Where can I legally fish, and where am I trespassing? What is considered navigable water? Who owns the water and the fish in it? These are all questions answered in this week’s podcast by Land Tawney, CEO of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, based in Missoula, Montana. What you’ll learn is that these answers vary with every state, and thus you must learn a new set of access laws every time you cross state lines.
In the Fly Box this week we talk about how to fish a streamer, why dry/dry dropper rigs work, the shelf life of fly-tying thread, underwater fish photos, tipping guides, the use of class tippets in salt water, whether you can put backing away wet, and other fun stuff.
If you don’t see the “Play” button above, click here to listen.
Thank you Tom! I need more podcast, the hot stream temps here in central PA has trout fishing on hold, your podcast helps pass the time!
Tom – that podcast was a case history in how not to do a podcast. Who the heck at Orvis thinks this is a best practice?
Corb
I respectfully completely disagree, this is a fly fishing podcast, and he covered an interesting topic that isn’t often talked about, what more could you ask for?
Tom, great podcast! This is an important set of issues more sportsmen need to take notice of.
Great Podcast.
Living in Sweden it was interesting to learn more about the small but yet differences regarding access to waters in our cultures.
First I thought the podcast was a result to my idea that you should talk about how I as a visitor can do some fishing on my own in USA. License, access and such. But still I learned a lot. Hope you will do something about the more practical aspects on fishing in public waters. Does public water mean that I -when visiting realtives in Minnesota, Wyoming an California- just have to by a license and then can go fishing in the public waters? Park my car near the stream and just wade up and down the stream, singing and swinging (my soft hackle)?
I actually must protest to what Land Tawney said that USA is uniqe with your public access.
I did some fishing in Bretagne (France) in July and all I had to do to fish in central Quimper (in the river Odet) was to buy a license and then I could do some fly fishing for mullet. You must have your feet in the water, no fishing from the banks…
And in Estonia landowners must give access to all waters within 15 feet from the water. You cant stop people walking up and down the bank of the rivers.
And my country Sweden… Aahh…
Some information on how it works:
https://www.naturvardsverket.se/Documents/publikationer6400/978-91-620-8522-3.pdf?pid=4204
When I was younger we used to make a joke that “Freedom in Sweden means that you can’t stop people from accessing your private land and Freedom in USA means that you can stop people from accessing your private land.” 🙂
Thank you for all the great podcasts!