10-13-2008, 05:04 PM
The high water mark question has yet to be decided in Utah. Other states (for example Montana and Michigan) use the high water mark. The DWR on its website references this fact and then adds a disclaimer that the issue has not yet been settled here in Utah.
Other states have also made provisions for things like "safe wading." In many cases this means that an angler can leave the stream bed to pass a dangerous obstacle (fast current, logjam, etc).
It makes little sense to require everyone to keep their feet in the water. As a pratical matter this would mean encouraging anglers to slosh through the middle of spawning beds and otherwise degrade the stream bed.
A friend of mine was fishing some private water this summer (within the high water mark) but he was standing on a very small gravel bar in the middle of the river. The landowner had paid someone to sit on the bank and take pictures. This individual took a picture of my friend and then informed him that the landowner had taken the position that the State Supreme Court Ruling required anglers to keep their feet in the water and asked him to leave.
If you are fishing in an area where the landowner takes this position you can either stay in the water to avoid a confrontation, or assert your right to stay within the high water mark, wait for the sheriff to come out and give you a ticket and then take it to court in order to become the test case for defining what constitutes the "streambed."
Be respectful of the private property, stay within the high water mark, and you should be fine in most cases. I'm sorry that there is not a more definitive answer on this.
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Other states have also made provisions for things like "safe wading." In many cases this means that an angler can leave the stream bed to pass a dangerous obstacle (fast current, logjam, etc).
It makes little sense to require everyone to keep their feet in the water. As a pratical matter this would mean encouraging anglers to slosh through the middle of spawning beds and otherwise degrade the stream bed.
A friend of mine was fishing some private water this summer (within the high water mark) but he was standing on a very small gravel bar in the middle of the river. The landowner had paid someone to sit on the bank and take pictures. This individual took a picture of my friend and then informed him that the landowner had taken the position that the State Supreme Court Ruling required anglers to keep their feet in the water and asked him to leave.
If you are fishing in an area where the landowner takes this position you can either stay in the water to avoid a confrontation, or assert your right to stay within the high water mark, wait for the sheriff to come out and give you a ticket and then take it to court in order to become the test case for defining what constitutes the "streambed."
Be respectful of the private property, stay within the high water mark, and you should be fine in most cases. I'm sorry that there is not a more definitive answer on this.
[signature]