Hello,
I was fishing with my friend at Billingford recently. I thought I need to share my experience.
This was the first time fishing for us over there. As we didn’t know the place and it is a quite big area we decided to speak to the bailiff to get some advice. W found Mr “K” (not sure if I can give names here) and asked for advice. He replied by asking “Where are you from?” noticing we speak with an accent. We told him that we are originally from Poland. He then made straight away racist comments. He said: What are you doing with the fish? We told him that that we are here to relax and not to steal carp. He said he had previously problems with eastern Europeans and that f..ing Lithuanians taking fish and he was called racist etc. By making these remarks he was being racist now and then. I understand that he might have had some bad experiences with eastern Europeans, but you can’t treat people like this and put everyone in the same bucket. How does he know who I am? What are my ethics? We were pretty shocked but not surprised we’ve had similar story before. We told him what we do with fishes caught and he decided to give us a chance (like some little boys, we are both reaching 40). We were desperate not to let him destroy our weekend away together, so we decided to stay. My friend came all the way from London and we were preparing for this trip for quit few days like anybody else. We also spent about £200 for gear food etc. I wander if he really had these stories with eastern Europeans or maybe he just herd some gossips from others or TV propaganda and he was just over reacting. Obviously he is just a simple man jugging his behavior and the way he greeted us. It’s hard to believe anyone would be interested in stealing carp, risking being caught, when there is plenty of cheap, fresh, cleaned sea fish available from supermarkets. Like Morrison 2 x sea bass or sea bream - £5, cod fillets are extremely cheap - £3.50 for big peace, enough for family of 4. Why would you want to steal, clean and eat stinky carp? Regarding the fishery itself I wouldn’t go back even if I was born here and didn’t have this story. Someone here has mentioned that this is a tranquil and peaceful place. Maybe it was in 2012. You have cars being driven behind your back all the time as people are searching for suitable spot to settle.
On the top of this Mr “K” does his regular rounds in his 4 X 4 checking on those potential thieves. Is this a place to relax? Not for me. And by the way we didn’t catch anything so there was nothing to steal. After this experience I decided not to go to carp fisheries in the UK ever again, and as I mentioned before I had even worst story before were I was kicked out from one place in Laddingford near Maidston for being polish and the key for the gate was taken from me.
I love nature and fishing. I’ve been fishing since I can remember as my father is also a kin angler and fishing for me most of all is about outdoors and fresh air. I’ve been living in the UK for the past 15 years. I’m also British Citizen but I never talk about it. I don’t feel like one and I don’t think I ever will because of people like Mr “K”.
Kind regards,
Tomasz
