Sometimes known as "Thatcher's Children" or "Me Me's" these individuals think only of themselves and exhibit zero thought or consideration for anyone else. You are dead to them within their own narrow little existence. Their anti-social behaviour is most commonly observed on the nations roads. Lane weaving, cutting up other traffic and being too mean to buy a hands free kit so they are constantly jabbering into a mobile phone stuck to their ear. These are some of the symptoms of these selfish dysfunctional oafs.

Sadly this behaviour does not end at the reservoir harbour when they climb onto a boat to participate in the graceful and sublime art of fishing for trout with fur and feather.

Competition boat trout fishing seems to accentuate and bring out their repugnant behaviour onto the reservoirs also. The "Yobs with Blobs" brigade are out in force again this season. Their general activity seems to based around the notion that if they are not catching then no one else should be either. So they make sure that this is the case with any of the following aberrant behaviour.

1. Motoring their boat close into the bank directly through the water being fished by any bank anglers in the area.
2. Motoring directly through another boats drift sometimes to within a few yards of that drifting boat.
3. Motoring directly up the down wind area of an anchored boat, effectively killing any chance of catching for several hours as any fish are well and truly scared away from the vicinity, thus forcing the anchored boat to move.
4. Sometimes they hunt in packs and the sight of a single bent rod is enough for a flotilla of "Me Me's" to descend upon the area you are fishing in. Regardless of your fishing style whether in a drifting or anchored boat or bank fishing the combined commotion of their arrival kills all fishing stone dead and you have no option but to move away from the area.

It gets even worse as this selfish misbehaviour is not restricted to the actual day of the competition but also gets carried over and seems to be even worse on the "practice days" leading up to the actual competition day also.

This is not confined to the "gentleman" of the species as the England Ladies Team proved during one of their practice sessions on Pitsford Water in the "little half" a few seasons back. A letter to the editor of one of the monthly trout fishing magazines regarding that episode sadly failed to elicit a response.

So far various published letters to the editors of the two main national monthly trout fishing magazines have served to flag up this selfish behaviour so it is well known but sadly still it continues.

As a regular reservoir trout angler I am sure you have your own individual "Oafs in Boats" story to add into the comments below which I am not too sure that I am looking forward to reading.

Is it time to name and shame these buffoons?

Here's one to start with:
Boat No. 3 in the Airflo competition at Rutland Blue Pipes on Saturday 24th April 2010.