Sign me up for the shootout. I carry with me anytime I am on the water. I am going out tonight by myself, so you better believe I am packing. I don't know how I would have reacted to him threatening me with a firearm. I have mine holstered on my hip in the kayak so it can be easily pulled if needed. You threaten my life and brandish a weapon and I think you are serious we might have to see who is the better shot.

Yes.

The owners own the stream bed. It has to be able to float without touching bottom. Even in a boat dropping anchor is the same as standing on the legally speaking.

Road bridge accesses aren't all technically public though.

The answer is....maybe. This is something I did a ton of research on 2 years back. Tennessee has some of the most liberal laws allowing access to streams and rivers of any state in the nation. The term navigable waterways comes in to play here and a lot of people mistake that term as meaning boat...barge traffic. That is not the case and I have all the pages I read about this bookmarked and can reference them but it would take a while to go through my bookmarks to find them all. In Tennessee "navigable" has broad meaning. The stream can even be dry in places and still be considered navigable. I have a list of all the waterways in Tennessee considered navigable water ways by the USACE. While Tennessee law uses that as a reference it is not considered the "Bible" once one is in court for trespassing. Then there is the "high water mark". This is an area you can look at and tell that at one time water was at that point...it can be driftwood....gravel....many things. This is important as according to law you can be on dry land and if it is in the high water mark you are still considered in the stream bed and not trespassing. But the problem comes when and if you get arrested for trespassing and wind up in the court. The local judge may see it different. I went to all this trouble as I wanted to float Forty Eight Creek. It is all on private land except for some bridges. But while I never did float it others have and done so with no problems.


Regards

I was looking at the Army Corps of Engineers website.
I found a map, but I am trying to find the navigable waters in Wilson County.
Is there a better website to reference this?
Thanks

Andy

Troutfiend....have you been wanting to wade Barton's creek from Hartman to Coles Ferry? I'm not a fan of dropping in below the sewer plant on Hartman but from Maple hill to the lake I'm down!

Here is an UACE web site for navigable waters.....or what is considered by them to be so...but this list does not cover all the streams in Tennessee.



Regards

http://www.lrn.usace.army.mil/Missio...atersList.aspx

I have waded both of those areas. Wading upstream from Coles Ferry is mighty fine fishin ;). I waded up to the water treatment sign one day and thought, maybe my waders aren't that water tight . Lol. I fish the beginnings of this creek quite frequently.

Thanks Alpha, this is what I was looking for.

Correct. This is a HUGE problem in Arkansas during duck season. The White River floodstage is 26' in Clarendon. When the White floods, it causes the Cache to flood. When the Cache floods, you literally have access up and down the river to millions of acres of flooded rice and beans. Hunters try to invoke Riparian Right, but wind up being asked to leave or being arrested.

Just because the land floods does not bar the property owner their land rights. That has been upheld all the way to the Supreme Court. I'm unsure whether that is state or federal. One thing is for certain though, Tennessee strictly bars the use of deadly force in the protection of property. If I'm accidentally somewhere I'm not supposed to be, just ask me to leave, and I'm gone. Point a gun at me over the same matter, and somebody better call the law...there's a shootout in progress.

It was always a problem first ice in michigan. All the canals would freeze over first. The very rich folks have homes on canals up there and they had the attitude of "your on the ice in front of my house, i own that ice, stay off" ive seen fist fights break out on the ice where the homeowner gets in the fishermans faces, yelling and screaming at the tops of thier lungs to get the BLEEP off thier ice. Per the norm, the home owner would push the ignoring fisherman while he sat on his bucket, fisherman gets up, decks the homeowner, sits back down and keeps fishing. Appauled wife calls sherrif, sherrif gets the scoop from dozens of witnesses on the ice, homeowner at the worst get taken to jail, most of the time no charges were pressed. Said fisherman got thier satisfaction from dotting a loudmouths eye or splitting his nose. Quite a few fisherman harrassment cases though. Lol.
Of course that was 15 years ago before firearms became more prevalent. Could be a war zone up there now for all i know.
In those cases just cause they live on the public waters, they think they own thier fair share of whats in front of thier house.
Some people on the water are just crazy!

Hitting the fisherman was unnecessary. Just shove his fishing pole in his ice hole.

Lmao....instead the crazed home owner got knocked on his!

To get back on Todd Lake in Murfreesboro.I copied this site and sent to a LEO in Murfreesboro and he called today and informed me that Todd Lake is a private and he says he was shown the deed to it which states it is 33 acres in size.
Now after saying all of that, he is concerned about him approaching folks with the gun.

I may have to bring it up in roll call on Monday. See if they will let me go stake it out. I can hear it now " No Sergeant, I have not seen the suspect but I did catch 3 nice bass" " What do you mean square patrol, Sergeant?" I will definitely pass this along to patrol to keep a look out.

So what you are saying is, stay off the lake?