Little Salmon River: Trespassing or Not?

[Kaydubb42]

I had recently gone on a trip to the Little Salmon River in Mexico this past week to avoid the high water levels of the Salmon and Oswego Rivers. I came across this stretch of the river where the west river bank was posted, but the eastern stretch was not. I decided to walk up the eastern bank of the river until i reached a nice pool with plenty of salmon and steelies in it. I began fishing the pool, making sure i was on the eastern half of the river so that i did not cross onto the posted side of the river. After hooking up to a fish almost instantly, a man came from the opposite (posted) side of the river and said he was the owner of the property and that i couldn't fish there because it was posted. After telling him my story of walking up the un-posted stretch and staying in that half of the river, he told me that as long as i was in the river i was still trespassing. Is this correct? Unless otherwise stated in the deed of his property, which seems unlikely, wouldn't it be legal to fish in the other half (from the middle of the river to the un-posted bank) of the river ? Maybe i'm just mad because i lost a gem of a fishin hole , but i would like to find out for future reference if i actually was trespassing. Thankssss!

[Matt]

It's possible that his property line ends at the eastern bank for which he can not post since it is not his property beyond the bounds of the river itself--unlikely since property dividers rarely end on the variable banks of river, rather they occur in the middle which is relatively constant.

There are some property owners that will dishonestly extend their reach just because they don't want people fishing near their property. This happens all the time and the DEC and the town, village clerk can help with issues like this. All it takes is a call or a stop by. It's part of the clerks job to handle property issues, you wouldn't be the first to ask something like this. If the river is navigable, anchor a boat, canoe or raft just offshore and you are allowed to traverse private property.

More information can be found here: http://www.nyfalls.com/trespassing.html

[Brenda]

When we purchased our property, I had the deed changed to indicate that we owned to the other side of the creek instead of the center line. I didn't want to have to deal with another landowner if an issue came up with the stream where it ran adjacent to our property. It is very rare though.