FOURTH INTERNATIONAL FISHERY CONGRESS. 61 
I do not feel that I ought to take up more time in discussing a problem on 
which I might tire you, but it is a very serious question not only to the State of 
Pennsylvania, as I say, but to all states—the free right of trespass to partake of 
what is hatched in the hatcheries for the benefit of the general public of the 
several states. 
Mr. JOHN J. PEw (Massachusetts). Mr. Chairman, in our state you can not 
exclude the public from fishing in a pond of, I think, ro acres. 
Mr. SELLERS. It is 20 acres. 
Mr. Pew. In New Hampshire, I think, a man owned a lake and tried to 
keep the public out of it. The inhabitants were very angry, and they went 
through the fields and entered that lake; and they carried the matter to the 
superior court, which decided that by that law the inhabitants had the right to 
fish in that lake, and it could not be shut up to the people—that was either in 
Maine or New Hampshire. 
Mr. SELLERS. I would suggest that in Pennsylvania, as an angler, my first 
duty, about twenty years ago, was to bring about a free right for the public to 
fish streams in which brook trout were planted by the state. Those streams in 
their original nature were created navigable by acts of the assembly, and the 
right of fishing was never mentioned in those acts, which start away back in 
1814 and continue up to the year 1870. After many years of hard effort, I 
finally succeeded, in 1901, in the State of Pennsylvania, in getting through the 
legislature a bill which accorded to the general public the right to fish those 
navigable streams. 
It may be of great interest to you to know why this is a burning question to 
the State of Pennsylvania. I shall describe a case that has been decided against 
the Commonwealth, in so far as it refers to the public fishing in those waters. 
We have always assumed—in fact, case after case, not getting further than the 
local magistrate, has been decided always in favor of the angler. Usually when 
a stream is well stocked by the state and the fishing becomes good in our thickly 
populated eastern sections, it is a misfortune that about the first thing to happen 
is that someone, or a combination of persons having good success, think it a very 
wise thing to lease the water and have it all to themselves. That occurs fre- 
quently, with the result that one stream in particular, in a section of Pennsyl- 
vania, which was declared navigable by act of assembly in the year 1814, was 
subjected to a test. An angler went into that creek. In order to insure that he 
would not trespass on the riparian right of the owner, he walked down the coun- 
try road and got into the creek from the bridge, and was careful to keep in that 
creek to the point of the highway mark. He was arrested, brought before the 
magistrate, and was fined for trespass. Representing the Pennsylvania Fish 
Protective Association, we appealed that case and took it to the superior court; 
and without taking any more of your time on a question which is not quite 
scientific, we were absolutely beaten, because the constitution of Pennsylvania 
