Page:Natural History, Fishes.djvu/250

236 are carefully landed; and five hundred Salmon have been taken at a single haul.

If the season be favourable from the 1st of July to the 12th of August, the daily average may be five hundred Salmon, besides an immense quantity of white Trout. But should the weather be rainy or tempestuous, the Salmon forsake the estuary and remain at sea till it clears; so that the time limited by law sometimes elapses before a moiety of the fish can be secured.

Through the winter months the Salmon rises freely at the fly; but the diminution of vigour and energy in the fish affords very inferior sport. Their beauty and their value too are gone. "They are now reddish, dull, dark-spotted, perch-coloured fish, and seem a different species from the sparkling, silvery creatures we saw them when they first left the sea. As an esculent they are utterly worthless,—soft, flabby, and flavourless if brought to table:—instead of the delicate pink hue they exhibited when in condition, they present a sickly, unhealthy, white appearance, that betrays how complete the change is that they have recently undergone.

"And yet at this period they suffer most from night-fishers. This species of poaching is as difficult to detect, as it is ruinous in its consequences. It is believed that the destruction of a few breeding fish may cost the proprietor a thousand."

Night-fishing is prosecuted when the river is low and the night moonless. The poacher, armed with a gaff and carrying a torch, selects the gravelly shallows, where he may see the fish depositing its spawn; he readily discovers them with the torch, and secures them with the gaff. Hundreds