Then we stepped into the wheel-house, where the water,
all yellow and foaming, was pouring into two compartments set with iron
gratings below, on which it rose and foamed. Seizing a long pole with
prongs like walrus teeth, the miller felt below the water on the bars.
"Here's one, anyway," he said, and by a dexterous haul scooped up a
monster eel on to the floor. In a box which he hauled from the dam he had
more, some of 5-lb. weight, which had come down with the flood--an easy
and profitable fishery, for the eels can lie in the trap till he hauls
them out, and sell well summer and winter. It pays as well as a poultry
yard. Once he took a 9-lb. fish; 2-1/2 lb. to 4 lb. are common.
The eel-trap on the old Thames mill stream is imitated in other places
where there is no mill. Thus at Mottisfont Abbey on the Test an old mill
stream is used to work an hydraulic ram, and also to supply eels for the
house; the water is diverted into the eel-trap, and the fish taken at any
time. Another dodge for taking eels, which is not in the nature of what is
called a "fixed engine," is the movable eel-trap or "grig wheel." It is
like a crayfish basket, and is in fact the same thing, only rather larger.
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