As Louisiana’s marshes wash away, fishery-rich estuaries are creeping northward into more privately owned areas—areas that used to be closed off to the ebb and flow of the tides and where landowners could easily limit public access.
It’s an overlooked consequence of Louisiana’s coastal erosion problem, WWL-TV reports. And the longstanding fight between property owners and anglers appears to be intensifying now after years of simmering just under the surface.
Former LSU and NFL quarterback Bert Jones, who sits on the state Wildlife and Fisheries Foundation that supports many fishing tournaments, has recently sent emails to tournament organizers warning them not to let their competitors come into the delicate duck ponds he leases for hunting and fishing.
Jones is relatively laissez-faire about letting individual anglers fish for free in the waters that he pays a pretty penny to use exclusively. But he says he has a right to set limits and a responsibility to protect the delicate marsh from destructive air boats. Jones stands by other leaseholders’ and property owners’ rights to be more restrictive.
“I certainly understand somebody who wants to control their marsh and not have a lot of people intruding on it,” Jones says. “They’ve been paying their property taxes, they purchased the property, they have the rights as a property owner to be able to do this.”
On the other side, charter boat captains say trespassing complaints by landowners and leaseholders have become overly aggressive.
Daryl Carpenter of Grand Isle says he recently came home to find sheriff’s deputies waiting for him. They warned him to stay out of what a landowner claimed as private waters. Carpenter and others also have received letters from oil companies that lay claim to some of their favorite fishing holes. The letters threaten legal action if they’re spotted on those waters again.
“Any lessee, family members, relatives or guests reported trespassing upon another lessee’s lease without permission will automatically have their lease terminated and the area turned over to another individual,” Louisiana Land and Exploration Co. attorney Phillip Precht wrote to a leaseholder last month. “There will be NO second chance in this matter.”
Louisiana Land & Exploration’s parent company, ConocoPhillips, says there are major safety and liability concerns with the pipes, structures and other oilfield equipment that can be found in the water.
WWL-TV has the full story.
