The much larger form of basket described by Mr. Buckland as “putts,” and as being used for catching flat fish, was of a slightly different make—formed only of two instead of three pieces; one large piece, so wide at the opening that I, as a girl, had no difficulty in standing within it, and a very much smaller piece, forming a kind of nose. This little adjunct was, I believe, taken off and searched by the fishermen for what it contained. To my sister Georgiana and myself it was a great pleasure to go down to where the two great eel-putts stood on clean shore at very low tide below the longest row of salmon-putchers, and search for anything that was to be found. My sister was a good conchologist. We searched for seaweed, &c., &c., and thereby got a deal of pleasant amusement. The fishermen, who knew us well, made no objection to our investigations, though, as one of the men remarked on one occasion, “It was not everybody they liked to see near the putts.”
In our immediate neighbourhood the fishermen were quiet—at least I never heard of their getting into very objectionable difficulties—but about eight miles higher up the river, near Lydney, things in this respect were by no means all that could be wished. On one occasion they captured the Fishery Inspector himself—whose duty it was to ascertain that the meshes were not below a certain measurement—and secured him in the nets. Another time somebody (who, unluckily for him, bore some resemblance to the obnoxious inspector) got nearly sloughed up in one of the great marsh ditches, and would have been left to live or die as might chance—probably the latter—but for the arrival of timely help. My father being one of the acting magistrates of the district, we used to hear from time to time of these and other “mauvaises plaisanteries” in the neighbourhood of the Forest of Dean.
On reference to the portion of the Ordnance Map (plate IX.) it will be seen that there is a broad band marked “mud,” of about a sixth of a mile in width at the widest part and extending for about a mile and a half by the side of the deep channel of the Severn, between it and the cliffs of the Beachley and Sedbury Bay.