I don't have a high regard for rod licences, the closed season or the EA in general. However, I still can't sensibly argue that it isn't law that an angler in England and Wales has to have a rod licence to fish. It matters not one whit whatever the landowner does, does not do, or says.
No doubt that amounts to legal sophistry to some, but you can argue the same for every law ever written. Society makes laws. People abide by them, or not. Whether you disagree with them is immaterial. Until they are changed or successfully challenged in court, they remain extant. Those that disregard them are law breakers.
In the case of rod licence dodgers, there is more than enough evidence to suggest that the courts disagree entirely that someone paying for a day ticket, but having no rod licence, is doing nothing illegal. People get fined for exactly that on a regular basis. I don't suppose that those running the fishery were complaining, nor were other anglers on the fishery. Those that get caught in such environments are just unlucky/stupid enough to be fishing a fairly popular fishery that is worthwhile for the vanishingly small number of EA bailiffs to actually check.