Public Fishing Access… Where Do You Really Stand?
- I think all water should be accessible to anyone, and I think it’s worth fighting for at all costs. (46%, 39 Votes)
- I believe in the “what is” scenario—where rivers have public access, great, we should fight to maintain that, and where rivers can be privately owned and managed, fine, we all know the deal. (44%, 37 Votes)
- I respect the right to maintain private water, the public will just trash some rivers if they’re open to anyone. (9%, 8 Votes)
- It is all so confusing, I don’t know what rules apply where, and I don’t care. (1%, 1 Votes)
- I think there’s more than enough public land/water, and think some should be sold off. (0%, 0 Votes)
Total Voters: 85
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2 Comments
I believe in the “public trust” doctrine where all waterways are in the public trust and should remain that way and never privatized. Exceptions may be properly licensed and privately built ponds or small streams that lie completely within a large private tract. Just owning land along a waterway does not give landowners the right to keep the public off that waterway (up to the high water mark or easements around dams or around other obstructions to foot or float navigation). It would be like someone closing a public road just because you own a property along that road.
There is a great deal of confusion on theses points because the terms themselves can be confusing. The Public Trust Doctrine can be interjected where appropriate, and this varies from state to state. Most people have strong opinions on the issues, but rarely have all, or even most of the facts of any particular case to be well informed.
The sad fact is in some states like along the Delaware River in NY, the state clearly owns the bottom of the river since it is navigable, but is evidently OK with private land owners staking a claim of private ownership such as the Long Flats Pool area that I wrote about in Fly Fisherman. The question there is, will the public anglers in that state force NY DEC to do it’s job? That is yet to be seen.