What you wanted was just a little bit of peace and quiet. What you got didn’t quite meet the brief! But what are angling’s ultimate nuisance factors? Here are a few contenders...
LITTLE OIKS
YES, we need to look to the next generation to boost fishing. But why do all the local yobs head to the canal on your day off? If they’re not throwing things into the water or jumping in, they’re trying to talk “street” to each other. Even though they live in a tinpot rural town, and the closest they’ll come to “thug life” is dropping a crisp packet outside Aldi.
THOUGHTLESS BOATERS
WHILE we’d espouse a “live and let live” approach to shared waterways, there’s no getting round just how antisocial some of our more energetic boating enthusiasts are. Pleasure paddlers tend to be pleasant, but what is it with those posh, upper-crust types who assemble rowing crews? Not only do they travel at high speed, accompanied by a noisy control freak on a bicycle, but they whizz along backwards without even looking where they are going. Other common offenders include motorised craft that behave like they’re in a Bond-style chase sequence, and hired narrowboats crewed by sozzled stag parties.
THE ROYAL BIRDS…
WHY on earth do the public love swans so much? These birds are the Prince Andrew of British wildlife – privileged and regal-looking, yet thick as mince, and with a personality about as attractive as a dropped kebab. When not bullying other water birds, they love to terrorise anglers with aggressive behaviour and those impossibly clumsy landing and take-off sequences where they decimate the water in a blur of slapping feet.
BRITAIN’S DIRE WEATHER
WE SHOULD be used to it, living in this country. Hopeless forecasts and completely random, generally crap weather. But such is its unpredictability, we continue to be tortured by it. One week you will return home looking like a used teabag. The next, you will spend the entire day taking off and adding layers in a doomed quest to achieve some degree of comfort.
JOE AND JOANNE PUBLIC
WHAT is it with walkers and general
