Landowner run in on a stream near Pineville

[gotmuddy]

48 minutes ago, Terrierman said:

My comment was nothing more or less than an observation.  Weird person with a gun acting like that would get me to leave pronto.  And it's true, he's not a very good shot.

absolutley

[tjm]

1 hour ago, Terrierman said:

And it's true, he's not a very good shot.

well he does very poorly there, but we don't know if that is his best or just a show, the next ten shots might make one ragged hole. I'm skeptical that anyone carrying a gun would shoot that badly when serious, but then I don't know the guy, so maybe ....

[Terrierman]

7 hours ago, tjm said:

well he does very poorly there, but we don't know if that is his best or just a show, the next ten shots might make one ragged hole. I'm skeptical that anyone carrying a gun would shoot that badly when serious, but then I don't know the guy, so maybe ....

You sir are a very generous judge of shooting ability.  Probably safer that way.

[jdmidwest]

Does anyone remember the guy with the signs upstream of the access in the Catch and Release portion of the Norfork below the dam and above the White River?  He had "Shooting Range" signs and was rumored to be a bad a  screwing with people wading around his property.

That was back before CCW days and I just packed heat because I might need to shoot a snake.  Never saw him, but caught my best Brown there on a fly rod, 25".  That was mid 90's.

I think it is Ackerman or River Ridge now, but it was something else back then.  Tom Hargrove dropped my truck off there one time during the fall fly fest in Mountain Home and I floated thru in my 8' inflatable pontoon.  They kicked the generators on about half way and I got to test the rockers on my whitewater rated rig.  Never even went to town to see the festival, fishing was too good.

[Al Agnew]

On 3/4/2025 at 8:29 PM, tjm said:

My familiarity with the local creeks only goes back to the early 1950s, but yes there were 'roads' built on the ROW adjacent the bigger bridges and parking under them as well as pullout parking built by the highway department in some areas. MODOT closed, removed, and/or posted all the accesses on the state highways in this area, including areas where the roads and creeks run parallel and adjacent,  over the past 30 years or so and back when it first started I was told (by the backhoe operator doing the work)  that it was at the request of the canoe rental places, they wanted control of where and how many floaters were on the streams, and the revenue from liveries.  I never confirmed that, but I later heard similar from other sources. I've seen deputies ticketing cars on the county roads and I've seen vehicles towed away from a couple of the low water crossings. My family has been in this area for ~150 years and I still find it prudent to knock on doors and confirm that it's still okay to use the land. Not all the current landowners are "natives" that might know the family, and not all are nice, but they do own the land under the creeks and they get taxed for it at the same rate as if were crop land.

And, about the "high water mark"; I'm not sure that's in any law, but,  on a creek that normally is less than 30' wide, the annual floods (some years several floods) can easily put the high water marks 400'-600' apart and no angler needs to be 200 yards from the water, it might be better to talk about use of the clean washed gravel rather than the high water mark that covers whole fields, if we want to get along with the landowners.

@Al Agnew what is your interpretation of Elder as pertains to "intermittent streams" or to streams that have run dry at least once in the past 50-60 years?

 

I suppose it's possible that the canoe rental places in some areas did that, but I really doubt it.  I know for sure that it's the landowners around the bridges that have instigated their closing in many cases, and in others, it's been the county sheriff who did it so that they wouldn't have so many headaches constantly getting calls from local people about partying and drug use and other bad behavior at the bridge crossings.  And a lot of these bridge closings are on streams that aren't served by canoe liveries.

"High water mark" is NOT a part of the law for float streams in Missouri.  Elder v Delcour didn't mention it.  What it said, and I'm quoting from the actual case transcript, is "the stream bed, gravel bars and clearly recognizable area over which the stream flows during its normal stages".  You can generally figure that gravel bars and weedbeds along the river are okay, but when you climb up the bank at the back of the gravel bar and get into the trees or the farmer's field, or climb up the talus slope under a bluff, you're trespassing.  People have all kinds of weird and totally wrong ideas about this.  I've seen people say that it's so many feet from the river, or so many feet above water level.  Nope.  You can be 5 feet from the river on a high bank and be trespassing, or a hundred yards from the river at the back of a big gravel bar and be legal.

The crux of the decision in Elder was that if you can float the stream in a normal stage (which means in the spring when the normal flow is at its highest), you have the right to float it.  It wouldn't matter if the stream went dry in mid-summer as long as it was floatable in the spring when it was at a stable level.  I don't know of many streams in Missouri that would fit that situation...most that go completely dry are only floatable in higher than normal spring levels.  But it's part of the gray area surrounding stream access in Missouri...how DO you judge whether a stream is actually floatable at a "normal" level in the spring?

[Al Agnew]

On 3/5/2025 at 1:19 PM, drew03cmc said:

Yes sir, my son posted it on Facebook.

Definitely Little Sugar in Missouri.

This is what I was referring to. This is a common access that is used a lot by anglers and floaters. The landowner said he would permit floating in a kayak, but that his property line ended in the middle of the river. We made sure to stay within 12", one boot length, of the water, never encroaching on his property, or even desiring to. My buddy, who lives down there, wades and drags his kayak upstream to this pool several times each winter without issue. We encountered another landowner upstream who has a big Pyrenees for a guard dog and was as sweet as the day is long. This guy just wanted to be a dick for no reason whatsoever.

Nah, Ronnie, some of us have to work and have young kids at home, so we can't always be sitting here waiting for responses. I had a few minutes to log in and check this thread as I have not been on here in a couple days. Just wanted to warn others who may fish this watershed that there is a renegade landowner above Pineville a few miles, but below Griffin Ford. 

His property line DOES probably end in the middle of the river; that's the case with a lot of riverfront property in Missouri.  BUT...in the case of floatable streams, the decision was that the public has what amounts to an easement to use the part of his property that includes stream bottom AND GRAVEL BARS.  That was where he was wrong.  He had no right to keep you off the gravel bar.  If you had walked up a bank onto his field or in his trees you'd have been trespassing.  But not walking on a gravel bar.

This is what annoys me about a lot of river landowners, especially those that bought the land fairly recently.  I own riverfront property in two places in Missouri and one place in Montana.  I bought it knowing that I would have to put up with the public being on my gravel bars.  It's part of the price of owning land on a float stream, and all landowners should realize that.  I can understand the frustration with people littering and doing other obnoxious things, but that's the way it is.  The big problem comes when the landowner is rich and influential in county politics, and has the sheriff and county prosecutor in his pocket.  There have been several places in Missouri where the landowner successfully kept a lot of people of "his" river because the county officials let him.

[snagged in outlet 3]

13 hours ago, jdmidwest said:

Does anyone remember the guy with the signs upstream of the access in the Catch and Release portion of the Norfork below the dam and above the White River?  He had "Shooting Range" signs and was rumored to be a bad a  screwing with people wading around his property.

That was back before CCW days and I just packed heat because I might need to shoot a snake.  Never saw him, but caught my best Brown there on a fly rod, 25".  That was mid 90's.

I think it is Ackerman or River Ridge now, but it was something else back then.  Tom Hargrove dropped my truck off there one time during the fall fly fest in Mountain Home and I floated thru in my 8' inflatable pontoon.  They kicked the generators on about half way and I got to test the rockers on my whitewater rated rig.  Never even went to town to see the festival, fishing was too good.

I do.   We used to call it Handicap now Ackerman.    The river split right there and if you were on the north leg of the split he would go nuts.  

[T.J. Clarke]

I am a calm, nice, friendly person but there are way too many crazy stories out there for my taste.  The pocket in the front of my chest waders is the perfect size for my 2-inch scandium light weight .357 magnum.   We owe it to our family and each other to be able to return from the outdoors safely.

[fishinwrench]

4 hours ago, T.J. Clarke said:

I am a calm, nice, friendly person but there are way too many crazy stories out there for my taste.  The pocket in the front of my chest waders is the perfect size for my 2-inch scandium light weight .357 magnum.   We owe it to our family and each other to be able to return from the outdoors safely.

If you are on a stream and a landowner confronts you, and tells you to leave, your best move is to be as friendly as you can and just LEAVE.  

You can call the sheriff or MDC and report it when you get back to your truck if you want, and let THEM sort it out, but streamside arguments are NEVER going to benefit you or your family..... regardless of what firearm you're packing.   

[ness]

1 minute ago, fishinwrench said:

your best move is to be as friendly as you can

That right there will get you ahead in practically all circumstances.