While in Florida one guide use to come Louisiana to fish

[jlsch1]

One guide I was with use to come to Louisiana Delacroix and Golden Meadow are with a group to fish.
He said after getting a trespassing ticket his group does not come down anymore.
The guy said about 12 guys would come down for 3 to 4 days, he spent alone at one gas station in golden meadow area $600 on meals for the group and basic food. That did not include his gas bill, hotel bill, launch fees, live bait if used, washing down boats, etc.
He said for a state with good fishery we really do not want the tourist to come down.

It is a shame a guide in Florida tells me redfishing is better and our state drops the ball on fishery tourism.

[kensafishin]

Sounds more on the landowner side reporting it. Which they have the right to do. There's so many waterways which anyone can go to unless no trespassing signs show otherwise

[jlsch1]

Some landowners illegally dug out natural bayous and now claim it is theirs.
I inherited land in the marsh and there was a natural Bayou that ran on the side of it.
The landowner next to me had to come 10 ft on my property and dug that out to make the canal touch his property to have water access.
He did then try to post the canal.
I took him to court and won where he had to restore my 10 ft of property, pay court fees, and open up the Bayou to the public.
You have a lot of this in Louisiana due to bad job the landoffice has done and landowners digging out natural bayous or reworking water illegally with no permits in the marsh through their canals which silt in natural bayous.

Like someome said with the present laws that land does not have to be posted how does a guy coming from out of state know where to fish? One guy said you need to almost have a map with a guy from the state with you to know where to go.

I bet if the landoffice looked at a lot of bayous displaced due to oilfield canals they would find a lot more public land or canals dug illegally without permits.

Second issue is in other states you cannot own tidal waters.
In Louisiana you can.
If this ever made it to the Supreme Court would it stick?

Third is we have a great fishery and have a chance to really help our state economy by promoting the industry.
Major tournaments would like to come here until they see all the bull they have to put up with.
They move on to other states.
That is a lot of money the local economies lose from lodging, fishing license sales, gas, food, etc.
States like Florida promote their fishery and they get more avg size along with larger tournaments which help pump dollars into their economy. Most businesses near fishing areas are owned by small business people not major corporations. This means a lot more money will stay in these communities.

Like on guy said we need to take sportman paradise off our license plates.

[jcdogfish]

Only solution is if land was lost to erosion and there is water there now the landowner could have a right to reclaim the land IF he restores it and bulkheads it. A landowner should not have the right to use the law to claim both water and land. Someone needs to explain to me how a natural bayou with flowing water is public water, but if it silts up and becomes land it is not. Answer is the bottoms are owned by the landowner, the water is not and is public. Why does that not transfer to the dug canals that damaged the natural waterways making a lot of them non navigable. Shouldn't the same public water that flowed in the natural bayous that now flow in dug canals be the same public water? If you want private water build a levee and a 10 foot dam. We need a good math guy to figure out the volume of water that the dug canals hold and convert that to the same amount of natural waters that could be reclaimed if the canals weren't there. Fact is these man made canals ruined the natural habitat we could all be enjoying, now most of the public water flows in these canals. Of course along with the water goes the fishery. 1. Open up all natural and man made canals that are not blocked by earthen dams to the public like they should be. 2. Go back to having to post property with specific guidelines. 3. Private canals and marsh should be totally bulkheaded and blocked off from the natural flow of the water. If someone wants a private canal for houseboats/camps you can apply for a permit to put a gate no wider than 10 feet across a canal or section of canal no longer than 100 yards. That canal must be completely bulkheaded or earth with no openings other than the gate. 4. Landowners have no liability issues for any obstacles not placed there by them, or any accidental injury not caused by the landowner. For these concessions, restoration projects can continue, landowners can keep the marshland designation for tax reasons, and the state won't sue the crap out of them for ruining the sportsman's paradise by not following up and filling in these canals. If that is not acceptable to landowners then they need to immediately start the cleanup process and remediation of all the junk, pipes, concrete etc the oil exploration left in the marsh. They need to immediately start the project of diverting the water going in the private canals back to the public waters it comes from or get charged based on the volume they "take" from public waters. They need to immediately have their property re-assessed to reflect it as private resort and/or land without the marshland designation for taxation. All pipes, gates, bulkheads need to be lit with navigational lights and properly insured for liability. Finally there needs to be a class action lawsuit against those that made South LA an oilfield junkyard. Sorry for the rant.

[BStrick]

The thing I still don't understand is that our law says you can own the land but you can't own water. Water is a public thing according to civil law which is why the politicians say la is different and why they can hate waterways .. bc we are a Napoleanonic code/civil law state. Well civil law says y can't own the water so why are we in this mess? Which law is right?

[BStrick]

Sounds more on the landowner side reporting it. Which they have the right to do. There's so many waterways which anyone can go to unless no trespassing signs show otherwise

The point is .. is that 80% of our coast is owned privately. They just don't enforce it. The right guy with the wrong attitude and enough money could change that over night I.e, Troy Landry and that fella that's buying the orange grove

[jcdogfish]

Wonder what the tax millage is on camps on land in the marsh?

[jcdogfish]

Sorry for all the negative posts. It just burns my ass that these large landowners can pay 30 cents an acre in property tax, claim the waterways and run taxpayers out that pay thousands a year for their half acre.

[Cajun Pop]

I think it will take a full court press on all the bass and redfish circuits to notify the state they will not return until the issue is addressed. The politicians may have exceeded their authority to grant landowners exclusive rights to public resources owned by the taxpayers but it will take a lengthy and expensive court process to overturn the legislation - especially since the landowners have the money. If the state gets hit in the pocketbook by loss of revenue and negative national press it will turn some heads and at least intensify the discussions.