ATLANTA – The General Assembly passed a law this year guaranteeing Georgia citizens the right to fish in the state’s navigable rivers and streams.

Now comes the probably more difficult question, namely the decision as to which rivers and streams are navigable and which are not.

“That’s harder to figure out,” said Mike Worley, president and CEO of the Georgia Wildlife Federation.

A Georgia House of Representatives investigative committee will take on the task this summer and present recommendations, if any, to the full House of Representatives by December 1.

It will be chaired by Rep. Lynn Smith (R-Newnan), who also chairs the House Natural Resources and Environment Committee. Members include Majority Whip James Burchett (R-Waycross), who chaired a committee investigating fishing rights last year and was the lead sponsor of this year's bill. Neither lawmaker could be reached this week to discuss the upcoming initiative.

The commission of inquiry will not start with a blank slate. Burchett introduced a bill this year that would identify 64 rivers and streams that are “presumed navigable.”

The list includes such obvious rivers as the Altamaha River, the Chattahoochee River, the Flint River and the Savannah River. However, the matter is not so clear-cut for other rivers that may make the list.

“There are some known rivers throughout the state that are going to be question marks,” Worley said.

Worley cited the Toccoa River, Seventeen Mile Creek and Ichawaynochaway Creek as examples. The Toccoa is on the list in Burchett's bill, but the other two are not.

“There is confusion about what is navigable and what is not,” said Gordon Rogers, executive director of the environmental organization Flint Riverkeeper. “We need to clarify that.”

Historically, Georgia citizens have had the right to fish in the state's navigable waters. But that right was challenged early last year when a property owner along a stretch of the Flint River claimed exclusive rights to control fishing from the shore on his side of the river to mid-river and banned fishing there.

Four Chimneys LLLP sued the state for failing to enforce the ban and reached a settlement last March with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, which promised to enforce the ban. That settlement prompted the General Assembly to pass a bill on the last day of the 2023 legislative session enshrining a public guarantee of fishing rights into state law.

The ink on the law had barely dried when some riparian property owners objected to language in the law that guaranteed fishing access on navigable waterways as a “public good.”

After a series of hearings on the issue were held across the state last fall, Burchett introduced a fishing rights bill that repeals the Public Trust Doctrine. The General Assembly passed House Bill 1172 in March on mostly party lines after Democratic minorities complained that it did not go far enough to protect fishing rights.

Although the law doesn't take effect until July 1, Worley said he's already heard stories of anglers being approached by property owners and told they're not allowed to fish.

“I don't think the wording (in the bill) was clear enough,” he said. “There will be lawsuits.”

Rogers said he was not afraid of a lawsuit.

“I'm fishing where I've been fishing for decades, the way I've been fishing for decades,” he said. “If a property owner wants to sue, that's fine.”

Rogers praised Burchett's efforts to pass a bill that would satisfy both the state's landowners and anglers.

However, Rogers warned that the new commission of inquiry faces a difficult task in deciding which rivers and streams – or parts of them – should be open to fishing and which should not.

If it were easy, Burchett's bill declaring dozens of waterways navigable would have passed this year. Instead, it failed without even a committee vote.

“Anyone who does that will be caught in the crossfire from both sides,” Rogers said. “There will be people who say it's not enough and people who say it's too much.”