good luck OAF, everyone else can suck it.. Eh?

[MOPanfisher]

16 hours ago, fishinwrench said:

.  It's called adverse possession.   So how long has Plaster been "assuming ownership" of the Osage fork of the Gasconade ?  He may very well own it now because he has been doing this for quite awhile and nobody has ever contested

Unlikely that it would apply.  Since the adjacent landowners already as a matter of law own the riverbed then the only thing in question is the water, and to a lesser extent the gravel bars etc.  Since the water is public, i.e. waters of the state, it would apply as Adverse Posession doesn't apply to goverbment owned land. Now I am NOT a lawyer and haven't stayed in a Holiday Inn in over a month so I may be making more assumptions than are wise.  The long version is nothing is sent in stone until it goes to court and is decided by a judge and upheld on appeal, I believe only then does it become a legal precedent.  County Prosecutors can decide to file or not file as they please, sometimes only in an attempt to run a bluff or satisfy a powerful landowner and get the accused to pay the fine and move on.

[fishinwrench]

14 minutes ago, MOPanfisher said:

Unlikely that it would apply

If a county charges you with trespass then that seals the deal.  They are acknowledging and confirming (legally) that the other party indeed owns the area you were on.

[MOPanfisher]

3 minutes ago, fishinwrench said:

If a county charges you with trespass then that seals the deal.  They are acknowledging and confirming (legally) that the other party indeed owns the area you were on.

Not even close, it only means that the prosecutor was willing to file the charges and let a judge decide.  More than a few judges have dismissed a case and then thoroughly chewed out a prosecutor for filing a charge simply to placate someone.  

[fishinwrench]

3 minutes ago, MOPanfisher said:

Not even close, it only means that the prosecutor was willing to file the charges and let a judge decide.  More than a few judges have dismissed a case and then thoroughly chewed out a prosecutor for filing a charge simply to placate someone.  

I'm sorry, excuse my wording, I meant convicted/fined.

[MOPanfisher]

If you are convicted in court then yes they are saying in the view of the judge/jury/court that you were indeed guilty.  That is what higher courts and courts of appeal are for.  Realistically it is likely that neither you nor I nor most anyone I fish or hang out with has the;  $, time, drive, and a good pet lawyer, and or a sympathetic senator to fight it beyond that level so we accept it as being a crap sammich and we grudgingly take our bite of it and go on with our life.

[Old plug]

 SETH   4" is about what they were. I have not seen a sting of crappie like that in the 25 yrs I veen out here. i have caught my share of 100 cappie in a day over the last 70+ years. Never seen a stringer  that contained 100 keepers. Recenly my neigbor his wife and me in two boats caught somewhere in the range of 120-150 crappie in three  morning and evening trips over 2 days totaling about 9 hrs. All sizes many keepers. They kept about 6 and I kept none. Those 6 they kept were all 12" or better. Was a couple  couple wonderful days. Like me he is spoiled to eating his crappie within hours of being caught. That really spoils you. We are both very  conservation minded as well.

 

[Al Agnew]

20 hours ago, slothman said:

Al, if floating is legal, what about wading? 

Wading on the streams deemed floatable is just as much a right as floating them, according to Elder v Delcour and pretty much all legal precedent past the county court level.  Using gravel bars for stopping, swimming, picnicking, and camping is also permitted on those streams.  On streams too small to float it's an entirely different matter.  If the landowner wants to call the law on you for wading "his" creek, chances are you'll be fined and you'll lose in court.  

There is a certain amount of "traditional use" implied in wading creeks.  In the past, most landowners didn't care if you waded their creek.  But more and more, those landowners are being replaced by those who either want the creek to themselves, or are tired of the problems associated with idiots using their creek.  Any time you wade a small creek on private land, you are probably in jeopardy of running afoul with both the landowner and the law.

As far as I know, Montana is about the only state where the above is not true.  Montana's legislature passed a law many years ago that basically says that if you can find a place to legally get on the creek (without crossing private land or with permission to cross private land), you can fish it and wade it anywhere you can reach from that point.  As long as the creek has fish in it, you can fish it.  You cannot leave the stream bed (which includes anything below the obviously higher banks), but you are perfectly legal wading even small creeks across private land.   It's one of the huge reasons why I live part time in Montana rather than Wyoming or Colorado, where large sedtions of the better trout streams are private water.

[Old plug]

Normal law does not apply to Morgan County Mo.,  

[Trout Addict]

On 12/3/2017 at 2:32 PM, tjm said:

Fairly good article, Trout Addict,  but leaves me unsure of what they said.

Navigable rivers in Mo. are the Missouri River, the Grand River and the Mississippi River if I recall what I researched some years ago

Thanks

I'm not a legal expert and I don't know if it would hold up in court, but my understanding is that the EPA thru the Clean Water Act redefined "navigable water" to include almost every ditch and small streams in America.

Federal Register on December 11, 1973 (see 38 FR 34165) and reads as follows: 
The term “navigable waters” of the United States means “navigable waters” as defined in section 502(7) of 
the FWPCA, and includes: 
(1) all navigable waters of the United States, as defined in judicial decisions prior to the passage of the 
1972 Amendments of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, (FWPCA) (Pub. L. 92-500) also known as 
the Clean Water Act (CWA), and tributaries of such waters as; 
(2) interstate waters; 
(3) intrastate lakes, rivers, and streams which are utilized by interstate travelers for recreational or other 
purposes; and 
(4) intrastate lakes, rivers, and streams from which fish or shellfish are taken and sold in interstate commerce.

[Al Agnew]

19 hours ago, Trout Addict said:

Thanks

I'm not a legal expert and I don't know if it would hold up in court, but my understanding is that the EPA thru the Clean Water Act redefined "navigable water" to include almost every ditch and small streams in America.

Federal Register on December 11, 1973 (see 38 FR 34165) and reads as follows: 
The term “navigable waters” of the United States means “navigable waters” as defined in section 502(7) of 
the FWPCA, and includes: 
(1) all navigable waters of the United States, as defined in judicial decisions prior to the passage of the 
1972 Amendments of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, (FWPCA) (Pub. L. 92-500) also known as 
the Clean Water Act (CWA), and tributaries of such waters as; 
(2) interstate waters; 
(3) intrastate lakes, rivers, and streams which are utilized by interstate travelers for recreational or other 
purposes; and 
(4) intrastate lakes, rivers, and streams from which fish or shellfish are taken and sold in interstate commerce.

There is also a little known and universally ignored federal law that basically says that all flowing streams in the country are public waters.  There's a paddling organization--can't think of the name of it right now--that keeps throwing that law out there and contending that the public has a right to use every flowing stream.  But as a practical matter, the law IS ignored by all states.  State laws apply, and each state law is different.  It's the same with what you cited above...it exists but is ignored.