Landowner Tells Kayaker He Cannot Fish ‘His’ Aspect of the River

When Marshall Stamps paddled his kayak previous a number of “No Fishing” indicators on Georgia’s Flint River final month, he was shocked. The Flint is a public river, in spite of everything, and Stamps had put in at a well-marked public boat launch only a mile upstream. Stamps had floated and fished different rivers in Georgia, the place the riverbeds of navigable waterways belong to the general public, based on state regulation. So, he stayed in his boat and stored working his approach down the posted financial institution, catching a couple of fish right here and there.

Stamps was much more shocked minutes later, when a landowner who launched himself as Mike Smith waded out into the river to confront him. Smith, who holds a lease on the property, let Stamps know that he couldn’t fish there as a result of that exact financial institution was privately owned and off-limits to public fishing. With a digital camera recording behind him, Stamps caught the interplay on video.

“From this riffle to the underside of the mountain gap is non-public fishing,” Smith says within the video as he grabs ahold of the bow of Stamps’ kayak. “On the opposite [right] facet of the river, over there, assist your self. However from that riffle [up there] to the mid-line of the river to all the way in which the place it falls off to the mountain gap is non-public to fish.”

Not seeking to argue, Stamps needs Smith nicely and continued on downriver. He later went on Instagram to put up the video of their interplay, thereby illuminating a protracted simmering debate over stream entry legal guidelines in Georgia.

After his video amassed thousands and thousands of views on social media, Stamps returned to the identical stretch of the Flint with an area information crew. As they floated previous the identical “No Fishing” indicators on the river’s left financial institution, they danced round an vital query that’s now being thought of by lawmakers within the state: Are you able to legally fish a public river in Georgia?

How (and The place) Issues Acquired Sophisticated

For generations, Georgians have loved the privilege of floating, looking, and fishing alongside the state’s main rivers. (Smaller streams and creeks are a unique story, and on many of those waterways, the streambeds are thought of non-public property.) This has been a privilege ever since Georgia was granted statehood in 1788, when the state (and by extension the state’s residents) turned the proprietor of all navigable streambeds. However the public’s capacity to make use of and entry these streambeds was thrown into query within the early 2000s, when some landowners on the Flint River started to problem the longstanding notion of navigability. Flint Riverkeeper govt director Gordon Rogers tells Out of doors Life that comparable controversies had additionally cropped up on different public streams, together with the Chestatee, the Toccoa, and the Ichawaynochaway.

The landowners on the Flint had properties alongside a well known stretch of the higher river generally known as “Yellow Jacket Shoals,” which gives some nice fishing for shoal bass. It’s additionally the identical space the place Stamps was confronted by Smith in Might.

These non-public landowners contended that as a result of their property deeds dated again to earlier than 1863, when a written definition for “navigable streams” was added to the state structure, the stretch of river in entrance of their properties was not thought of navigable. They argued that this gave them possession of the streambed from their financial institution to the river’s middle line, which sparked a collection of disputes with native outdoorsmen who’d been floating and fishing there for years.

In 2020, a type of landowners fired a gun at a household of paddlers, and he’s at present serving a 10-year jail sentence for that motion. However his brother, Ben Brewton, sued the state and gained a settlement in 2023, which declared that his pre-1863 deed gave him possession over half of the streambed within the stretch of the Flint that runs adjoining to his property. It wasn’t lengthy earlier than extra “No Fishing” indicators began popping up alongside that stretch of the higher Flint.  

This led to intense backlash from anglers and different public entry advocates in Georgia. They noticed this new exception on the Flint River as an assault on their rights to paddle, hunt, and fish the state’s main rivers. So, they flooded the inboxes of their representatives and the state’s Division of Pure Sources. And though the DNR had a authorized obligation to implement the courtroom order, the company sided with the general public by asserting that it might not be citing anglers for fishing alongside the privately owned financial institution at Yellow Jacket Shoals, based on the Georgia Recorder.

State legislators adopted swimsuit by hurriedly crafting a invoice that re-emphasized and assured Georgians their proper to hunt, fish, and paddle within the state’s navigable rivers and streams. The fishing rights invoice handed, and Gov. Brian Kemp signed it into regulation in Might 2023. Rogers says an amended model of the regulation that handed earlier this yr reestablishes the general public’s proper to fish in locations like Yellow Jacket Shoals together with different navigable streams.

“What Mike Smith is asserting in that video is patently false, for my part. And extra importantly, the DNR isn’t imposing his assertion in that space,” Rogers clarifies. “It’s straightforward to conflate possession of the streambed (in navigable waters) with an absolute proper to regulate fishing rights in these waters. What the brand new regulation does is right that misperception. The brand new regulation is kind of clear that no matter streambed possession the general public has a proper to fish in Georgia’s navigable waters.”

However there’s nonetheless a evident downside with the brand new laws: It doesn’t outline “navigability” because it pertains to Georgia’s rivers. Which leaves Georgians’ newly re-established proper to fish in public rivers as much as interpretation.

The Navigability Situation

Legal guidelines pertaining to stream entry and the possession of streambeds range by state. And Georgia isn’t alone in coping with stream entry controversies lately. The talk round who owns the riverbed has led to authorized flare-ups in a number of Western states, together with Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico — the place the battle over stream entry has grown notably bitter since 2022, when the state legislature re-established the general public’s constitutional proper to wade and fish in rivers that circulate over non-public property.

Learn Subsequent: A Win for Anglers: U.S. Supreme Court docket Reaffirms New Mexico’s Resolution that All Streams within the State Are Public

In lots of states, the crux of the problem boils down to at least one phrase: navigability. However its definition (which is severely outdated in lots of instances) has spawned a lot battle and confusion that some key choice makers, together with the Colorado Supreme Court docket, have declined to weigh in on the matter. And since Georgia’s new regulation failed to supply an up to date definition for the phrase, many have opined that the state’s stream entry legal guidelines are murkier now than they have been earlier than the brand new regulation took place.

“It’s far more unclear whether or not anglers, hunters, and paddlers can contact privately owned streambeds,” state senator Elena Father or mother instructed the Georgia Recorder in March. “And we should always not arrange a system the place individuals can now not use these navigable rivers that they’ve used for many years if an adjoining property proprietor unexpectedly decides the general public can’t drop and anchor or use fishing lures on the underside.”

State lawmakers have tried to treatment this oversight by launching a committee that’s tasked with deciding which rivers (and probably which stretches of these rivers) must be deemed navigable. A invoice launched earlier this yr names 64 completely different rivers and streams, together with the Flint River, as potential candidates. The committee plans to review these waterways this summer season and made suggestions to the Home by Dec. 1, based on the Related Press.

Their job isn’t a simple one. They’ll have to think about the federal definition of navigability, which states that if the river was utilized by individuals for commerce and commerce when Georgia turned a state, it’s thought of navigable right this moment, based on an area NPR affiliate. That is barely completely different than the state’s extra particular interpretation of the phrase, which was established in 1863 and defines a navigable waterway as “a stream which is able to transporting boats loaded with freight within the common course of commerce both for the entire or a part of the yr.”

It’s additionally attainable that committee members will take a look at the idea of navigability on a segment-by-segment foundation, as an alternative of declaring complete streams navigable or not. This might result in an entire new watershed map in Georgia, with sure stretches permitting public fishing and others permitting non-public landowners with deeds pre-dating 1863 to declare possession of the streambed.

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Till these selections are made, Stamps says that he and different outdoorsmen are each confused and anxious concerning the state of public fishing on Georgia rivers.

“The sport wardens instructed me one factor. I’ve had authorized representatives inform me one other. So, myself and different anglers, we’re simply actually undecided of what the regulation truly is,” Stamps instructed reporters earlier this month. “It could possibly be a stepping stone to extra public areas and extra issues going non-public and never accessible to the general public.”  

This text was up to date on June 27 to incorporate enter from Flint Riverkeeper govt director Gordon Rogers.