trustworthy water bailiff asserts that he once watched a couple of cormorants hunt and kill a kelt salmon, and that after dragging it ashore they commenced tearing it up, when they were driven off. It was once thought that both the cormorant and heron only ate that which they could swallow whole, but this is now known not to be strictly correct.
And now, finally, we come to the man poacher. Fish poaching is practised none the less for the high preservation and stricter watching which is so characteristic of the times. In outlying country towns with salmon and trout streams in the vicinity it is carried on to an almost incredible extent. There are many men who live by it, and women to whom it constitutes a thriving trade. These know neither times nor seasons, and, like the heron and the kingfisher, poach the whole year round. They provide the chief business of the county police-court, and the great source of profit to the local fish and game dealer. The wary poacher never starts for his fishing grounds without having first secured his customer; and it is surprising with what lax code of morals the provincial public will deal when the silent night worker is one to the bargain. Of course the public always gets cheap fish and fresh fish—so fresh, indeed, that the life has not yet gone out of it. It is a perfectly easy matter to poach fish, and the difficulty lies in conveying them into the towns and villages. The poacher never knows but that he may meet some county constable along the unfrequented country roads, and consequently never carries his game upon him. This he secretes in stacks and ricks and disused farm buildings until such times as it may be safely sent for. Country carriers, early morning milk carts, and women are all employed in getting fish into town. In this the women are most successful. Sometimes they may be seen labouring under a heavy load carried in a sack, with faggots and rotten sticks protruding from the mouth; or again with a large basket innocently covered with crisp green cresses which effectually hide the bright silvery fish beneath.
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.
A species of poaching which the older hands rarely go in for is that of poisoning. Chloride of lime is the agent most in use, as it does not injure the edible parts. This is thrown into the river where fish are known to be, and its deadly influence is soon seen. The fish become poisoned and weakened, and soon float belly uppermost. This at once renders them conspicuous, and as they are on the surface of the stream, they are simply lifted out of the water in a landing-net. This is a wholesale and cowardly method, as it frequently poisons the fish for miles down stream; it not only kills the larger fish, but destroys great quantities of immature ones which are wholly unfit for food. Trout which come by their death in this way have the usually pink parts of a dull white, with the eyes and gill-covers of the same colour and covered with a thin white film. This substance, too, is much used in mills on the banks of trout streams, and probably more fish are destroyed by this kind of pollution in a month than the most inveterate poacher will kill in a year.
Throughout summer fish are in season, but the really serious poaching is practised during close time. When spawning, the senses of both salmon and trout seem to become dulled, and they are not at all difficult to approach in the water. The fish seek the higher reaches to spawn, and stay for a considerable time on the pebble beds. The salmon offer fair marks, and the poacher obtains them by spearing. A pronged instrument is driven into the fleshy shoulders of the fish, and it is hauled out on to the bank. In this way sometimes more fish are obtained in a single night than can be carried away; and when the gang is chased by the watchers the fish have generally to be left behind, as they are difficult things to carry. The flesh of spawning fish is loose and watery, and is most insipid and tasteless. It is, however, sold to the poorest class of people at a few pence per pound. In one outlying village during last close season poached salmon was so common that the cottagers fed their poultry upon it through the whole winter. It is said that several fish were taken each over twenty pounds in weight. Another way of securing salmon and trout from the spawning "redds" is by means of "click-hooks." These are simply large salmon-hooks bound together shaft to shaft and attached to a long cord; a bit of lead balances them and adds weight. These are used in deep rivers, where spearing by wading is impracticable. When a fish is seen the hooks are simply thrown beyond it, and then gently dragged until they come immediately beneath; a sharp "click" usually sends them into the soft under-parts of the fish, which is then drawn out. That natural poacher, the pike, is frequently ridded from trout streams in this fashion. Of course, poaching with click-hooks requires to be done in the light, or by the aid of an artificial one. Lights attract salmon and trout just as they attract birds, and tar brands are frequently used by poachers. Shooting is sometimes resorted to, but for this class of poaching the habits and beats of the water bailiffs require to be accurately known. The method has the advantage of being quick, and a gun in skilful hands and at a short distance may be used without injuring the fleshy parts of the body. That deadly bait, salmon roe, is now rarely used, the method of preparing it having evidently gone out with the old-fashioned poachers, who used it with such deadly effect.
The capture of either poachers or their nets is often difficult to accomplish. The former wind their sinuous way, snake-like, through the wet meadows in approaching the rivers, and their nets are rarely kept at home. These they secrete about farm buildings, in dry ditches, or among the bushes in close proximity to their poaching grounds. Were they kept at home the obtaining of a search warrant by the police or local angling association would always render their custody a critical one. They are sometimes kept in the poachers' houses, though only for a short period when about to be used. At this time the police have found them secreted in the chimney, between the bed and the mattress, or even wound about the portly persons of the poachers' wives. The women are not always simply aiders and abettors, but in poaching, sometimes play a more important rôle. They have frequently been taken red-handed by the watchers. The vocation of these latter is a hard one. They work at night, and require to be most on the alert during rough and wet weather—in the winter, when the fish are spawning. Sometimes they must remain still for hours in freezing clothes; and even in summer they not unfrequently lie all night in dank and wet herbage. They see the night side of nature, and many of them are fairly good naturalists. If a lapwing gets up and screams in the darkness they know how to interpret the sound, as also a hare rushing wildly past. It must be confessed, however, that at all points the fish poacher is cleverer and of readier wit than the river watcher.
