ATLANTA – Georgians’ right to fish in navigable portions of the state’s rivers and streams was safeguarded in the final seconds of this year’s legislative session.
The General Assembly passed a bill on the last night of the 2023 session late last month that secures the public’s right to fish “even where private title … originates from a valid grant.”
No one was questioning what was thought to be a long-established public right in Georgia until a property owner along Yellow Jacket Shoals, a small portion of the Flint River, asserted its exclusive right to control fishing from the bank on its side of the river to the center of the stream and banned public fishing there.
After Four Chimneys LLLP sued the state alleging failure to enforce the ban, the Georgia Department of Natural Resources signed an agreement March 27 consenting to the ban.
By the time wildlife enthusiasts and environmental protection groups found out about the agreement the following day, they had just one day to bring it to the attention of Gov. Brian Kemp and legislative leaders. The General Assembly was due to adjourn for the year on March 29.
The issue needed to be addressed then and there because it had implications far beyond a short stretch of the Flint, said Mike Worley, president of the Georgia Wildlife Federation.
“Anyone in the state could assert a claim like that,” he said. “We could have seen this popping up all over the state. … To see 1.2 million anglers in the state potentially disenfranchised didn’t seem equitable.”
But supporters of guaranteeing public fishing rights in Georgia faced a logistical challenge. The annual Crossover Day deadline for bills to pass at least one legislative chamber, which fell on March 6, was weeks in the rearview mirror.
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