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Originally Posted by TroutFiend
Not to get to off subject. In TN if you walk in at a bridge access point and "wade" a creek thru private land is that trespassing?
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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