Public rights on rivers in EVERY state

[natetreat]

I have in the past been subject to harassment from land owners along the river, as I am sure many of you have when searching out new fishing spots. As you know, this is illegal, if you can float a raft on the stream, it's navigable for title purposes and is held in trust by the state. Recently, a buddy of mine was accosted on the Samish by Mr. ***(edited by Admin), who has threatened other anglers at gun point, as well as shooting into the river. He insists that he owns the riverbed, and that fishermen are trespassing. His deed does say he owns the river bed to the center line, but he is in fact wrong that we are trespassing. Federal law holds that "private ownership of the beds and banks of rivers is “always subject to public rights to use the stream." and "the right of the public to use a waterway supersedes any claim of private ownership". If you've fished that section of the Samish, you know the spot I'm talking about. The National Organization for Rivers has provided me with this poster that contains all the rights that we have along with it's corresponding legal sources. I encourage you all to print it out, keep a few while fishing and post them at bulletin boards at water access sites in our area. The sad fact is that local law enforcement for much of the time ignorant of these rights and will side with the land owners in a dispute. These posters are a great tool to educate them as well. If we all can put these posters out there, we can do much to keep our rivers open and accessible for all. Thanks for reading.

[Goldrigger1]

Nate, thanks for doing the work to find this!

When I was a kid and surfed in So. CA we would sometimes paddle down in front of homes. Had people come out and yell or grab our boards when they washed up. The law was like this, but included the tidal zone too. Eventually the homeowners would give up and things were fine. We didn't sit on their beach or yell or do anything they might not like. This was many years ago. I'd sure like to be that thin and in shape again.

[FlyGirl]

So this may be a lame question...how do we print it? I tried looking on line briefly for the same flyer, but no luck.....Is there a way to open the attachment as a PDF or something?

[Amx]

So this may be a lame question...how do we print it? I tried looking on line briefly for the same flyer, but no luck.....Is there a way to open the attachment as a PDF or something?

save to your computer

then print it

[Mike Carey]

I think a lot of people have had to deal with landowners misunderstanding their property rights. Anyone bass fishing from a boat has had it happen at least once. Thanks Nate for making a positive contribution with some good information. SJ, I think your briefs are little too tight, might want to check that.

[G-Man]

Need to pass these out to a few homeowners on the Kalama.

[Amx]

...and the police depts around the state.

[Bodofish]

Awesome job Nate!!! As always I must recommend quite strenuously that any gun play be answered with a 911 call. Do Not stand your ground but come back when you have back up in the form of a Deputy. The only way to stop that behavior is to have the perp put behind bars. Trespass (outside your home) is not a crime that can be met with deadly force. You are not involved in the commission of a crime that may hurt anyone. If he brandished a weapon at you, it's assault with a deadly weapon on you and each of your clients.
I've had it done to me and it's no fun, but once the cuffs are on, it's a lot better.

[natetreat]

Awesome job Nate!!! As always I must recommend quite strenuously that any gun play be answered with a 911 call. Do Not stand your ground but come back when you have back up in the form of a Deputy. The only way to stop that behavior is to have the perp put behind bars. Trespass (outside your home) is not a crime that can be met with deadly force. You are not involved in the commission of a crime that may hurt anyone. If he brandished a weapon at you, it's assault with a deadly weapon on you and each of your clients.
I've had it done to me and it's no fun, but once the cuffs are on, it's a lot better.

Absolutely, the cops would have been called if I was the one involved in that incident. I was not, but was made aware of it. I can't stress enough that you should not engage the landowner when this happens. Call the police with this information at hand and put them in jail! If you read some of the stuff from NOR, they have horror stories where this has happened. this year I've heard way too many encounters like this, and enough is enough. With the power of the law and the internet on our side, we can make some much needed changes to interaction on the rivers.

The other thing that you can do is to pick up your trash! Don't vandalize people's property and don't be a general PIA. It gives fishermen a bad name. That doesn't excuse the landowner's behavior, but it doesn't help relations one bit.

Not only is it assault with a deadly weapon, but it's a crime to interfere with the lawful activity of fishing or hunting. harassment, assault... Unlawful discharge of a weapon. Some of these guys take it way too far, and it needs to stop. I'm not sure it's appropriate to posts names, but I have looked them up and informed authorities in the past. It's easy to find them if you use the county assessors website, you can find all their info on the map section, even if you don't know their names. We need to report these encounters to local authorities, because even if you don't mind stepping down and not fishing there, it encourages other landowners to act the same, and authorities to side with them. We can lose access to our rivers pretty quickly if this happens.

[4n6fisher]

Nate,
Nice job digging this up. It seems like WDFW should have known this and told me so when I reported the above incident to them. They are well aware of "Mr. bleep" (the road is named after him so it is not too much a secret what his name is) on the Samish. While he did not pull out the gun he did say next time he will start shooting in the river, and I passed that along to WDFW.
I will keep one or more of these on hand top not only inform landowners if falsely accused of trespassing but also to inform the local authorities just to make sure they are aware of this statute.

I might have to mail one to nice Mr. Samish so he knows the actual law, not just his law.

[primetime]

Is this for both navigable and non-navigable rivers? I thought that the state has those listed. I'm not 100% on that though

[natetreat]

Primetime, there is a differences between navigable for title purposes and the navigable rivers listed by state and federal agencies. The list you get from the coast guard are the rivers that they hold jurisdiction over in terms of enforcement, etc. Navigable rivers that we can access is a much more broad definition. The courts have consistently ruled that a river is navigable if it can be used for the purpose of commerce, which includes kayaks and rafts. rivers that haven't been listed can be reasonably assumed as navigable so long as you could float a kayak or an inner tube down it. A lot of the court cases involve white water rafters and kayak companies, there is a little more money in that industry so I would assume that is why they can afford the lawyer to take it to court. Their is always a lot of confusion on this issue, because of the different agencies that use the term navigable waters.

4n6 - yea, after that day, there was another dude that I ran into who actually had the gun shot at him. I'm thinking it happened before what we ran into. He laughed it off, but I couldn't believe it. I would have had the guy in cuffs. I don't think it's unreasonable to name names when we're talking about illegal behavior, but I'll leave that up to the mods. this guy needs to be in jail if half the stories I've heard about him since I started investigating this are true.

[primetime]

Sounds good! But I feel like it will take a lot of tickets written then battles in court before things are worked out. People be ready to take that on.

[gonnahookit]

A good idea to have a GoPro or similar, even a smart phone camcorder, mounted on the boat/pontoon/vest/whatever when you float by a known trouble spot. Being polite and courteous, as well.

Video ALWAYS makes a more solid case in court...

[obryan214]

I remember a few years ago when a landowner shot at people going down on the Wynoochee river, one of them was a deputy sheriff. 1 of my old Myspace buddies got shot at on a river in Michigan for drifting bye by a drunken landowner, that guy went to prison. I've never had a problem on a river and could care less when kayakers go down past my place on the Satsop, I have a neighbor from across and upstream who has screamed at these people though.

[strider43]

Thanks Nate and everyone else for a great thread. A co-worker of mine had shotgun pointed at him bass fishing on Goodwin last year, I asked if he called it in and he said he had no service there...his thoughts were to get his CPL.

Nate would the Wallace be considered navigable?

[natetreat]

Thanks Nate and everyone else for a great thread. A co-worker of mine had shotgun pointed at him bass fishing on Goodwin last year, I asked if he called it in and he said he had no service there...his thoughts were to get his CPL.

Nate would the Wallace be considered navigable?

Yes the Wallace is navigable. Rivers that are navigable in fact are navigable by law, and you can definitely kayak or run a pontoon down the Wallace. The law concerning lakes is a little different, but if there is public access to the lake, they can't arrest you for trespassing unless you get off onto their dock. If you cast onto their dock, that would probably be trespassing, or vandalism or something though. But floating next to it in your pontoon is probably not against the law. On non-navigable waters such as lakes and other areas, local law applies. I'm pretty sure that it favors the side of the angler, but I can't attest to it. If they shoot at you, or threaten you with a shotgun, they're breaking the law regardless though, you don't have a right to use deadly force against trespassers even with our stand your ground laws, but each individual case would have to be decided by a judge. Remember the old dude last year who shot some robbers out in Snoqualmie? I can't remember how that case turned out, but it would be something that would apply in these areas as far as pulling guns. I'm not too familiar with that law, some of the folks more educated in stand your ground laws and 2nd amendment laws would know better than me.

[natetreat]

I don't think it's necessary to take the name out of the post, I'd like an explanation from the admin why the edited it out. If we all sent this poster and the book to him, we would be able to take back our rights. Also, it's helpful so that folks know which property it is that should be avoided if they wish to avoid confrontation. The names and places are all a matter of public record.

[4n6fisher]

What about if we just say it is the guy at the end of Omdahl lane with a matching name?

[ncwflounderer]

I don't know where this occurred, but sounds similar to what this discussion is about:
http://nwsportsmanmag.com/headlines/siu ... t-gunfire/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;