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#1740420 - 04/16/18 03:24 PM Re: Pierrepont Pond [Re: jimfish]
Buck Offline

Member

Registered: 01/17/03
Posts: 11108
I received a reply from Bill Foreman and he gave me some new info I did not find in my search and that had to do with the ruling I posted above that had the decision from the Appellate Court granting whats known as Civil Law interpretation which is "if you can get on the water legally you are free to use the water in its entirety including fishing". As the article above notes, Ct. has been a Common Law state in the past which means "if you own the bottom of a water body you also control the water above and can regulate its use such as fishing". The Appellate Court ruling vacated that definition but a later appeal to the Ct. Supreme Court reinstated the Common Law interpretation in this case. Below is the Supreme Court ruling.

https://caselaw.findlaw.com/ct-supreme-court/1118225.html

So it remains extremely complicated. If a land owner can prove that he owns a piece of the bottom of a water body, particularly if it is man-made and not navigable, then that owner can control the water above and its fishes. But who knows if the person is telling the truth or if it is true.
You have to go to town hall and look at the records. I can say with some level of confidence that if the lake is natural there is no private ownership of land beneath the waters. Natural lakes were considered the property of the local governments in pre-revolutionary times and deeds were not normally granted though water rights were granted by the King of England.
Navigable waters also may come under the Riparian Rights laws. And then there is the concept of Prescriptive Easement where if the public has common access to waters over private lands unencumbered by the owner of those lands for a period of 15 years or more then there is in evidence a case for Prescriptive Easement. When Mayor Boughton of Danbury unilaterally declared Lake Kenosia to be a Danbury Reservoir and no one could ice fish there anymore which happened about five years ago I wrote him telling him he could not do this because Lake Kenosia was not a lake but an Ox-Bow in the Still River and it was an undeeded piece of land that Danbury did not own and in any case, public access through a state boat launch and 300 years of common access had established a Prescriptive Easement over Lake Kenosia and it was not his to confiscate. Ice fishing resumed after that. See Prescriptive Easement below.

"In Connecticut, there- fore, a prescriptive easement is established by proving an open, visible, continuous and uninterrupted use for fifteen years made under a claim of right.'' ... an easement by implication may arise based on the actions of adjoining property owners. . . .Jun 10, 2008
Sanders v. Dias - Connecticut Judicial Branch"
https://www.jud.ct.gov/external/supapp/Cases/AROap/AP108/108AP291.pdf

So it is complicated and in these situations it probably goes no further than a jawboning episode unless the fisherman wants to take the time to check the town hall plot plan records to see if the bottom of that portion of the water body is actually deeded and private with an owner's name.


Edited by Buck (04/16/18 03:32 PM)
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#1740431 - 04/16/18 05:03 PM Re: Pierrepont Pond [Re: jimfish]
cat_in_the_hat Offline

Member

Registered: 04/16/04
Posts: 2195
Loc: Tolland CT
I agree, the only reasonable path forward is to next look at those land deeds. I have done this online in several towns and have found both public domain watercourses and ponds and private deeded watercourses and ponds. So who is going to town hall? I would go just out of curiosity but I live at a great distance. Step lightly if you do, some politically connected landowners have considerable local political clout, we want a state government ruling, not a town ruling or opinion.
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