News

Utah Looks at New Angler Fee for Private Stream Access

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — State officials are considering expanding a program to provide more access to private property for fishing by selling anglers a stamp for $5 or less to raise money to compensate the land owners.

The Walk-in Access program is used to pay some property owners for use of their land, but a shortage of funding has kept it from being the success that backers had hoped.

Jim Karpowitz, director of the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, brought up the idea of a $3 to $5 stamp at last week's meeting of the Utah Waterways Task Force.

The task force was established in response to a new state law restricting access to some waterways if they are on private land. Of the 6,500 miles of fishable streams in Utah, 2,000 miles of them are privately owned.

``We see this as the only practical solution out there,'' Karpowitz said.

In 2008, the Utah Supreme Court ruled in favor of three anglers who were floating and fishing on the Weber River and were cited for trespassing after they stepped onto the river bed.

The ruling said the public has the right to wade in all public waters as long as they don't trespass. So anglers came to believe they could reach water running through private property by wading to it from upstream or downstream.

But private-property rights activists were upset by the decision.

The bill passed by lawmakers this year says that only those streams that have been in continuous public use for at least 10 years will remain open to wading against a landowner's wishes. Floating is still allowed but stopping is not. Another bill created the task force.

Task force co-chairman Rep. Mel Brown, R-Coalville, said he likes the concept of a user fee.

Paul Dremann, conservation vice president for Trout Unlimited in Utah, said a $5 stamp for anglers who want to fish streams sounds reasonable.

``It has to be funded and quite frankly the funding is not available under the current license structure,'' Dremann told The Salt Lake Tribune.

Property owner Arlin Judd has never restricted access to anglers who want to fish on his land along the Weber River. But now Judd gets about $600 a year from the division for the use of his property through the Walk-in Access program, the Deseret News reported.

But Draper fisherman Chris Barkey said he opposes the plan.

``If you're going to say just anglers are having to pay for this that's not going to sit well,'' Barkey told the Tribune.

The task force plans to meet again and hear more comments before making any recommendations to lawmakers.

Article Pages