Odd question.....river access

[DChance]

The bourbeuse river in st james is right down the road from me. Question is, is the river open for public use (fishing, mushroom hunting etc) or is it typically privately owned? 

[Greasy B]

The land surrounding the river and even the river bed is private property, somebody pays taxes on it. You have the right to travel down the river and work your way around obstacles up to the high water mark (what ever that is). When people camp on the gravel bars with me I make point of telling them that your always in somebody's back yard and we need to behave accordingly. I suppose you could wander the bottoms in some places and not be noticed but it would be wrong to think you have a right to be there. 

[Al Agnew]

Just to add to what Greasy said, on streams like the upper reaches of the Bourbeuse (which is what you're talking about if it's near St. James), the situation is not clear. Greasy's advice pertains to streams large enough to take a canoe or kayak on. Streams too small for watercraft are different...you probably don't have a legal right to use them. You certainly don't have a right to get out away from the water to hunt mushrooms. As a practical matter, I base my chances of running into trouble on small creeks by whether there are signs of people parking where I want to access the creek (and a lack of no trespass signs or purple paint.

[ozark trout fisher]

The Bourbeuse around St. James is mighty small. Not saying you shouldn't fish there. I am saying I'm not certain you are in the legal right if you do on private land and without permission.

As someone who has spent a ton of time fishing wadeable smallmouth streams in the Ozarks, it is touchy, and you ultimately have to make your own risk/reward assessment. I've always been firmly of the belief that flowing water and the streambed under it ought not be something someone can own, unless you own all of it, because flowing water is by definition and necessity a public resource. To me that is something pretty near a universal truth. But it's one that doesn't align with law.

If you go for it anyway, be quiet and a little extra careful with trash, etc. And be friendly as hell if you are confronted. That can solve a lot of problems. There have been a few times where I've talked my way out of a potentially sticky situation and by the end of it was just talking fishing or cattle or whatever and getting told where the next really good pool is. There are usually better options than going straight into a pitch about stream access rights. In fact, that's basically never going to work out, even if you are 100% in the right, legally.

And if none of that works, apologize and get the hell out of there however you have to. Once again, even if you are 100% in the right, legally, in practical terms it probably won't do you any good.

But I wouldn't try mushroom hunting on the banks. There is no legal ambiguity there.