# Fishing from a bridge



## rogerthat (Mar 21, 2011)

I searched before asking this and didn't find a clear answer so,

A person parks on the shoulder of a public road and fishs off a bridge. He's told the car is parked illegally and he's trespassing. Can someone be trespassing on private property by fishing off a bridge on a public road? Does it make a difference to be dropped off so there is no parked car? What about the right of way next to the bridge?


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## malainse (Sep 2, 2002)

Because is no clear answer... Each bridge/ body of water might and could have a different answer.

The best thing to do is contact the DNR field office for the area of this bridge. Call and ask to speak with a CO that works the area of the bridge. They will be able to provide you with the correct answer. 

See contacting a CO in the sticky at the top of this forum.


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## toto (Feb 16, 2000)

It might be wise to check with the local road commission. Most of these have a road right of way, in which case, unless you are parking WAY off the road, you probably wouldn't be trespassing. The best course of action is the road commission, a CO really can't make that particular determination.


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## blahblah (Oct 8, 2008)

general rules would be if the bridge is open to pedestrian traffic then you can probably fish from it unless there is a local ordinance. "no parking" ordinances are another way that locals try to keep people from parking near enough to a bridge to fish it. also the catch sometimes is that a road right of way is a public right of way for the purposes of travel, not fishing, so the locals (including your court) may see it that way. best left to your local CO to see how things have been handled in the past.


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## dead short (Sep 15, 2009)

Definitely contact the district office for the county in question. Get in touch with a local CO.


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## rogerthat (Mar 21, 2011)

Malainse, your answer is dodgy so I asked the wrong question or my research was not so good. So back to the drawing board.

There are 10,000 road bridges in Michigan. Probably most cross water and thousands of them probably have fishing potential. If some are legal public access for fishing and some are not there should be a list. 

Here is a list of 77 "fishing bridges" in Michigan. http://www.myfishmaps.com/topo-maps/US-fishing-locations/Michigan/Michigan-Bridges/ . Copy and paste the coordinates into Google Earth and look around and you can see the placemark is never on the bridge but someplace nearby. The only exception I found is the Belle Isle bridge which has elevated walkways. It looks to me like bridge decks aren't legal to fish unless they are specifically allowed.

I found this map of public access sites for fishing by the Indiana DNR. http://www.in.gov/dnr/fishwild/3591.htm . How cool is this? Does the Michigan DNR have this? The Indiana access sites are in Bing maps so you can zoom in and see what things look like without copy and pasting coordinates and there are popups that say whether there is a boat ramp, shore fishing and what fish to expect. There always seems to be off street parking and the sites appear to be on public land, not just a road shoulder. If the Indiana public access sites include road bridges surrounded by private land I haven't found one. Indiana is not Michigan but the situation in Michigan can't be much different.

Bridges surrounded by private land aren't public access sites so no boat launching, bank fishing or wading into the water. Back to the original question, if there is a complaint about one of those what is the violation, trespassing or something else?


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## toto (Feb 16, 2000)

I don't know, maybe this will help, its a sample of a book written by one of our members, and it addresses this question.

http://www.smashwords.com/extreader...ht-to-fish-michigans-inland-lakes-and-streams


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## malainse (Sep 2, 2002)

Michigan has the same type of map.

http://www.mcgi.state.mi.us/MRBIS/mapbasic.aspx

A list of legal brides would be great. But I am not aware of any.

Yes, the complaint would be for trespassing.


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## rogerthat (Mar 21, 2011)

malainse said:


> Michigan has the same type of map.
> 
> http://www.mcgi.state.mi.us/MRBIS/mapbasic.aspx
> 
> ...


The indiana map has a bit more info and shore fishing places. The michigan map appears to be only boat launches but I didn't check many spots. Probably there are too few road bridges legal for fishing to bother with a list. Belle Isle bridge is the only one I noticed. Since there are no dissenting opinions about the restrictions on bridges and road right of ways I'll take that as the consensus. Thanks.


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