We are on the Great Ouse system.
A couple of weeks ago we went to Ely and found a space on the park! Yippee! This area is dedicated to 48 hour moorings and spaces are, at times, like gold dust.
The gap was approximately 90ft long and our boat is 60ft. There was an angler about a third of the way between the other two boats. As we prepared to go in he stood up and shouted that we could not moor there and should "f*** off* somewhere else. We ignored him and continued the mooring up operation.
What ensued was beyond reasonable. He shouted, screamed and hurled obscene abuse at us, threatened violence and insisted that he had priority over the 90ft of riverbank.
We ignored the ranting and moored up. The abuse and threats only stopped when I started to take photographs of the mooring and the positioning of his gear and our boat. All he needed to do was move his keep net out of the way so that it was not in danger of being damaged.
Our experience of anglers has always been pretty good...live and let live from both sides goes along way to promoting harmony. This man was not taking part in a match. He seemed to think that he could commandeer 90ft of busy riverbank moorings and that boaters should accept this.
He gathered up his gear and stomped off, still yelling threats of retribution against us, our boat, our dog, our parrot and future descendants unto the 7th generation.
He was probably in his late seventies. I just hope I have that much energy at his age.