East Branch Brandywine DH Landowner

[Cznymph]

In today's society, being right doesn't always give you the right...

You can do what you want...

However, considering Clams de-escalated the entire threat by walking away makes me pretty confident from this armchair to speculate he would have been the loser in this situation if he pulled a gun on this nut case.

In the meantime...

I once had a somewhat similar situation on a stream I frequent when a friend was challenged by a landowner when he was LEGALLY fishing on the side of the creek owned by others.

When I got home, I reviewed the county parcel maps that showed the aggravated party possibly didn't even own to the center-line of this stream. I then contacted the other owner (a real estate company) and was assured I could fish there and that they owned the property.

I gave the information to the county WCO who called me back to say he verified the information, the other landowner was a known bluffer and he was headed out to his home to straighten out the situation.

That was 10+ years ago, I fish there all the time and have never had a problem since...

I'm not saying this fix would work in this situation, but at minimum I'd call the WCO for the region and tell him/her the story.

Do PFBC WCO’s have the authority to enforce trespass laws? I’m not sure that having someone with no legal authority to enforce said law, is the best person to be lecturing people on it.

Up until a few years ago, the game commission didn’t have the authority.

 

[wgmiller]

That is pretty good sarcastically speaking. I REALLY appreciated this nugget: "Appellant acted pro se at the hearing and presented no evidence. He wished to testify, but he refused to take an oath swearing or affirming that he would tell the truth."

Whenever I see people who choose to act pro se in legal issues, that tells me everything I need to know. They think they're smart, but they're not. There's a reason lawyers cost a lot of money - because they know what they're doing!

It doesn't sound like the juice is worth the squeeze with this issue. It's such a small stretch of marginal water that it really seems like the best policy is to just bypass it from the other side of the creek. I get it that it could be tempting to call him out on his BS about "owning the whole creek", but it's certainly not worth getting shot over. For that matter, nothing related to fishing is worth getting shot over, and this guy sounds like a loose cannon!