KJH
 
Barriers work great, how many fish used to make it above the dam on 4 mile before the fish ladder? I actually remember seeing a few, but it was rare. As I mentioned in my previous post, steelhead would have to be netted and re-stocked above the barriers on the public land. This would be pretty easy and they could just do it in a way that was similar to the stocking of trout. I know it seems like an extreme solution, but it would definitely force the landowners to either enjoy their property for their own gain or sell to the PFBC. The land is much more valuable with the fish than it is without and this can be evidenced by this thread or any previous threads that have talked about the private steelhead fishing guides/clubs.

KJH807

yeah.. i guess the 4mile fish ladder is a pretty effective barrier

It is when it's blocked.

John Holt (author of many fishing titles, including "Yellowstone Drift: Floating the Past in Real Time" which I highly recommend) wrote up a good piece earlier this year on recent happenings in Montana that is extremely relevant to this discussion. It reads in part:
 

Greed, insecurity and just plain old “I got mine, screw you” bullsh*t is making itself more and more apparent in Montana when it comes to fly fishing. The situation often involves big-money yahoos locking up land access to prime waters by purchasing land leases from ranchers who own acreage on one of both sides of rivers flowing through their property. These leases effectively close off access to trout streams or make reaching the waters an extremely difficult and lengthy process. Former network news readers, has-been movie stars, over-the-hill writers and yuppie arbitragers are all part of a concerted effort by a few to deny fly fishing to many – a tangible metaphor for the escalating land grab perpetuated by the terminally wealthy not only in Montana but much of the West.


Aside from the fact that the state has some of the finest trout waters anywhere in the world – the Madison, Yellowstone, Bitterroot, Bighorn, Beaverhead and on and on, what sets the state apart from the rest of the country and also the world is its stream access law that gives anglers the right to fish on nearly every river, stream and creek that flows out here.

Montana is unique among other Western states and most states in general. In 1984, the Montana Supreme Court held that any river or stream that has the capability to be used for recreation, such as fishing and floating, can be used by the public regardless of whether or not the river is navigable and who the owner of the streambed property is. The result is that anglers and floaters have full use of most of the rivers in Montana for fishing and floating, along with swimming and other river related activities. This is known as the Montana Stream Access Law, a law that has been under attack by out-of-state interests since its inception.

On Mitchell Slough in the Bitterroot Valley, a stream local residents have fished for decades, wealthy out-of-staters attempted to close access but were overruled when   the Montana Supreme Court ruled in 2008 that the 16-mile-long stream is open to the public and that the landowners are not entitled to fence it off as part of their private sanctuaries. The court said the slough roughly follows the historical course of a waterway mapped 130 years ago, and therefore is subject to public access and required permitting, as are other natural waterways. The 54-page decision overturned two earlier rulings by state district courts that found the slough was not a natural, perennial-flowing stream.

Opponents to the law as it applied to the slough include former pop star Huey Lewis, Charles Schwab, Private Wealth Partners managing director Kenneth Siebel and a home belonging to Anthony Marnell II, the head of a casino construction company, is built over a tributary to Mitchell Slough.

In 2006 Lewis said in The Times that those in favor of public access on Mitchell Slough had “done a masterful job of casting this as a class-warfare issue… ‘Rich out-of-staters’ is an expletive, and they try to make it a battle against them and rich out-of-staters,” he said. “There are 25 people, and 20 are not rich and not out of state.” Lewis also said of Montana that there is “more cheese, fewer rats” than in California.

...

And individuals and guiding operations are just as greedy as private land owners. Leases are being bought up to exclude the common man from fishing streams like Sixteen Mile, the Shields and on and on.

Along the North Fork of the Blackfoot River a large fly-fishing outfitter/guiding operation has run fence directly up to a bridge crossing the stream in violation of the law. This practice is common throughout the state. On a recent trip I noticed this exclusionary practice on bridges spanning streams that included the Dearborn, the Musselshell drainage, Swift Creek, the Yaak drainage and the Teton.

No big deal you say. There’s plenty of public access through state holdings, national forests, BLM and national parks. Perhaps, but should the state’s access law ever be overturned, and its under threat every second of its life, kiss goodbye fishing to a lot of rivers like those mentioned above along with others that include the Ruby, Boulder, Big Spring Creek, Blackfoot and on down the line. Large portions of these rivers wander through private holdings.

In April 2009 Montana’s governor Brian Schweitzer signed HB190 – the stream access bill that allows landowners to build fences that keep cattle in, but not those that keep fly fishermen out. This is an important victory against out-of-state landowners and developers who have spent loads of cash from a large war chest in a greedy attempt to overturn the access law.

Anglers in the state may fish between the ordinary high water marks of a stream.

...

Obviously wealthy landowners who thought that they were buying their own private Montana are angry. The conflict comes because the Montana Stream Access Law says the public owns the rivers. For recreation, including hunting and fishing, everyone has a right to get access to virtually any waterway that flows through private land. But many landowners have put up fences to keep people away from the streams, an act that is now in violation of the Stream Access Law.

For example, lack of access to the Ruby River has discouraged anglers. There have been a number of complaints from fishermen who have been yelled at and photographed and who have even heard warning shots fired as they fished prized trout streams flowing through private land, which is legal as long as they stay within the high-water marks.

The fight is contentious to say the least along the Ruby River, designer trout water with a good population of large brown trout that hold tight to brushy banks and along the bottoms of sapphire runs and pools. The river drifts through a valley of landowners who have put up fences to keep people off most of the river’s lower stretch.

Some landowners ”erroneously are trying to lay claim to a public resource,” said D ick Oswald during the height of the conflict a few years ago. Oswald is a fisheries biologist for the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks in nearby Dillon. ”I suspect they didn’t do their homework before they bought land. This is America, not feudal Europe.”

 
You can view it in full at: http://www.counterpunch.o...out-rustling-gone-mad/

Of course that's exactly the kind of thing anglers should be pushing for, but I very highly doubt we would find willing allies in either of the PFBC or TU as they exist. I'm quite sure there are individuals within them that would be for it, but it's almost unimaginable that the organizations themselves would come out for full public access.

You really think Pi$$ing off the Landowners even more is the answer.  If it was my property and I was forced to watch people disrespect it once again, believe me, you wouldnt want to fish there anyway.  We are in this situation because of Slobs in the 1st place, Im sure many are members on this very forum..  I know a few of the owners, they will not be pushed around so you can catch a fish.....
 
  All over a stupid fish.....

the MT issue really has no similarities to erie pa
 

No fish in summer?

 

It seams that the DCNR is trying to get the wheel turning. Problem with property owners they think they own the streams which is illegal taking from the public.

[link=http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/forestry/naturalgasexploration/publicstreambeds/index.htm]http://www.dcnr.state.pa....icstreambeds/index.htm[/link]

Public Streambeds Interactive Map

You can use this interactive map to find public streambeds throughout the Commonwealth. Simply zoom into the area you would like to view.
NOTE: The waterways identified herein as having publicly-owned streambeds have been compiled by the Commonwealth over time from various sources. Identification is based upon information believed to be reliable and persuasive evidence of such ownership. The identification of a waterway as having a publicly-owned streambed herein is not intended to be a final determination that the waterway is navigable under state or federal law. Moreover, other waterways not identified herein may be navigable under state or federal law, in which case their streambeds would also be publicly-owned. The Commonwealth reserved the right to add or remove waterways identified as having publicly-owned streambeds as additional information becomes available.
Sources: Publicly-Owned Streambeds – PA DEP’s Lists of Stream Subject to the Submerged Lands License Program, 09/2003
Streams – USGS National Hydrography Dataset, 06/2005

DCNR to collect money from drillers who harvest gas under public streams

By Laura Legere (Staff Writer)
Published: June 4, 2012

Natural gas drillers have to sign leases and compensate the state if they plan to collect gas trapped deep beneath publicly owned streams and rivers, according to a policy developed recently by the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.
The policy applies to gas gathered from pads on neighboring properties - away from the streams and their banks - where wells are drilled vertically before turning and boring laterally underground.
Waterways in the commonwealth are considered publicly owned if they are, or have ever been, used for commercial trade or travel. The list and maps of the waterways compiled by DCNR include hundreds of streams throughout the Marcellus Shale region of the state.
Where the state owns the streambeds, it also owns the mineral rights beneath them.
DCNR spokeswoman Christina Novak said the state is developing a standard agreement for companies that either want to drill horizontally under streams or that will, through hydraulic fracturing, draw gas from rock formations deep under the waterways. Unlike agreements for drillers who operate in state forests, the leases will not address surface impacts because there won't be any on state property, she said.
"This would just allow an operator to access underneath a navigable waterway from nearby but to compensate the commonwealth because it is the owner of the resource," she said.
The agency alerted gas drillers in March that the state would begin seeking compensation through lease payments and royalties for gas removed under the waterways.
The issue emerged because the mineral rights beneath publicly owned waterways were either impeding natural gas development or drilling was taking place without the state being appropriately compensated, Ms. Novak said.
DCNR has not determined how many miles or acres of public waterways will be included in the leasing effort or how much Pennsylvania might make from current or future gas leases. It is also still exploring if it can collect money from any companies that might already have pulled gas from under the waterways.
The state signed a $6.15 million lease plus 20 percent royalty with Chesapeake Energy in 2010 for a seven-mile stretch underneath the Susquehanna River in Bradford County. It holds one other agreement, from 2000, for gas under a navigable waterway.
DCNR has created an interactive map to help operators determine which streams are considered publicly owned, but the agency also cautions in a policy summary that the list of waterways is neither official nor final.
The list developed so far is based primarily on statutory declarations of navigable waterways from as early as the 18th century, but a declaration is not required for a waterway to be considered navigable and the state says it reserves the right to add or drop streams from the list.
Publicly owned waterways in the heart of Northeastern Pennsylvania's shale region include the Susquehanna and Delaware rivers; Tunkhannock, Bowman and Mehoopany creeks in Susquehanna and Wyoming counties; and Wyalusing, Wysox, Wappasening, Sugar and Towanda creeks in Bradford County.
Contact the writer: llegere@timesshamrock.com

Steelslayer
YES the MT post has nothing in common with PA tribs to lake erie
or (in my opinion) PA in general- they are addressing larger floatable rivers, no small streams
if you own property with a stream running through it... its yours... up to a point, which i think the map covers. 
The issue in MT is private landowners trying to shut down larger "public waters"... more along the scale of the isolated issue in PA on the Little J with Donny beaver/ spring ridge club/ home waters club ... no some small NWPA brook trout stream
 
CRB
PA is unique due to the small streams that hold fish... there are 10s of thousands of them
are you really advocating that ALL of these should be nursery water if posted????
 
I haven't looked deeply into the Map posted... just a few causal passed
that map is for public waterways that will always be that... public
"streambeds have been compiled by the Commonwealth over time from various sources.  Identification is based upon information believed to be reliable and persuasive evidence of such ownership. "
I see this more of a collection of "nav" waterways or waterways were ownership was determined for some reason... not a full compelation of all "nav" waterways and any drop or water on public land... which everyone knows are public
This map is for drilling and they is no need to list obvious water on public land
 
BUT i don't see any glarring issues
ERIE CO- yeah.. nothing going to the lake is Public streambed
 
What "private water should be open to the public." do you see?
there is a lot of "public streamed" that is extremely hard to acess due to private property
 
 
I had heard that the state actually controls (not "owns") all water in the state as a natural resource?
So in theory you can float if you never touch anything but water... no rocks, trees, ect
but the fish are still the landowners
 
 
which brings it back full circle to Greg "Beaver" Senyo

KJH807

the MT issue really has no similarities to erie pa

 
I don't know that there are no similarities. There are people with money and influence buying up property under and around waters and excluding the public from access. At a public meeting in Montana, a local angler said "We have a lot of people with an extreme amount of money who have bought lands on and near these rivers, and some of these people are interested in having their own little private world out there where nothing but their rich friends can fish." Sound familiar? It's perhaps even worse around the Great Lakes with people profiting from fish paid for with fishing license money. But that's not really the point anyway.
 
The point is, as long as waterways are viewed as commodities to be bought and sold (by those with enough money of course), we will continue to see this sort of thing. In fact, with trends as they are (according to the Congressional Budget Office: "the share of total after-tax income received by the 1 percent of the population in households with the highest income more than doubled between 1979 and 2007, whereas the share received by low- and middle-income households declined") we will see a lot more it.
 
Refusal to deal with or even consider the real issue -- the relationship between people, water and monied power -- is a big part of the problem.

KJH807
Steelslayer
YES the MT post has nothing in common with PA tribs to lake erie
or (in my opinion) PA in general- they are addressing larger floatable rivers, no small streams
if you own property with a stream running through it

I disagree based on this quote from the article that fishink posted a link to:
"In 1984, the Montana Supreme Court held that any river or stream that has the capability to be used for recreation, such as fishing and floating, can be used by the public regardless of whether or not the river is navigable and who the owner of the streambed property is. The result is that anglers and floaters have full use of most of the rivers in Montana for fishing and floating, along with swimming and other river related activities."
 
It sure sounds to me like the law provides access to streams as well as rivers.  The case on the Little J with Beaver was all about navigability.  However the MT Access Law specifically says regardless of whether or not the water is navigable and is more about the public's right to recreate in all state waterways. 
 
So regardless of whatever is going on in MT right now, when the state created the access law they had all recreating in mind including non navigable streams for purposes of fishing and even swimming.   I think that's very similar to what I see going on with several of the better trout streams in this state, none of which are located in western PA or are tiny native ditches.  Private fishing leases and clubs closing public access to the best most pristine sections of streams that have been open to the public for generations. 

chrisrowboat

mossy oak


Senyo is worse than DB. He doesnt't have the financial prowess of Db, he has the connections of the local fisherie to influence. He likes to make it appear that he has the fisherie as a whole in his best interest. It's a guise. He likes to place phone calls, plead his innocence and make things appear as they are not. He likes to make things as he heard, not as is true. The Greene property...his involvement makes those people look horrible. He is a walking contradiction. The Greenes are great folks. The only reference to the truth comes from Senyo on that property. Senyo only tells what relieves the pressure on his business. He also accuses to make it better for him. He has the backing of several blowhards on here. They will defend him. They will invite him to events where Senyo's connections can benefit certain few. All blowhards. They don't even live in PA but they like to throw their pompous opinions around.
Greg, you falsely accused me, personally, of things I'd never do. I know certain members of that family...WELL.   I'm no saint. You play the victim too well. It's time for guides like you to disappear. That property should be deemed nursery waters and the guiding should be stopped. That's the answer, in my opinion.

MO 

And if you have a problem with this, GREG, call me. You have my number.

I agree 100%

Bravo, Mossyoak!

I'd like to know more about this.  Did you guys get phone calls from Jagfly Senyo because of this thread?

And yet, we force folks that have an old unused railbed in their back yard to allow every Tom D ick and Harry to walk or ride through unchallenged... 

Cold

Better still, give landowners the option, with the incentive of  their waterway-adjacent land being tax-exempt if they opt in on the stream access plan.  It won't do a thing to counteract the Senyos and Beavers of the state, but I think it'd be a step in the direction of more open access, while appealing to the landowners' bottom line as well.

I brought that up a while back....maybe 5-6 years ago. Both tax exempt and/or tax break.
The Girard TWP supervisor at the time replied that it wouldn't be feasible as the township would loose too much tax revenue.
The only real option I see is for the PFBC to dish out more money. That won't fly. If you start paying out a big sum to one landowner, other landowners are going to expect the same for future easements.

Best way to solve the problem is to stop Stocking Steelhead in these streams and let them go back to the way Mother Nature intended them to be.  No Steelhead water for the guides to lease and have for themselves.