I write as the owner of the fishing rights for approx 200 yards of a small river in East Anglia. Our house and garden are on one side of the river and on the opposite bank there is a public footpath on the land we own. For the first 8 years that we owned the fishing rights I cleared up after many grown up men who would sit for several hours fishing and enjoying their various snacks and drinks before driving home. The rule of thumb was a carrier bag full of rubbish collected every day during the fishing season.
Then one hot summer's evening I found a carrier bag tied with fishing line about 10 feet up a tree. DH retrieved the bag which contained the guts, bones etc of a fish which had been caught and killed which does not adhere to the rules of coarse fishing. I had had enough of the rubbish, the use of my land as a toilet by fishermen, the nights disturbed by fishermen shouting to each other what they had caught so I phoned our solicitor and asked him to check the deeds and advise me of MY rights.
How things have changed as we have enforced a NO FISHING policy on our land. Yes I have been threatened, sworn at and called all sorts of things. In addition the police have been called and fishermen who refused to leave have been removed. Two of our local police officers are keen fishermen and will not tolerate any nuisance. The Environment Agency river bailiff is helpful too - he likes to check the fishing licences are up to date!
But I will let children and teenagers fish in order to encourage them to the sport. I am always polite but firm with my requests for fishermen to leave and I find the majority of them are reasonable and understand my point of view.
Last weekend, in Rutland, the first statue in Britain of the late Elizabeth II was unveiled.