As a boy, I was always keen on all country sports, fishing was and always will be my first love but I also loved ratting, rabbiting and shooting. I love to see dogs work whether in the field, police dogs or the working collie. I also had a fascination with country people, farmers, blacksmiths and Thatcher’s, but most of all with the old style country poacher. The old type of poacher was unlike the modern cowardly version, these misfits have no true knowledge of the countryside and usually work in gangs of two or three and there is always at least one “Head banger” amongst them. They are generally from large towns or cities and will resort to violence if disturbed.

In rivers they have wet suits, nets and will use large leaded treble hooks but worst of all they use cyanide, this not only kills all the fish including Parr and minnows but all the little nymphs, shrimps and caddis larvae therefore decimating all future fly life for miles downstream. Can you imagine the damage this does especially if cyanide is used during a drought? Which is when poachers are most likely to be active. There is also a good chance that farm animals, which are used to slaking their thirst in the river, may also have an agonising death.

My old friend Dylan was a poacher of the old school, he never resorted to violence. He was a very good fly fisherman and fly tier but the poaching bit was always there. He’s now long dead so there is no harm in telling you about an incident, which happened about 50 years ago; I was about 10 years of age. Dylan’s favourite poaching method in the rivers was with a net. O.K. he could completely empty a pool in a single night’s session but this wasn’t all that serious 50 years ago as the pool would quickly refill, fresh fish would come in on every tide. Also, he would only ‘do’ one pool per season. His method with the net was unique to him; you will be surprised to learn that he used the net in conjunction with a dead cat. Quite where he got a dead cat from every third week in July, I don’t know.

Anyhow, he’d position his net and attach the dead cat to a light rope. He would tow this through the pool, and would do this several times. The theory being, that thinking the cat was an otter, which had just entered the pool, the fish would panic in an effort to escape and would entangle themselves in the net. However, the incident, which I want to tell you about does not involve a cat in fact, it, involves a dog---my little dog Bess.

Dylan allowed me on some of his expeditions mainly because he liked my dog. Bess was a mongrel terrier she was very intelligent and was well trained. She loved ferreting and was a wizard working the long net, she would hunt like a hound running at speed with her nose to the ground and would retrieve as good as any gun dog. She was an ideal dog for a poacher, as she would tell us immediately on entering a gate at night, if there was a hare in the field. She would whine and stand shaking with excitement until the gate nets were on and she would then do her stuff, not trying to catch the hare she would just ‘run’ it and to drive it into the net, nine times out of ten we would have it.

Dylan particularly liked Bess because she would tell us as plain as if she could speak if there was a gamekeeper or policeman about.

One day Dylan told me that he had spotted a small shoal of large sewin in one of the local pools and he wanted to try a method, which was new to him. He’d managed to get hold of two sticks of gelignite from the quarry in Ewenny where he worked. He asked if I wanted to go with him to act as a lookout but I had to take Bess. We turned up at the river just as it was getting dark. In those days night fishing was not allowed so there were no anglers about, night time poaching was easier. I was told to walk Bess up and down the riverbank several times to ensure that we were on our own. This I did and reported to Dylan that all was clear. He got things ready, as I remember the gelignite was put in an old Tate & Lyle syrup tin in which he’d punched some holes with a hammer and nail, he fitted them up with detonators, trimmed the fuse to give about a minute before the bang and added a few stones for weight. At this point he told me to get up the bank into the field and wait until he joined me.

He lit the fuse, threw the tin into the deepest part of the pool and quickly followed me up the bank into the field. Now just how it happened I’m not sure, it might have been a floating branch that stopped the tin from sinking or perhaps Dylan hadn’t put enough stones in the tin. Anyway we both lay flat out with our hands over our ears looking back. There was just enough light for us to see Bess coming from the river carrying the tin in her mouth.

Drop it !! drop it !! I screamed, she dropped it on the grass only to shake the water from herself, then she picked it up again and came trotting toward us. We looked at each other in the dim light and realised there was only one thing to do; at the same time we both shouted run !!

We tore across the field with the dog following and picking up speed as she came. We both reached the hedge at the same time and had just dived over when there was this terrific bang close behind us. Even though it must have been heard for miles we had to go back to see what had happened to the dog.

All we could find was a 1ft crater and in the centre of this was her collar, which I took home and buried in the garden. Obviously we were both upset especially me as she was my dog and the bond between us was strong.

Do you know Dylan never blew another pool and what’s more I never kept another dog.

“Peter Ross”