I mean like its not YOUR river as most people seem to think.
True, but it is OUR river. Sounds from your description that the guy was being a bit too "Captain Awesome - River Cop", but there are ALWAYS two sides to every situation.
I had a guy give me the third degree recently on the river. He was out walking his dog and decided to stand on a bank above me start asking me 'stupid' questions trying to catch me off guard. "So uh, what are you fishing for?" (he had an Orvis hat on so I knew he was playing dumb) he said "uh, is this tidal or non tidal" just hoping I would slip up, "How much do fishing licenses cost these days" stuff like that. I proceed to land a Ho, he says "wow, way to go, lucky you have a barbed hook or you probably would have lost that fish on one of those jumps eh?"
I politely told the guy that I not the one to be looking out for and that my license/stamp are up to date and my hook is barbless and told him that I don't mind an audience, but I would rather he get a rod do his own thing. He mumbled something and carried on.
All this being said, I would rather 10 of him walking around than one flosser.