Anglers behaving badly.

I was fishing Foynes pier yesterday evening and there was a group of five anglers from Dublin fishing the lower end of the pier. This party scatter litter around the pier, threw beer cans into the river. As if this was'nt bad enough when they caught a conger eel they went to the car, got a hammer and you can guess what happened next. It's thoughtless behaviour like this that gives us anglers a bad name. This country is now full of do gooders that are only waiting in the wings to pounce and ban this great past time of ours. I know that this was an isolated incident but it is the second occasion that I have witnessed the needless slaughter of fish and litter is becoming a major problem.
[b]So cop on lads, do everyone a favour, If you cant behave give up this sport. [/b]

Well, I saw Kids wanting to keep Coaly of my Local Pier.... After Enquiring what they were going to do with them, they replied ' Take them home', I enquired what they would do with them when they got them home... after looking bemused at their catch they realised they had absolutely nothing to do with them, So returned them, Good deed done for the day.

One Sunday morning I was at a public marina on the Shannon Erne waterway. There was a guy (He was Irish, from one of the hire cruisers) fishing off the jetty, all of a sudden he dropped his jeans and started to piss into the water, he thought he was hilarious. I didn't think so and I doubt if most of the foreign visitors in the other hire cruisers thought so either. I felt like pushing him in on top of his own piss, what an ahole. There's a very well kept public toilet about 50M away from where this happened, not to mention the one on his boat.

The single biggest complaint that visitors to this country have is regard to litter, I'm sure that loutish behaviour also gets a mention somewhere.

In a situation as described by "Guest" above you might feel that there's nothing you can do, well there is if they are creating litter, If they've got a car get the registration and report it to the local litter warden.

I have heard more reports about anglers from the one county up to the same aul s***.
Sooner or later we will all be banned from fishing the Shannon Estuary.
One angler reported the same thing happening at Cappa Pier conger bashing.
They love cutting wings off the Ray and they actually think they will grow back like the crabs claws...............

Unfortunately this goes for pretty much all aspects of fishing. I regularly fish the lakes for pike and the rivers for trout. Guaranteed everytime to find the usual array of beer tins, cider bottles, plastic bait bags, yards of line, to name a few items . Same goes for a few shore locations I've visited (not to fish as I can't cast worth a damn). The worst of it is that's it mostly down to laziness and ignorance as there's usually bins in the area provided specifically with anglers in mind.

If councils provide litter facilities and anglers don't use them, then unfortunatey they are within their rights to tell us to clear off, and we'll have no comeback. Time for the ignorant minority to wise up before they ruin it for us all.

I believe the same kind of carry on was occuring in Ringaskiddy quay and it was closed off to angling when it was redeveloped. I see in England piers being closed off for security reasons. I'd put money on Foynes being closed off in the next few years.

Donagh

Hi Guest 1

To be fair, I think there is no-one on this forum that is likely to engage in anti-social behaviour, although we would all echo your concern. We have all seen it or something similar. It is a bit like football hooliganism - a minority bring a game into disrepute and it is up to the real fans to educate and if necessary shame people into good behaviour.

Here is part of a recent email concerning another location where similar problems arise... "on Sunday, I was talking to Brendan, the chap that lives with his family in *******. We were talking about how he feels about people coming down etc. He said he doesn't mind the guys that come down to fish who are actually into fishing. What he does object to is lads coming down with the cans and radio's, generally ar*ing about. He told me just a couple of weeks ago, there were 3 lads down on the old ********. They had brought cans, a radio and food with them. The tide was coming in and the platform gets covered when in fully. So he went down to tell them and suggested they move to a higher spot. They told him to F off, so he told them the tide covers the spot they were at, when one of the lads took out a large machete-like knife and told him again to F off. Obviously, there's no need for this sort of carry on whatsoever, so B***** called the gardai who came and dealt with it."

Personally I would be very slow to approach a group of people who have been drinking who are behaving badly. Call the guards - it is a public order offence. Same goes for our friend on the boat - I'll bet he would not do it again if he had been taken down the station for a chat. On the few occasions where I or rather a group of us did intervene, it is how you say it rather than what is said that is important. A little bit of chat at the start rather than blurting out your condemnation often works wonders, especially if all that is needed is a little education.

Ray wings growing back! If it wasn't so pathetic...