Thread: Dock Shooting... Minding my own bizzness.. Then, Please Don't Fish Around My Dock!!

Very true. A person might own the land under the water, but not the water itself. Think about it---if it's YOUR water, and it evaporates, how are you going to get YOUR water back? Or if someone drowns in YOUR water, are you liable?

Originally Posted by WE16

I know on Norfolk, Bull Shoals, a year or two ago, the COE was looking at making a ruling that you could not fish the docks from a boat.
Dock owners were tired of hooks in lines going to the dock. Not sure how it came out but the dock owerns were pushing it hard

I'm not for sure, but I think they were talking about commercial docks.

If you fish under my dock the only problem is you may have to talk to me if I see you catching crappie I will definitely try to see how and engage you in a short conversation but I will never try to keep anyone from fishing it they may be my neighbor and I may be under their dock the next day it has happened before.
Noslab.

Arkansas has a law allowing fair access to navigatable waters. This states that if you can get to the water through public access, and navigate the water, you can go anywhere. This means water under the docks. So long as you are not on the docks, tied to the docks, or holding onto the posts, you are not tresspassing, and therefore have all legal rights to fish it. I tell you this from experience, we were talking with a warden one afternoon about some guys duck hunting in a field with us, and since they were coming into our field from the river, there was nothing we could do untill they dropped an anchor, tied to a tree, or got out and walked across the field. As long as they were in a boat floating around, it was perfectly legal.

I would fish them until I was asked not to. There are more places to fish than to get in fight over someone elses dock. Now however, I wouldn't fish a dock if it looked like kids used it for swimming, (slide, diving board, or a ladder on the end to get back up). Not saying its wrong, but thats just me. I don't want to think that I took the chance to maybe leave a hook in the water around where kids are swimming. To many places for me to fish for me to do that.

Originally Posted by dblevens

Arkansas has a law allowing fair access to navigatable waters. This states that if you can get to the water through public access, and navigate the water, you can go anywhere. This means water under the docks. So long as you are not on the docks, tied to the docks, or holding onto the posts, you are not tresspassing, and therefore have all legal rights to fish it. I tell you this from experience, we were talking with a warden one afternoon about some guys duck hunting in a field with us, and since they were coming into our field from the river, there was nothing we could do untill they dropped an anchor, tied to a tree, or got out and walked across the field. As long as they were in a boat floating around, it was perfectly legal.

All the wardens I've ever known do the best they can do with rare exception, but they are not always knowledgable about property law. If you own it unflooded, you own it flooded. If it's part of the streambed or below the normal high water mark (where the channel normally is, not where it is when it floods), such as sand bars or gravel bars where there is no aquatic vegetation, you don't own it even if the river is low. Ownership and what you can or cannot keep people off of does not change with the water level in a river though the changing water levels and cuttings such as willow or other trees growing up on a growing sand bar or bluff banks getting cut or sloughing off can change what one owns. The bottom line is that if a person motors out of the river and onto land someone owns, they can run them off or have them arrested for trespass whether or not they drop anchors or decoy lines. Having said that, I sure wouldn't bother someone who was just running across land to get to somewhere they had a right to be and would hope they wouldn't bother me if I was doing the same.

Also a landowner does own water on his property unless it is "navigable". The water may increase or decrease, just like dirt may wash in or out. It's yours while it's within your property lines.

To go back to the thread, though, a dock on public waters, e.g., a Corps reservoir, a navigable stream or lake, a G & F or state park lake, etc., is something that a person has a right to fish around as long as they don't get on it or grab ahold of it.

I really appreciate the responses/input that was given... I don't feel so bad now knowing that others have ran into the same problems in regards to fishing near or next to someone's dock. Lesson learned, to fish smart not hard(headed) & keep duck feather skin when individuals think they own more than the lumber they put out in the water. :-)

Only place I've heard being illegal to fish around a dock was some commercial docks on the bigger lakes like Bullshoals. I would ask the local WO in your area or call the AGFC HQ in Little Rock.