Little Piney Access - Run-In With Landowner

[Sharps4590]

Years ago I used to see a bumper sticker/placard that said something to the effect: Remember the golden rule,"He who has the gold makes the rule". Sad but all too often true.

[3wt]

This topic comes up on fishing sites all the time. There has been much wailing and gnashing of teeth, angst and hot air spewed forth and not just about Missouri. I've done quite a bit of reading on the subject and I agree that it is a truly vague area in Missouri, mostly because of rumor, propaganda and plain ol' wrong information being put forth as fact.

In Missouri a navigable stream does not necessarily mean one that will float a canoe......or stick. To my knowledgeable the only streams/rivers that have been actually declared navigable are the Mississippi, Missouri, Osage, parts of the Gasconade and parts of the Meremac. Navigable in historic use has meant commercial. The float streams, again to my knowledge, fall under a different kind of "navigable" definition. Historical use of a body of water has been used in past court cases to determine "navigability" dating back to when Ozark streams were used to float logs to market. Some cases include specific streams that have been used for floating by individuals and outfitters for so long that it is assumed, and has been subsequently ruled, that they are "navigable".....in the sense that they are available for public use. On the smallish Ozark streams where a landowner owns both banks of a stream they can most assuredly close it off....from any public use, wading or floating.. If they own only one side then all they can control is their property to the middle of the stream and if they have an agreement with the property owner on the other side.....it can all be shut down.

In short, just because you can float a canoe or kayak in it or access it from a slab or other crossing does not mean you are within your legal rights. There are all kinds of places to fish legally and frankly I don't find a confrontation with a landowner worth the angst.....and sometimes a person can be dead and right....not an option that I find appealing.

In addition, being a landowner myself, I would probably shut it down. I live not far from Rolla and the litter around here is bad, and I hate it, but it isn't any worse than I've seen in several different states. That is NOT justiifcation for the crap we see, merely an observation. I wouldn't put up with other people's trash and filth on my property.

I fish around here a lot and I am in agreement that at least locally those who visit to fish are not the culprit of the litter problem, it's local.

I believe your assesment of navigable is incorrect. Navigability and it's application to stream access is federal and appearently small portable craft were deliberately part of the rationale to "navigability."

http://www.nationalr...-law-public.htm

This is why there are strange access rules (not touching stream bottoms in CO etc) but navigatign those waters is still allowed, because it's a federal thing.

And I am appalled that the state doesn't have a bigger problem with such landowner nonsense. The stream in question is stocked and publicly funded. This should never be done in a stream that can be deemed closed to the public. The very existence of public access points and stocking would indicate accessiblity. I'm sure a it would weigh heavily on a judge asked to make the call.

The solution by the state has basically been not making hard and fast determinations, which just feeds the problem, causes local jurisdictions to make bad rulings on accessibiltiy taht make for inconsistent rule (and rules that are inconsistent with law in fact). How does allowing confusion seem like a good treatment of this issue?

[Blazerman]

Sharps, you're right about "navigable", but you're not exactly right about your assertion that if the landowner owns both sides he can shut it down. That is entirely dependent upon the stream in question. And since the original section of the Meramec in Elder v Delcour was far upstream and small enough that it is only really floatable part of the year, and since one of the other "test cases" used in determining whether or not there is a "public easement" was on Indian Creek, a stream that is definitely only floatable for part of the year and small enough that it's not even mentioned in the MDC float book, it's likely that a court would determine that any stream the is big enough to get a canoe down it would qualify for being a "public highway". Since the Little Piney, for instance, is at least as big as Indian Creek (a tributary of the Meramec), it stands to reason that it would have that "public easement", in which case the angler is in the right to both float and wade it.

Since you mentioned Indian creek I thought I would add the fact that the access to Indian creek and the Meramec by Shady beach is now closed off. The parking along Project road that was used to access Indian creek was shut down by the land owner. Many people used the small lot to get down to the creek and Meramec river but the lot has been closed down.

[Greasy B]

Indian Creek access closed, another brick in the wall between the public and public waters. Sad news indeed.

[3wt]

Since you mentioned Indian creek I thought I would add the fact that the access to Indian creek and the Meramec by Shady beach is now closed off. The parking along Project road that was used to access Indian creek was shut down by the land owner. Many people used the small lot to get down to the creek and Meramec river but the lot has been closed down.

Typical landowner solution - make a friend or pay a local official enough to get no parking signs where they want to cut off access.

That landowner seems to have been quite the problem over the years (pretty sure it's one).

[3wt]

I had a run in with her this weekend. Found out we are related--my grandmother is her cousin. Long story short, three guys pulled up on a four wheelers and it got real heated after I told them that I wasn't doing anything wrong--the stream is listed as a float stream by the conservation dept. When I told them to call the sheriff, it got uglier. I decided to leave. I called a conservation agent and told him what happened. This afternoon I got a call from the fisheries biologist in Rolla. He told me that she owns that portion of the creek and can fence it off and run people off. If the sheriff had come, I would have been arrested. However, He said, if I was floating in a canoe, she could not have said a word.

As for the details, in phelps county property lines run to the middle of a stream if the property is divided by the creek. If the owner owns both sides, then they own the stream and its bottom, gravel bars, etc.

This is my first post to this forum--I just wanted to keep people from getting into trouble by following the misinformation in the previous posts. I followed it and could have got arrested. She owns the land all the way down to Vida slab, so wade upstream at your own risk.

I'm not sure the fisheries biologist had it right.

Property line doesn't matter. Even if both sides are owned. It is considered a public easment. We can even leave the canoe and walk onthe gravel bars.

I doubt the sheriff would arrest anybody, but that doesn't mean they would make the right call.

[tanvat]

Under present Missouri law - as noted by previous posters - the fisheries biologist is almost certainly wrong. For the biologist to say that a landowner can close off a publicly accessible, publicly managed/stocked stream is not only legally incorrect, but it also serves to reinforce incorrect info; after all MDC said it was closed, right? It seems that a lot of misinformation starts and is perpetuated that way - someone says it once, it is repeated, and it transforms from a "by gawd they oughta" statement to an immutable fact that "everbody knows" and is "common sense." If the L.P. at Vida could be closed, then one could effectively cut off float access from Prongs on the Jacks Fork b/c, most of the year, you have to drag a bit to float from the access down to NPS land (not that its a National Park, of course). As far as what the Phelps Co. sheriff would do, he is elected and likely would, lets say, respond to constituent concerns.

[ozark trout fisher]

For what it's worth, the MDC site says to ask permission to fish a stream if it is not "obviously floatable". What does "obvious" mean exactly? Well the webpage goes onto say that if a stream has "property maintained for the purpose of allowing public access to the stream, such as Missouri Department of Conservation access sites" it should probably fit the bill. I think that the Little Piney is "obviously floatable", and this should lend further creedence to that. The link is here.

That said, on streams like Little Piney we still enter a gray area. I'm not sure it is actually that much a legal gray area-I think based on the precedent of certain court rulings, it should be at least relatively clear that wade fishing a stream like the Little Piney shouldn't be a problem. But small town courts are small town courts, and do you have the resources or will to fight a major legal battle if you are (in my opinion) wrongfully prosecuted? Understandably, most do not, and just pay the fine. So the cycle continues...

There can also be a safety factor involved here. I don't know of any instances of that sort on the Little Piney (not to say there haven't been any), but every once in awhile a landowner-fisherman conflict will escalate to violence-on the part of one party of the other. So unfortunately, this is an issue where having some level of legal clarity might not actually do you much good.

I'm not sure I love our stream access laws in Missouri (or rather our lack of any coherent laws on the issue) but it sure does beat the heck out of what's going on in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming, and some other states mostly out west. In those places, on pretty much any river that flows through private land, you are probably going to be considered to be trespassing if you so much as touch the bottom. There is something to be said for Missouri's legal gray area on the issue (and I know you all probably will want to punch me square in the face if I say the words "gray area" ever again) because it is better than those state's version of "clarity" on the issue.

[TylerS]

Where is Vida Slab? I am unable to find it on a map. Is it near corn creek?

[2sheds]

Vida Slab is a few miles downstream from Cork Creek.  Too far to walk downstream from Lane Springs unless you are up for the beautiful walk back upstream on your return.

Vida Slab is best reached off H63, east on Highway W.  Continue east on CR 7220, then Veer left on CR 235 when you get near the Piney.  You will see a pull off parking area on your left, just before crossing the "slab" bridge crossing the Piney.