What are water access laws like in your country?

14 comments

1. In Scotland, everyone has the right to access land and inland water for recreation. This doesn’t apply to fishing though and you need permission from the person or organisation who owns the relevant fishing rights for the place you want to fish. Salmon fishing is about £100 to £200 per person per day and trout fishing is less, about £10 to £50.

2. You need to purchase a fishing license for some spots. Otherwise, you can fish freely. Unless you catch an endangered specie, which you’d have to release.

3. river access is pretty easy, lakes on the other hand…

   For fishing in rivers you need a license, it’s around 100€ for the first admission and AFAIK the half for prolonging it another year. You have to take a class, where you told when you are allowed to catch what fish…

   at some private lakes you have to pay an “entry fee” for fishing

4. You need a fishing license and you can only fish in certain places. There’s signs for that.

5. Bathing, drinking, driving non-motorized vehicles, and ice sports are allowed on rivers and lakes as common use, however this doesn’t apply to artificial water bodies such as drinking water reservoirs. Common use of water bodies can also be modified by location-specific rules, which often happens in the case of popular swimming lakes.

   If you want to extract or discharge larger quantities of water, or if you want to build something on the shore or within the water body, you need to apply for permission from the water authority.

   There is no general right of access to fish, the right to fish in a specific place always belongs to somebody. You need to get permission from the owner, usually by paying them, and in addition you need a general fishing license.

6. Sweden has a constitutional “freedom to roam” so you can access nature or camp in nature. That means you can get to lakes or rivers even if you’re passing through private land, and you can pitch a tent by the lake even if land is owned. The right to access nature doesn’t extend to fishing, so in some areas you’ll need a permit. Sweden’s biggest lakes are freely accessible for rod & line fishing, in other places you may need a license. Prices vary heavily depending on the body of water. Some random stream with perch could be accessible for a whole year for 70-80 euro, but a well-maintained fishing area with lots of salmon could set you back 50 euro for a day’s access.

7. Access to lakes is generally open to the public, there are a few exceptions where the land is privately owned. You can swim as much as you like. For scuba diving, there is a small annual fee.

8. [Freedom to roam](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam#Finland) applies in Finland. Fishing itself is restricted, you may need to buy a local permit, but accessing rivers or lakes is rarely a problem.

9. We also have the freedom to roam law, like others here have pointed out. Meaning anyone can access pretty much any body of water/river they would like. Including privately owned ones. You can also swim in any of them. Freshwater fishing you will need a permit to be able to fish. The rules regarding permits will depend on who owns the water, as the owner decides what he/she wants to do with it. Because of this some waters are off limits but there are a lot of lakes and rivers open for fishing, some may also be free in some cases. Generally it’s reasonably priced, except some of the top salmon rivers do cost a lot, as they’re considered to be some of the best in the world.

   For casual fishers fishing in the ocean is generally more popular than in lakes here, as there’s no permits needed. You can fish almost as much as you want from the ocean, there’s a personal quota but you’re probably not gonna come near it. Plus the vast majority of the population lives right by the coast to begin with.

10. Navigable waterways are off limits to swimmers. Fishing is probably allowed since I regularly see people fishing around the canal basin.

11. Rivers and lakes must be available to the public, but that law has been violated more times than Kurdish women by ISIS.

    There are no fishing licenses.

12. Most activities are allowed. You can bath in them unless it is explocitly forbidden, due to dangerous currents or other hazards. What you are not allowed to do is wild fishing. You need to have a license for that. Mainly to protect the local wildlife. Generally fishers are organized in local clubs and they have a fishing quota as to not overfish the area.

    Lakes can be a problem though as many are surrounded by private property, so you can’t legaly gain access. You might bath at a public bathing spot that is generally there but the more prominent lakes have a tendency to be sealed off by private gardens. Some artificial lakes might even be privately owned themselves.

13. Lakes and rivers are generally freely accessible. If you own the property next to the water you are required to leave 1.5m of land without any obstacles. Though this is not always followed and such areas usually look like suburban hell anyway.

    Fishing is more complex, you need a permit.

14. I’ve never heard of any laws about rivers. But i’m pretty sure you can do whatever you want in them as long as it’s not harmful to anyone