Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Idaho to fix problem of blocked access to public land?

There are many examples of private land owners harassing and putting up fencing and barb wire across navigable streams in an effort to keep fishermen from floating through their “private stretches”. Many claim they have to because people are trashing their places and causing problems by leaving garbage, poaching, trespassing beyond high water marks, etc.

OTOH, there are many reports of fishermen who aren’t doing anything wrong and well within their legal rights being harassed by belligerent, entitlement minded landowners simply because the fisherman had the audacity to fish through “their” waters.

There was a case a few years back reported in many fly fishing mags of singer Huey Lewis - who is a fly fisherman - blocking access to a stream that had historically been open to the public. If I recall, he had made improvements to said stream at considerable cost to himself claiming the stream wasn’t a stream at all but merely a man made ditch and so he had the right to block it off because many were coming in and trashing the place. Someone challenged it - maybe a local sportsman’s group - and last I heard it was going to court. I don’t know what all ended up happening. It may be ongoing for all I know.

This is an ongoing problem with no easy answers. I am a firm believer in public access to public lands and waters, but some of the slob hunters/fishermen don't make it easy on the rest of us.