Not sure why you would be carrying hedge clippers in your kayak, but they better be some good ones or you won't be cutting any barbed wire with them.

But pretending for a moment that you actually lived out your fantasy, I will promise you you would look back on that very poor decision and question what it was you were thinking.

Make no mistake, Texas is nothing at all like Alaska. The overwhelming majority by massive amounts of the land is privately owned unlike AK. There is good and bad with both.

Uhh, he did.

Where is it listed as non-navigable? Is there an official publication of non-navigable streams in Texashttps://tpwd.texas.gov/publications/nonpwdpubs/water_issues/rivers/navigation/riddell/navigability.phtml?

That is BS if the water passes through your land.

You’re right, Texas is very Mexican and hot.

I cannot describe how weird of a concept it is to me that one can "own" a river, stream, or creek.

Really?
Fence is probably some 100 y.o. Osage posts, generational grazing land.
Never mind that family has been maintaining the land for that long,.
But who cares, suburban sprawl , and the evil it breeds trumps all.

It falls in the same weirdness that says you can't collect rainwater falling on your property, even if you're just collecting it to water your garden so in effect putting it in the same place it was going to fall (same aquifer), just delayed.  

The land may be privately owned, but the TX law that has been posted so far seems to indicate that the state retains control of the water on the land and anything that you can float a boat on must stay open for public use. Unless there is some other law that contradicts the other law that's already been posted, which kinda goes back to what I said before about legislators and regulators making up shit that contradicts the shit they already said and just shrugging and figuring the courts will work it out later.

Waterfront property is a mess.

Once you add in the fact that any houses on waterfront property get federally subsidized flood insurance it gets even more messy. Why should I socialize the losses of someones property, if the public doesn't get any use out of it?

Ah, so regulars figured that "either navigable by fact or navigable by statute" was gray enough that they could just make "non-navigable by statute" a thing

I stuck to larger bodies of water out of safety and respect. I was often in areas where if I disappeared nobody would find me.

Who wants to get in a shootout or pissing match an hour from cell service?

Highly variable and extremely convoluted in the state of MO.

Not if the land owner owns both banks of said waterway. Have seen people get ticketed at a very good salmon stream for not heeding the no trespassing signs.

Back around 1982 or thereabouts a coworker was KILLED during a fishing trip that involved a creek through private property in Texas.  The old SOB shot him dead, and the local sheriff was present.  My coworkers 22 tackle box gun was never found, which was doubly strange since he ALWAYS carried it in his tackle-box.  The old SOB was found incompetent to stand trial for some reason I no longer recall.

Paladin

That is a good question. Who does decide if it's navigable? I'd be interested in the answer.

Depending on what part of AR, I wouldn't do it just for fear of being shot... accidentally or on purpose.

In MO it might get you shot in the head.

https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/meramec-float-trip-ends-in-fatal-shooting-after-dispute-over/article_a2774d0e-578c-5d01-89e2-d334dbe7c9c3.html

Here in Ohio it is nebulous at best except on the Muskingum and Ohio rivers as those are federally navigable waters. If you don’t set foot on the bottom or shore they can bitch all they want and the local constabulary will not arrest a boater afloat.

Yeah OK, good luck with that

Feel free to come on down and bring your shithouse lawyer degree with you, but I'm just telling you no matter how much internet research you want to do, you will not have an enjoyable day kayaking on some motherfuckers place who does not want you there.

From this link

"Conclusion

It is often difficult to determine whether a given body of water is public water, and if so, where the boundary lies between it and the adjacent private property. These issues are sometimes argued by landowners and outdoorsmen, and the potential for violence is very real. Hopefully, this will give you some of the basic concepts to begin analyzing these questions and helps you guide your local law officers and settle constituent confrontations. Next, bone up on the real estate laws of 19th century Spain and pick up some advanced land surveying techniques, and you will be on your way to becoming an expert. "

People take their property REAL OR PERCEIVED very fucking seriously. I have torn down(destroyed beyond use) deer stands, ejected 4 wheelers and dirt bikers , I wasn't then and will not be if it happens again friendly or accommodating.  I've never had a canoe or kayak that I know of, but they would likely get tired of dragging their shit over snags, fencing, sand bars and crossings all while experiencing Texas prolific pit viper population long before they get to my place in the headwaters.

Yes and no.  In some states it hinges on whether the water is "navigable".

Where can I sign up for that?

My waterfront property flood insurance costs a fair bit of change.

Differs extremely from state to state.  And just because you can navigate it on a kayak does not make it a navigable waterway- that depends on state law and definitions.

Some of the advice on this thread is so far off it is ridiculous.

You would be amazed at how large some non-navigable waterways are...in some states.  And how some of those larger waterways are under constant lawsuit actions one way or another regarding their status.  Navigable waterways I believe more often are tied to COMMERCE, not recreation.  Laws have history, which is why some are weird.

We deal with it now and then.  Even on navigable waterways, you need to stay below the mean high water mark or you are trespassing.

That's not weird at all. If owning water like that were a thing, nothing would stop someone from building their own reservoir and then selling the water downstream to whoever could pay.

this is a joke, right?

a bunch of people believe that legislative and regulatory bodies are corrupt for declaring that navigable waterways cannot be privately owned.  now you're saying that regulatory bodies are corrupt for saying the opposite.  other than the self-evident fact that all government is corrupt, you're proving nothing here.

but by all means, continue lecturing us from your extensive knowledge of the texas administrative code.

Holy Cow this is the truth.  I think the USACE doesn't even know what the definition is, they just make it up as they go.

Really?
Was it too difficult to write "ka" before "yak"?
Two letters.
But then, you probably carry a shotty in your Taco along with your yak.

agreed, but we're from the american west.  we have a different mindset than easterners, who are practically europeans.

Depends on the state and their statutes on "riparian rights" and what they define as navigable waters.

In Missouri, there are only two navigable rivers, the Missouri and the Mississippi rivers.  You own to the shore there.  On any other river, you own to the middle between the two shores.  Both of these change with time, flooding, etc.

So you own half (or in some cases all the way across if you own both sides) of a "non navigable" river, but that doesn't mean you can restrict people from using it.  It goes all the way back of loggers floating trees down river which established an easement.  So you can run your boat, kayak, canoe, etc, but it doesn't mean you can pull off on a sandbar and do whatever you want.  Shores, sandbars, etc are still private property and you're only allowed to transverse the property via the water.  Stopping to fish, swim, loiter can be considered trespassing, but good luck stopping it.  It's a big problem with the float trips in MO.

Also, even though you own it, that doesn't mean you can do anything to alter its course or pull water off it.  DNR  has to be involved if you want to do anything like that.

I'm specifically talking about the case that was posted here (last year maybe) of the guy who was arrested for collecting the runoff from his house in barrels to water his garden- not building a large impoundment for commercial use.  Eastern and western water rights are different- western laws are somewhat retarded.

Its God’s water

stormwater hydrology is just a bit more complicated than that.  messing with runoff messes with surface water, which affects everyone's property downstream.  especially when everyone starts doing it, the impact can be massive.  that's why, for example, many regimes allow small-scale rainwater harvesting (IIRC TX is 200 gal storage capacity), but not large-scale.

In the West, water is a commodity that is owned just like property.  If you don't own water rights to a stream, then you don't get to use the water from that stream -- even if it runs through your property.

People out East, where droughts are rare and there is plenty of surface and groundwater to use, are mystified by this practice.  But if there weren't such a thing as water rights you'd see the same problem you describe, which in most cases in the not too recent past would have resulted in the person stopping the water upstream getting lynched by an angry mob of downstream users.

western laws are literally based on who got there first.  prior appropriation is "first in time, first in right".

if you think that the people who were at the front of the line ought to have their water rights redistributed by force, i have some bad news for you about your political leanings.

Lemme guess. In OR?

Columbia, South Carolina averages approximately 46 inches of precipitation per year.

Salt Lake City, Utah averages approximately 16 inches of precipitation per year.

The laws aren't retarded, they're just different approaches to different situations.  If South Carolina suddenly became a semi-arid cold desert like Utah then you'd see a radical shift in attitudes about water rights.

You should see the thread dedicated to fishing kayaks.  More “yaks” than Yakety Yak.  Must be a hipster thing.

No, it was idiots shooting unsafely onto the neighboring property and refusing to correct themselves when warned by the GW or sheriff's deputy.  The water part is what was used as justification but was not what drew the attention.  Range is still open, just can't shoot in the river any more.

I remember that.

I hope he enjoys spending the rest of his life in prison.

Good luck with that.

Most landowners have a very skewed opinion of what the State defines as a navigable waterway.  Most Sheriffs will agree with the people who vote for them.  That said, it does not take much at all in Texas to be defined by the state law as navigable waterway, and for 2/3 of the state, that means the river bottom is public access (for about 1/3 or less of the state it only qualifies the water, not the bed)

The state law defines if a stream is navigable based on the distance between the cut banks.  This is kind of a running average, so random narrows do not change it.  The issue is few streams have 2 cut banks.  Almost all have a cut bank and a flood plane.  The state, for purely financial reasons, includes much of that gradual flood plane as inside the cut bank.  So a rancher sees a 20’ stream and says it is not navigable, while the state sees a 500’ between cut bank river bottom.

So what does this mean.  You get harassed by the Sherrif, but the DA knows better than to touch it if you contest.  FWIW I used to kayak with an Assistant AG in Texas.  We carried the law and the support with us from the AG’s office.  Usually the Sheriff had already been warned by the county AG to stop harassing us, so he would send a dumb ass deputy with a chip on his shoulder to try to force us to respect his authority.  They just could not stop themselves from saying we are not going to let someone in Austin to tell us what the (state) law is.  One time was paddling with a game warden and as we went by the local Judges house he warned us we were being filmed so he could prosecute.  This was on the Blanco, not even a creek.  But the Judge was considering it his and only his river.

So their is the law, and there are corrupt local officials and clueless landowners.  Personally I was only physically harassed one trip-both threatened at gunpoint by the landowner, then harassed at the take out by the deputy (this was a put in on a large creek just off the Perdanales-it had well over 50’ of water flowing through it that day, not to even mention the cut bank).

I can not recall, but the definition in Texas is either 30’ or 50’ between cut banks.  It does not matter what level the water is, so it can be 10’ Of water and 40’ of bank.

Were the game wardens charging them with being in "your" water or other offenses?

you can go around on land in the case of a culvert/bridge or obstruction on the stream/creek.

Does the OP have a purty mouf?

Uhh... They can own creeks where I’m at.  Maybe do the decent thing and ask permission from the land owner?

Riparian (eastern) law requires that you must put back in quantity and quality whatever you use.  Yes, telling someone that that can't use the water that falls on their property, i.e. rainwater, is, in my opinion, retarded, as long as they are putting it back.  If they are diverting it into a canal and selling it to California then yes, that's retarded as well.  I'm not saying it doesn't make sense on one level, but it's also akin to saying that you can't use the sun shining on your property.  Yes, I am familiar with hydrology and stormwater runoff, I did environmental work before getting into EMS and have done wetlands work (delineations/restoration) since.  It's very convoluted, conflicting and worse, very political.  

We're already subsidizing your insurance. What more free shit do you demand?