Old bill in doing their job shocker

You're conflating two issues. I was careful enough to refer to only one.

I have no problem with stop and account (or stop and search, where there is reasonable cause). It's an extremely valuable and effective tool in policing.

Possibly I was - it's just that when people say that Police are 'fishing' it tends to be in a negative way, and carries an implication of lazy police work with little or no cause (and usually in the context of them trying to hit various targets) - which doesn't appear to be the case in this instance.