Thread: No fishing near shore?

Sounds to me like the shoreowners on all our various lakes have finally won a big one. If you read the newspaper report,,only thing you can do within 200 ft of private shoreline is trolling or taking off or launching from a dock within 200' of a shore. Shoreline owners will be allowed to place bouys marking their shoreline they own,,175 ft out into the lake off the shoreline they own marking it. You the boat owner,,won't be allowed to cast, anchor, swim, party, or anchor and fish around their docks casting, or within 200' of that shoreline they own unless your trolling. To me,,its kinda stupid, to let the shoreline owner swim within 200' of his shoreline with me trolling it. I think we need to get someone from DNR to interpet this more as a violation is a Class C infraction. The shoreline owners have a lot of money,,and they finally get their way with DNR ruling in their favor even tho,,ALL of our TAX dollars built our lakes. We, the fishermen,,and hunters,,,lose a big one. Read the article,,and the responses below the article to get others reponses as to how they take this ruling. I really hope this is somekind of mistake as it will kill fishing on most of Indiana's natural lakes, lakes like Eagle Creek, Geist, Freeman, Shafer, certain bays on each of our larger lakes making the entire bay off limits....unless your trolling or longlining. This will kill dock fishing or shooting of docks as well as fishing around private Marinas. How about it people? Sound off on this.

Just plain freaking STUPID!!! Thats the indnr for you

Dont think there is enough game wardens for enforce it

After 50 yrs of arguing about this, DNR just caved into big money and a very very few political, influential, voices... and now will never protect the rights of fishermen or hunters in this state ever again. Our voice has been silenced by private big money and politics.

Great now all the @ss tournaments will be held on reservoirs because the state owns or leases that property and the law wont apply. That just sucks!

What will this new ruling do to the fishing at EC? Most of the shoreline is private!

Once again, the rich want special treatment so they paid off the DNR. Maybe the DNR should realize WHO pays their salaries and who built the lakes the rich now want access to for only them!

I guess if this is true. If people quit fishing the large lakes due to the fact that we can not fish the docks or area in front of a home. Look at the amount of money that DNR will loose due to launch permits. You have t love the Indiana DNR.

Originally Posted by gijimbo

Great now all the @ss tournaments will be held on reservoirs because the state owns or leases that property and the law wont apply. That just sucks!

I think, cause all of various bass money tournaments,,not the 5-6 big IBF tourneys but the club tourneys and other groups as there are about 150 or more per year,,may have caused this. But,,this ruling was done, behind everybody's back with no warnings,,no hearings,,no meetings to discuss up front with the public. Big money may have spoken to our State Governor and filtered down to DNR,,,who knows? But we have definitely been backdoor'd on this. The big IBF tourneys are already regulated to the larger reservoirs and Ohio River as years ago, they used to fish Mansfield, Freeman, Wawasee, Brookville, Tippycanoe-Barbie Chain, to name a few, and were forced to what they fish today,,but not the clubs or other tourneys under the so many boats per tourney rules the state created. Even on big reservoirs,,there is private docks, marinas, and private controlled land here and there. Who is going to know what you can fish, and where you can? I can see DNR swamped with phone calls now about people complaining about fishing their controlled piece of property or pleasure boaters anchoring to party here and there. Going to be hard to enforce and what will be the fine for a Class C infraction? This could be a really big mess especially for the northern natural lakes with all the cottages around them. And,,,is this in effect now?

I just spoke to our local co. He informed me that they just had a meeting last week in reference to new laws taking effect in July and that this was not mentioned. JFYI