An Open Letter to the Anglers I met in White Bay, 16/9/10

[lodore]

Hi,

I met you recently in White Bay, Cork. I was fishing with a friend; you had two other anglers with you. You had excellent English. You came over for a chat, and, being fellow very fishermen we were happy to oblige. I did notice you were quicker with questions than you were with answers, but sometimes conversations go that way. Too bad for you that I sold you a line of bulls**t.

This would be neither here nor there except that we moved up to the part of beach where you were fishing after you and your friends had left. I had you figured as a reasonable guy; turns out I was wrong. The mess that you'd left behind would have taken a team of men to clear up. Discarded mono, plastic food wrappers––god knows that else. I noticed too on the walk down to the beach that there were bags full of rotting bait strewn along the path. I can't think who might have left them there. The nicest touch of all, though, was the glass beer bottles that you left for the tide to smash against the rocks. There's nothing like the thought of glass in a child's foot to warm your innards, is there? We cleaned up what we could, though at that stage most of it was floating the tide, waiting to be washed up. So you did well: you found some suckers to clean up your mess--even if you didn't catch any fish. I did, but that's another story.

You see, here's the thing: people from your country are sometimes tarred with with a certain reputation in Ireland, especially in angling circles. I'm not one of the people who does this; in my day job, I meet your compatriots all the time. I have invariably found them to be intelligent, generous and courteous––they have undoubtedly made a significant an positive contribution to Ireland and its development. You, however, are not like these people, so let me remind you of an important fact. When you fish a beach you fish it as a guest. A guest does not throw rubbish on the floor of his host's house. He does not hide the corpses of rotting fish around his host's property for him to find three days later when the bluebottles have hatched. He does not, by act or omission, set about to deliberately harm his host's children. You did all of these things.

So let's do a thought experiment. Let's say I go to Warsaw, or Cracow or Llodz. While I'm there I publicly offload my rubbish onto the street--don't worry, the wind will blow it away. Let's say I then visit a playground, where I engage in the merry fun of smashing glass bottles next to the toddlers' slide. Finally, I find myself inextricably in possession of some rancid meat. What does anyone do in this situation? They go to the park and leave it in a plastic bag behind the benches where the pensioners like to feed the pigeons, don't they. Does this sound familiar? No? Well it should.

And before you say it, yes, I know, Irish anglers leave rubbish behind them too. For what it's worth, I think they're actually worse than you--they're sh***ing on their own doorstep, which even a dog wouldn't do. But I didn't meet any Irish anglers on Thursday night. I met you.

So how about you and your buddies take a trip back to White Bay with a few refuse sacks and clean up your crap? Actually, it won't be your crap, because I cleaned that up already; but I don't think anyone would be too fussy as long as you clean up some crap.

And if this too much to ask, just remember that rubbish wardens only need evidence of origin to secure a conviction for littering. You said you fish White Bay a lot? Wow, with two witnesses, all anyone would need now is a license plate number to make a formal complaint ...

Lodore

[cathald]

Well said

and unfortunately it's an all to common practice for anglers to clean up after other anglers
If you read any of Al and Jordans reports they always seem to clean up after someone at the start of there great reports
It is not hard to have a plastic bag attached to your kit bag for any rubbish that you have through out the day and take it home with you and chuck it in the bin.
Some of the good marks need to be go to by going through private land and if a mess is being left at some of these spots the land owners will put a stop to anglers going through
So to all who leave a mark in a bit of a state CATCH YOURSELF ON

Cathal

[willie bendit]

Hear,hear! still I bet they always practice catch and release

[saving private brian]

well said mate.some of them foreigners are a disgrace to ireland there home country.same ere mate.sheep walkin around with hooks in there feet.choking on plastic and line etc.something or some1 needs to change the system radically.county councils need to appoint more litter wardens.the last place they wud think of is the beaches and cliffs,hey you shud put to ur local radio station and let them have a topic on it.it mite come more widespread then

[beachbuddy]

Good post,
maybe 96fm would be worth a call.I remember a night last year when i ventured down to the flat rock only to find 2 old buggers surrounded by their crap i collected their crap up and presented it to them in a LIDL bag needless to say they were'nt very happy and cleared off.
Ive since met the same individuals loading their irish reg audi a4 and vw passat cars with plenty of small undersize fish and shock when reached the beach all sorts of crap blowing in the wind bearing in mind this was high summer and lots of people sunbathing and swimming its a joke and this beach is also prone to us locals leaving rubbish mounds behind as well,beauty spot my eye its become a major litter spot and a spot i won't be visiting anytime soon as my blood pressure gets too high and its not down to the journey down to the beach.

[lodore]

Cheers for the comments guys. The radio idea is an interesting one; however, though a Cork native, I live among the heathen Deise these days , so it might be difficult to coordinate. Otherwise, Marlinman is spot on about the general state of the beach--and those responsible for it. Sadly, it's not just individuals who are the problem either. I have great memories of White Bay from being a kid, but that hideous tower in the oil refinery has wrecked it as far as visiting the place at night is concerned. The lurid industrial glow coupled with the constantly flashing light has turned one of the most beautiful spots in the harbour to a mini vision of hell. Whoever granted planning permission for this needs to have his eyelids stapled open for 24 hours while he contemplates the nice little wasteland he's contrived ...

[razor2]

I fished White bay tonight and the bags with the rotten bait are on the path on the way down.beer bottles on the beach its a shame because white bay is a beautiful .the refinery in the background is like something from hell a bit of an eye sore.never mind whats going on in the water every time i go down and i down there a lot .theres a boat doing something that just looks very odd. pots maybe fair play good post

[Aurelien]

congratulation lodore, this post is brilliantly written ... rubbish are spoiling a lot of beautiful beaches, rock marks, river and lough ...

[JAMMYJOEY]

Couldn't agree more guy's. I actually stood on some glass a couple of weeks ago. It came right up through the heel of my trainer and it dam well hurt! And so did the bloody injection i had to get after sitting in casualty for 4 hours. I'm fed up having to clean up marks after other folk. These are the same cretins that you see casually throwing litter from their cars instead of taking it home.

[Drew]

If my arms were long enough I'd give you a big pat on the back right now mate.
Great Post. Points Made. Heed Taken!

I hope your "friends" read this.

[rory from cork]

Good post Lodore...I had the same experience a few weeks ago down there...two foreign guys fishing there left a pile of beer cans behind them on the beach.
I also met those old guys walking down the path one day...chatted away to them for awhile and when I mentioned the rubbish left on the mark the conversation stopped abruptly and they walked off...found out why when I got down to the spot and realised it was them. Will remind them of our litter laws next time we meet

[dfella25]

While not to distract from the original post my immediate concern would be someone drinking and driving. By all accounts this could be the case, and if so some other then the offender could be seriously injured or killed. I'd be more inclined to report this if the registration was taken rather then some litter.

[twinkle]

it doesent just happen on the beaches the amount of litter at sea is almost the same. cans, bags,rig wrappings ,bottles.
boaters are just as guilty of littering you only have to look at the amount of crap that floats by the boat on a busy day out of howth. last year the life boat was alerted to what was described as an over turned boat which turned out to be a fridge freezer which had been taped up and was full of rotton food some gobshite loaded it on to his boat went out to give it a burial at sea, but dident realize it would float. it was a real danger to light craft imagine hitting that at 20 knots

[lodore]

Thanks for all the comments guys. All good points worth hearing

While not to distract from the original post my immediate concern would be someone drinking and driving. By all accounts this could be the case, and if so some other then the offender could be seriously injured or killed. I'd be more inclined to report this if the registration was taken rather then some litter.

I admit I never thought of this. I can't say for certain there wasn't a designated driver among the lot of them, but if I was a betting man, I know where I'd put my money. It's likely too that a drink driving complaint to the guards would get a quicker reaction than a littering report ...

[syboit]

fair play to ya for cleaning up their mess. I often leave my small fella's run around the beach while we fish, The thought of one of them falling on glass isin't appealing. Its just as bad to think driving to some of these places in east cork, the roads aren't the greatest at the best of times imagine coming head on with some of these fools tanked up!

You must have known something wasn't right though since you gave them a load of crap at the start, I'm afraid I can't help talking to other people I meet on the beach and as most people would agree most angers are ok to chat with

[peakle]

this tower you refer to is actually bord gas not the refinery even though its on refinery site.the rubbish problem in white bay has been reported several times so the quicker a reg number can be got of certain offenders the quicker it can be acted on.it definitely is not all rubbish from sea going vessels

Cheers for the comments guys. The radio idea is an interesting one; however, though a Cork native, I live among the heathen Deise these days , so it might be difficult to coordinate. Otherwise, Marlinman is spot on about the general state of the beach--and those responsible for it. Sadly, it's not just individuals who are the problem either. I have great memories of White Bay from being a kid, but that hideous tower in the oil refinery has wrecked it as far as visiting the place at night is concerned. The lurid industrial glow coupled with the constantly flashing light has turned one of the most beautiful spots in the harbour to a mini vision of hell. Whoever granted planning permission for this needs to have his eyelids stapled open for 24 hours while he contemplates the nice little wasteland he's contrived ...

[PaddyB]

Your letter is indeed well writen. Unfortunately tho it wil acheive nothing, you are preaching to the converted.

This subject has been brought many many times on this site, and I am still off the opinion that there is no substitute for actually confronting the culprits. People may say that that is dangerous, but anyone with any cop-on can evaluate the danger level and weigh that against your desire to put these a$$holes in their place.

I have confronted two seperate groups, not about rubbish, but about the other big problem....taking undersized fish both times they were embarrased into returning fish.

[Conger]

Well said Lodore,