They were from Romania and you've guessed it worked at the local car wash!
Interesting. I have to say that most EE anglers I have met did tell me they would like to keep fish, but none (so far) was aggressively going for it. While fishing commercials they obey the rules and on the rivers they would not argue to put fish back in. All in all I have met one guy who took one carp and one perch home for bbq.
Coming from EE country I can tell you that it is unusual for us not to be able to keep the fish. In-fact when I tell people I am catch-release kind of angler they cannot see the point why to fish at all. I recently had trip back home and was very surprised to find that you can keep whatever you catch as long as it is in norms of size/weight. Also getting license and keeping log of catches is quite strict over there.
On the other hand I have met many British anglers that even though they didn't keep the fish basically killed them in other ways. I am now fishing quite often one of my local ponds and it is not unusual sight for anglers to be ripping hooks out of fishes mouth rather than proper unhooking, dropping fish, drying fish of the slime, hooking fish by the bellies and basically opening their guts and then throwing them back, not waiting for fish to recover etc.
Also there isn't much of respect to other anglers to go around. Just yesterday one guy came with couple of lagers and two sons, setup his rods on the bank 90 degrees from where I was and told the sons to feed the spot where I was fishing. When the boys protested "Dad but that man is fishing there" he then went on "Boys! shut up and get on with it! First rule you need to know, do not give a **** about anyone! I have seen it all, we can do whatever we want." after which he went on and casted over my line...
Went on a bit of a rant sorry for that, but from what I have seen here I think there are worse things to worry about than somebody taking a fish or two (even though in no means I am one of them).