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BG was the one who went to ranch foreman mentioned above last time.

Don't forget that.

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Huh?

I would also assume that if you're hanging fence across a public water ROW that you must also allow for portage around the fence, you can't just claim "well yeah the water may be public but you can't go past this point because I own the land on both sides and the only way around my fence is on my property"

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Here's the part where you are condoning the landowner hanging a no trespassing sign over a public waterway:

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and generally disrespected the landowners right to continue doing what has likely been done for more than a century.

You even claimed he had a right to do so.

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Youve misconstrued my post. I was referring to the fence being there, long before the first kayak was ever thought of. Back before these "old rich men" we're even born. You seem to lack any sense of context. I neither condoned nor condemned the sign.

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Assuming that the river is navigable you think the owner is right to fence off a public right of way?

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If the fence has been in place for many decades, as the GW suggested, it seems the issue is one of ignorance or confusion about applicable law. I'm not informed enough to even know whether your premise is true or not. I'd assume the fence pre-exists the controversy. If it was only done recently, it may prove to be problematic.

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Last time we had one of these water threads, BG took it upon himself to speak to the fireman of the disputed ranch, leading to the OP getting some BS heat.

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Took it upon myself? Wtf does that mean? I met the guy in the barber shop, not knowing him from Adam! It was mere coincidence and the issue came up when he revealed where he was headed. I asked pertinent questions and reported "the other side of the story" to the thread.
What is your point?

If you really want to cause a rucus, get ACE involved. The fallout would be a hoot.

There's some Kings Grants around Kerr - at least there used to be.

If that's a King's Grant era ranch you're talking about, state laws on navigable status may not matter.

I know a HS friend always had issues with poachers* on his section of the Perdenales.

*The warden used to arrest them pretty regularly, so...

So they got arrested for poaching?

It's what I was told. The water on one side of his place was not public, the other side was - it used to dry up pretty regularly in the summer on the one side - can't see how it would have been considered navigable - but I've seen parts of the Frio which wouldn't wet an ankle that some fellow tried to tell me was navigable, so...

Years ago, a pr%ck that owned land below the dam at Garner SP would sit out there in his lawn chair, right at the waters edge with a deputy. He claimed if you set foot on his bank or got off of your tube, you could be arrested. If you weren't floating past, but were walking past IN THE WATER with your tube, they could/would haul your ass in. I understand his not inviting people on to the bank, but once you were off your tube, he really became an assh0le.

In all fairness to the man mentioned, how much trash do you think he picked up from people floating the river?

Navigable in effect (or something) and navigable in fact are two different things.

So...any new information?

Sorry my spelling or spell checker is not up to your standards Rocco S.
I am also sorry that my thoughts would be different than yours, because I am sure that you are right and I am just showing my stupidity by chiming in.

If you're going to insult someone's intelligence, which is what you attempted to do, it's wise to use proper grammar and spelling.

No sir, building a dam would be wrong for a number of reasons. The only point I was trying to make here and have miserably failed was that he had fenced the river because his cows walked across and he did not want them to wander off or out on the road.
I would have also guessed that since the fence had been cut and dropped several several time he hung the sign hoping it would make it look kinda official and not get it cut as much. You can not run many cows in that area because they don't do well trying to eat rocks. Having land on both sides of the river, and having the river fenced off down the sides of the river would cause him to have 2 of everything and 2 places to check his animals. But to some on here that is just the "rich" ranchers problem. Nothing should prevent 5 extra seconds to get access.
I don' know because I am "old" and us old folks don't know nothing!!
BTW anytime you want to come back just call. I could not even tell y'all were there, just as the way it should be.

Yes sir! I will be more careful in the future. Sorry again!!

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Yes sir! I will be more careful in the future. Sorry again!!

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Why do you get to make a post insulting my intelligence and then act like you were insulted?

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No sir, building a dam would be wrong for a number of reasons. The only point I was trying to make here and have miserably failed was that he had fenced the river because his cows walked across and he did not want them to wander off or out on the road.
I would have also guessed that since the fence had been cut and dropped several several time he hung the sign hoping it would make it look kinda official and not get it cut as much. You can not run many cows in that area because they don't do well trying to eat rocks. Having land on both sides of the river, and having the river fenced off down the sides of the river would cause him to have 2 of everything and 2 places to check his animals. But to some on here that is just the "rich" ranchers problem. Nothing should prevent 5 extra seconds to get access.
I don' know because I am "old" and us old folks don't know nothing!!
BTW anytime you want to come back just call. I could not even tell y'all were there, just as the way it should be.

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Or that fence may have never been touched and he just thinks he owns the water which he doesn't and saw one person fishing out of a canoe or kayak and decided they shouldn't be on what he wrongfully thinks is his

Well, it looks like the photo in the OP is now gone, but I remember the fence posts to be cedar of less than 4" diameter. This is how folks around here make "water gaps". This is a gap that will break away in a flood in a pre-determined weakspot at one end of the gap. Our family's ranch which had the San Geronimo Creek flood nearly every decent rain, had about a dozen water gaps that had to be checked after a rain. Most of them were about 30 to 50 feet long but a couple were about 100 ft and spanned across the rock bottom of the San Geronimo. We checked and fixed water gaps so often that most of the family got pretty good at it. Sometimes we did it on horseback and were actually able to ride into the flooded creek, grab the broke-away end of the gap, ride to the tie point and tie it back without ever getting off the horse.

Because of development, that creek rarely floods any more. But I am just making a point that the bit of photograph that used to be on the OP possibly showed a fence that would break away in a flood. This does not contribute to the point of the post, but hopefully adds to the information of a couple of posts concerning what would happen to the fence if it flooded.

It's old technology, but I personally have made two such gaps in the past two years.... not for water but for exchange of cattle between ranches where there is no existing gate. For water... creeks... we used to tie one end of the gap with one or two strands of baling wire. This wire would break or unwrap once the gap got loaded with water or debris, and would leave the remainder of the gap intact and ready to tie back up.

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Having seen some of the floods on those rivers, there is no way that fence has been there more than a couple decades, at best.

One fallen tree in the floodwaters getting pushed past and it is rent all to hell.

The local LEO is going to side with locals and land owners, generally, and because of the vagueness of our law and that so much is based in court verdicts, even most LEO are under informed on the topic.

Quite a few streams and rivers in Texas meet the 30 foot average width of the cut bank from the mouth definition. Many also pass the navigable in fact test due to the large numbers of paddle craft able to negotiate them.

I am entirely sympathetic to ranchers watering their cattle and keeping them contained, but they need to keep their fences on their land and not unduly obstruct access to navigable waters. It is not difficult to place a short section of fence minus the bottom strand and with no barbs.

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This is as good of a post on this as we've seen.

Unfortunately some can't see past their own generalizations of landowner with cattle = good and kayaker = hippie and I don't like dem hippies.

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Nothing should prevent 5 extra seconds to get access.

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I hope you don't think that's my stance. I am fine with the fence being there as it would be a hell of alot more inconvenient to nail a cow at 55 mph out on the highway. I just want to know if I can push my boat under it without getting cited or shot.

Even the secretary at the GLO joked when I told her I was calling to discuss a navigability issue. She said I quote, "Well in Texas, if you get shot at it, it's not navigable."

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If he had put a sign up saying please respect my fence and my land while portaging around the fence, I'd have no problem with it.

I have a problem with putting a "no trespassing" sign up clearly meant to imply no one is allowed on that water which absolutely does not belong to him.

I can sympathize with that - not every landowner has money flowing out of his ears, I know.

Unfortunately there is rarely a happy medium in these types of situations. Whomever comes up with one will likely be hailed a hero, because they'd be extremely intelligent to figure out how to keep ranchers/landowners happy by keeping people and trash off of their land, and non-landowners happy by providing access to public ROW's.

Thanks for the compliment - next time my AZ buddies come down, we'll definitely hit you up. Hopefully we'll get some pigs for you next time too.

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Well, it looks like the photo in the OP is now gone, but I remember the fence posts to be cedar of less than 4" diameter. This is how folks around here make "water gaps".

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Looks like you're right. Here's the original photo from google's cache:
http://i.imgur.com/53TMM7j.jpg

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Well, it looks like the photo in the OP is now gone, but I remember the fence posts to be cedar of less than 4" diameter. This is how folks around here make "water gaps".

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Looks like you're right. Here's the original photo from google's cache:

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One of these days when I grow up, I am going to learn how you did that.

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Having seen some of the floods on those rivers, there is no way that fence has been there more than a couple decades, at best.

One fallen tree in the floodwaters getting pushed past and it is rent all to hell.

The local LEO is going to side with locals and land owners, generally, and because of the vagueness of our law and that so much is based in court verdicts, even most LEO are under informed on the topic.

Quite a few streams and rivers in Texas meet the 30 foot average width of the cut bank from the mouth definition. Many also pass the navigable in fact test due to the large numbers of paddle craft able to negotiate them.

I am entirely sympathetic to ranchers watering their cattle and keeping them contained, but they need to keep their fences on their land and not unduly obstruct access to navigable waters. It is not difficult to place a short section of fence minus the bottom strand and with no barbs.

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I don't disagree with the bolded text, but some fences (and apparently this fence is one of those) are allowed, by law, to extend across rivers. Granted, property owners have an obligation to the public to follow the law. It's far from clear to me that any law is being broken in this example. There have been some excellent posts detailing the extreme difficulty in both constructing and maintaining fences along and across rivers. Simply being able to build a fence across a river is a huge benefit to the strength and integrity of the fence simply because there is no termination point. Thus, no way (or more precisely, less likely) for livestock to walk around the end of a fence when the water level drops.

And Mouth, my claim that "that fence has been there for a century" did not mean that those same posts and wires had been there, but that "a" fence had existed there separating that ranch from its neighbor, maintaining the property line and restraining livestock. As someone who's built more than a few miles of fence in my time, I know they do not last forever.

My bias is that of a rancher, but I don't begrudge the public accessing the rivers of Texas. Indeed, I've done so myself, especially the Guadalupe. But I have little patience with those who bias is aggravated by their ignorance as demonstrated on these threads about water issues.