Losing your favorite fishing spots

The American West has a long history of water access issues. Books have been written on the subject and feature films have been shot. Living outside has published several feature stories on this issue. Most recently, landowners on Utah’s Lower Provo River are trying to block access to the water because they say fishermen are trespassing on their property while standing in the river and casting, according to a story on Dailymail.com. According to the article, the landowners are technically correct because a 2010 statute says fishermen can float along the Lower Provo but cannot touch the land or riverbed. In other words, the Supreme Court ruled that the landowners own the land, but not the water. This is just the latest example of Western water wars so many casesThere are many gray areas and multiple sides to every aspect of the battle. The East Coast where I live is not immune to fights over water either.

The privatization of waterways in the East is a problem, especially when landowners decide to stock trout in streams and rivers where wild trout live. The East is the land of the ‘trout club’, where fishermen pay annual dues to either fish for large stocked trout or have the wild trout waters all to themselves. One of the largest battlefields is Pennsylvania’s famous Little Juniata.

I can’t claim to be the expert on all fronts of the water access debates in the East and West, but I do know that while they receive a lot of attention (as they should), we often overlook how quickly we lose access to water. much lesser known waters than the Lower Provo and Little “J.” If you don’t fish the rivers that are being fought over, you can easily remove yourself from their plight, but what about the places you love in your own backyard?

Lose game

I could easily name half a dozen places I’ve fished since I was a kid in New Jersey and Eastern Pennsylvania that have simply disappeared. Well, they still exist, but I can’t go there anymore, and neither can you. Concrete barricades recently appeared around a small parking lot with a dirt ramp for kayak access along the Delaware River. I’ve been parking and wading in that spot since I was six years old. For 33 years it remained unchanged and then, poof, access disappeared. To the untrained eye, the access point appeared public, but that was never the case. It was owned by a water treatment plant, which graciously allowed the local population to use it. About five years ago, the trash started piling up every weekend. Hordes of people would clog the road because there was only room for a few cars on the property. People would swim, fish and party. Initially, the treatment plant tried to put out “no entry” signs. They were ignored. When they just couldn’t take it anymore and started worrying about liability, the barricades went up.

Another local spot on private property immediately joined the chase with their signage installed in 2015. ‘No fishing’ it said in bold red letters. Below that: “You bastards couldn’t keep it clean.”

I’m willing to bet that most people reading this story wouldn’t be happy if they walked up to their property and routinely saw half-naked, sun-charred men with fishing poles, lawn chairs, and mini igloo coolers. On the other hand, you could argue that the landowners just want these rivers for themselves and are robbing the ‘little people’ of the resources. The point is that just because you’re an everyday fisherman doesn’t absolve you from being a steward of conservation and a good sportsman on the water, and in my view we are losing those values.

For love or money?

In the Daily email In this article, Utah landowner Steve Ault notes that the “no trespassing” signs he places on his property are routinely taken down. He often finds trash along the river. His solution to this, he says, is not to ban fishermen from fishing on his property, but to ask them to access the river through his land. Before you condemn him for the cash grab, think about what you would do if you could buy back a place you loved so much with money.

If I could purchase an annual permit to access that dirt ramp on the Delaware—one I used hundreds of times a year to pull out my drift boat—I’d happily fork over the money, assuming it was a reasonable fee (no private club prices). This is unfortunately becoming more and more common in fishing as too many fishermen take non-public access points for granted. Some act as if they own it and can do whatever they want with it. When access is then cut off, they are extremely upset.

I’m a practical person: there’s little I could personally do to change the loss of access, but if coughing up a small coin is the solution, I’d rather do that than lose everything.

All-Access Pass

Sometimes misuse of public access can ruin a fishing spot, even if that spot remains public. I grew up fishing a small bass pond close to home, as well as a larger lake, and both were on county land. Both have historically been chock full of large largemouths and pickerel. The pond was a wild place. You had to park far away on the main road, walk through tick-laden tall grass and past the crumbling old farmhouse to reach the water. It took effort, but most of the time you were there alone and the fishing was good. About six years ago, again partly due to public abuse of the property, the county invested a lot of money in beautifying the land. There are now paved roads, groomed trails and ample parking. Someone even mows the tall grass, so no one gets a wood tick in their yoga pants. No matter how hard I try, I can’t find a bass over a pound in that pond anymore.

The other lake was choked with water lilies and heavily silted up. To launch my kayak I had to wade through mud, damn, there were fish there. Here too, there was rubbish everywhere along the coastline. Worm bins, beer bottles, tires, miles of discarded line. As part of its access and beautification efforts, the county has dredged the lake and will soon build more scenic trails, create better parking, and increase access and use. Meanwhile, barely a trickle of water flows through because it has been sucked so low. This summer, any fish that survived Prohibition will likely boil to death.

If you’re a passionate fisherman, you know that some of the best places take a little extra effort to get to. In many cases, these are those “marginally public” access points where, basically, no one ever cared or bothered you, until too many bad eggs ruin it for everyone (usually trashing the place).

Would Utah landowners be as upset if no trash was left on the river or if their “no trespassing” signs weren’t taken down? Maybe. If “wild” bodies of water left unattended for so long hadn’t become garbage dumps, would states and counties have an equal chance of turning them into Epcot? We’ll never know for sure.

Fishermen in the East and West must continue to fight for the public access that belongs to them. But we also need to realize that there are a whole host of private places that provide public access to small bodies of water across the country. These spots are the easiest to lose due to bad behavior.

I’d like to think that most of you, like me, Are water managers. You don’t leave trash on the river and if you’re approached by a landowner, you’re respectful, even if you’re not. None of us should ever forget that the people who don’t fish have more strength and can often pull heavier strings than fishermen. So if you have that fishing spot you love, a spot that still feels secret, take care of it and, above all, never take it for granted.