Recent months have seen a marked rise in reports of anglers taking supplies for the table and using huge 40ft nets and deadlines to snare freshwater species, such as carp, bream and plaice, which are considered delicacies in some eastern European countries.

The increase in plundering of stocks has forced one fishing group – the Northampton Nene Angling Club – to abandon fishing at Delapre Lake because supplies have dwindled dramatically.

The new posters are backed by the Environment Agency and produced by the Fisheries and Angling Conservation Trust (FACT).

Nene Angling Club chairman Richard Stevenage Jones has welcomed the campaign and has already installed several around lakes in the county. But he said he feared many illegal anglers would simply ignore them.

He added: "I could move to Poland tomorrow and go fishing to catch whatever I want, but that is not the case here and people need to be taught what they can and cannot do. It is about education."

But he warned: "Of the posters I put up around Swan Valley, 24 hours later they had all been thrown in the lake."

A print run of 5,000 copies of the posters has been issued in languages including Polish, Lithuanian and Cantonese.

Kate Connell, of the Far Cotton Residents' Association, made her own posters and translated them into Polish earlier this year to explain the law to anglers at Delapre Lake.

She said: "I think the posters will work. People who have recently arrived seem to be more aware already of our ways, which means, hopefully, we are starting to get through and this latest campaign should help.

"There will still be a hardcore of people who break the rules, but they are in the minority."

Fisheries and Angling Conservation Trust chairman Jim Glasspool said: "We hope that these simple new signs will be used by clubs and fisheries, as part of the ongoing education about our angling tradition of returning coarse fish."

elizabeth.lee@northantsnews.co.uk