I’m not asking for legal advice, I’m asking where to find the laws/regulations so I can read them for myself.
I was fishing in Newport Beach harbor in SoCal in my small boat and I was in a main channel that was lined with homes on both sides and every home has a dock. So I was casting into the empty dock spaces from the main channel. One of the homeowners came out and started giving me grief about “trespassing” in his “private” water. I told him the dock was his, but the water is not. We’re talking “U” shaped docks with the open end facing the main channel. His belief was that the water “inside” the U shaped dock is also part of his private property.
I moved along anyway because I was there for fun, not to argue with some a-hole, but it is my understanding that the docks are private and touching them is trespassing, but the water they “enclose” is still part of the public harbor and not his property.
I’m more curious than anything else, but I’m really hoping to find the actual regulations covering this aspect of property rights. Is it real estate law, or Newport Harbor regulations, or what? How can I find the Straight Dope for myself?
Thew term you are looking for is Riparian rights. Different states will have different rules but generally; "Under riparian law, water is a public good like the air, sunlight, or wildlife. It is not “owned” by the government, state or private individual but is rather included as part of the land over which it falls from the sky or then travels along the surface."
I found a coupledocuments covering residential piers in the area. Residents pay an annual rental fee to the city that’s based on the area of the pier, plus any dockable area around the pier out to a certain number of feet, which includes the area within a u-shaped pier. Nothing I found makes any mention of fishing, but the general demeanor is that this is public water and you’re paying a rental fee for the privilege of being able to put your pier on it. Take my analysis with a heap of salt, but my guess is that you’re in the right, but if I were paying rent for a dock that included areas within/around the dock, I might mistakenly think that I had some exclusive right to use that area.
I believe riparian rights only apply to inland lakes, not to the ocean.
Governments may grant to private property owners along the shoreline the privilege of improvements, such as piers, that make the ocean frontage more useful for commerce. But the ocean itself remains open for navigation, fishing, and swimming, held by the sovereign (the State Assembly) in trust for the people. California, in addition, has specific laws and regulations about public access to any area between mean high tide and mean low tide lines.
Now are there other state statutes or regulations restricting recreational fishing within a certain distance of a private dock? I doubt it, but I don’t know.