Is anyone else having trouble with litter and rubbish or is it just me?

I live in a pretty spectacular place and travel to some of the most stunning locations to fish for pike (salmon and sea trout too occasionally) an I'm constantly stunned at the amount of litter and general rubbish left on the bank.

I moved from the Midlands to Skye some years ago and really expected to be able to visit pristine wilderness venues and fish without having to clear up burned out barbeques, scraps of tents, beer cans, burger boxes etc etc before I can even set up my gear. Stop at any lay-by on any A road up in the Higlands and if you have a squint over the roadside verge there's a whole host of junk left by passing motorists (tourists?).

What's more worrying for me is that on the lochs I fish, there's always half a dozen frozen bait packets for me to remove along with other fishing related items, just dumped at the water's edge. Even more worrying is that I was recently told that I'd not be able to bivvy at a particular loch because of the consistent mess left by visiting anglers. The guy told me that he'd recently filled 32 bin bags with left over angler's cr*p.

32 bin bags!!!

In the end he did relent and agreed to let me stay providing he had adress details and a credit card swipe.

Anyone else having the same problem or am I making a fuss about nothing?

Just before the end of last season I was fishing a popular Pike venue, I couldnt believe how much litter, deadbait bags and empty beer cans etc, I collected 3 full bin bags, just couldnt sit with it around me, the bailiff came by and thanked me, he still took my money though only thing I think we can do is take some bags with us when we go fishing, I now have a proper litter pick tool, expect it to be there, and be prepared to do something about it, I do believe there are more responsible people about than the louts we seem to follow about on the bank, maybe if we all did this it could make a difference, and on those frequent blanking days it could give us all a meaning to what we do

I think you're absolutely right Steve, I always take a couple of bags with me now and, again, like you, I can't sit and fish when there's rubbish within view. I fished the water I mentioned in my original post over the weekend and went well prepared to shift a load of junk but was pleasantly surprised and only had a few beer cans to collect. The owner had obviously done a decent job shifting a huge amount of rubbish previously.

It's just a terrible shame that we should have to see such beautiful places turned into rubbish dumps. I don't understand it personally.

No mate. It's not just you. Half the reason I haven't been pike fishing for 2 years or something.

this is why they should ban drinking on these waters you will find a lot of the rubbish is cans and disposible bbqs and once there stoned out of there heads anyway they dont give a shite anyway this is getting worse down my neck off the woods just a few spoiling it for the vast majority who care about the country side ........anyway thats my moan for the day