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Good news and not out of Santa Fe

Following is from an email from NM BHA- Our spring began with a monumental decision from the New Mexico Supreme Court on stream access. In a unanimous decision on March 1, the court once again affirmed the public’s right to use any stream in New Mexico for recreational purposes, provided you don’t trespass across private land to reach the water or to leave it. We’re still waiting on the Court’s final written order, which we hope will provide anglers, boaters and private landowners with further instruction on what constitutes legal access. Shortly after the court ruling, the State Game Commission voted unanimously to abandon the regulation their predecessors (under Gov. Susana Martinez) approved in 2017 that allowed private landowners to close stretches of water running through their property. The court had found that regulation unconstitutional. The commission also instructed landowners to remove any barrier to public access to those streams. In other commission news, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham appointed Deanna Archuleta to the seat formerly held by David Soules. It’s an open seat normally reserved for the conservation community, and while Archuleta has worked for the Wilderness Society, she is currently a lobbyist for Exxon Mobil in Washington, D.C. She has a house in Albuquerque but said she plans to continue living in Washington. She has fished when she was young but doesn’t hunt. In a public statement, NM BHA welcomed Archuleta to the commission and said we look forward to working with her, but told the governor we were deeply disappointed that she named someone with minimal background in wildlife management, hunting and fishing to the commission – again. She did the same thing after firing Joanna Prukop, when she appointed the current chairwoman, a Los Alamos attorney with no background.

Though I fully agree that streams are public and should be accessible, I firmly disagree that access through private property is a given. You wouldn't want folks crossing your back yard to access a public park if they can access it from another area. If folks want access across private land they should ask permission or have the Game and Fish work out an easement. I find more and more that "conservative conservation minded" sportsmen are very socialist in their views when it comes to private land ownership (as long as it isn't on THEIR private land). The same can be said for tag allocation. I know you all will try to fry me over my views but there is no way anyone on here would want public access across their property if the tables were turned.

What this decision is supposed to do is allow people floating or wading a river or stream the ability to do so without risk of getting harassed. It's not to allow access like an EPLUS tag does...

What MLG has done to the Game and Fish Commission is a travesty. Not only have we been 3 members short for quite some time, we no longer have people on the commission qualified to be there.

Two members quit the commission because of the idiotic, defund the police, ending of qualified immunity law. Now a volunteer commission can be sued and the State will not defend them. Another was fired for not voting the way MLG wanted him to vote. Now we get a commissioner that doesn't even live in the state. This is what you get when you vote for "progressive" politicians.

The New Mexico Game Commission is supposed to be a bipartisan body that answers to no one. We now have Governors and other leaders who believe the cause is more important than the law. This is what fundamental change looks like.

If you hunt and voted for MLG or any othe democrat, you are the reason we will lose hunting oportunities.

Well said JSW

X100 JSW !

This governor does not give 2 chits about NM Sportsmen! Her puppet game commission led by the chair who is clueless about what is needed and NOT needed and now another seat filled by a person who doesn't even pick up her mail in this state! NM deserves better yet the same old same Democratic way of FAILED thinking still wins at the polls! Its a sad sad deal , but nothing will change .This GOVERNOR is very much the most disgusting person to ever hold this elected position , and thats saying something after that fat POS Richardson and Gov Anaya who did away with the death penalty backed by a democratic catholic church!! More of the same decades later ...

I'm in CT and this thread is about something that we have experienced in this state as well. Waterfront property on the shoreline, landowners can NOT keep fishermen from walking between the high water mark and the water's edge to fish. Same is true of waterfowl hunting in the streams as long you're abiding to the 500ft rule for shooting clearance. I can see both sides of this argument. This is a small state so limiting access to the waterways doesn't seem fair. As a landowner, I wouldn't want someone duck hunting near my house or casting lures under my dock that might end up in my grandkids foot if they break off.

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