Richard Formato

Richard Formato is an avid catch-and-release fly-fisherman from Wytheville, Va. When not on the water, he operates a small business there. Formato loves to fly-fish in his native Southwest Virginia because of the great water and wonderful people. He also loves to fish the flats and shallows of the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic whenever work and weather permit. He is on the Department of Conservation and Recreation's board of directors and is a trustee of the Shenandoah National Forest and Skyline Drive.

Recent columns

• What about Bob?
• Notes from the Charlotte Fly Show
• A chance meeting
• A wish for Jack

• Column archive
• Talk fly-fishing

There is a saying in business … “I’d rather ask for forgiveness rather than permission.”

While applicable in the business realm to justify upfront, proactive behavior, it is does not translate into the rules of fly fishing.

If you know any property owners who are lucky enough to own property on a trout stream, then you have heard their stories about encounters with trespassers on their property.

“You don’t own the water.”

“I have every right to fish here.”

“I ain’t leaving, and you can’t make me.”

As Reverend Bobby Blevins says, “Well, unless you can walk on water, you are right.

But if you are like me and wade on the creek bottom or fish off the bank, you are wrong. And you are illegally trespassing.”

The criteria for legal access to a trout stream is navigability, which means it is OK to access by foot or via boat any body of water that is big enough to sustain commercial boat traffic. Most trout streams do not fit this description.

A (trout) stream by definition is smaller than a river. And anything bearing the word “creek, run, or fork” in its name will most likely not fit the classification that permits any and all access.

The rule of thumb for angling manners is pretty simple: It is all in the way you present yourself.

I have never once been turned down when I rang a doorbell and nicely asked if I could fly fish -- as long as I released any fish I was lucky enough to catch, and promised to pick up any trash and take it with me when I left.

Trust me, even if you don’t see them before you leave, these people are keeping an eye on you and their property, and they will verify if you are for real.

A generation ago, hunting and fishing on other’s property was commonplace. There were no boundaries. I can still remember the hunters shuttling thru Grandma’s sedge fields.

Every fall, they expected to see hunters walking their fields.

What has ruined this sporting tradition is the poachers and litterers who have left their mark and in doing so have upset the landholder who permitted access.

I was with Blevins a few weeks ago when a college kid from Duke approached him and asked if he could fly fish on his utopian farm on the South Fork of the Holston.

It was all going well, until this kid told the Rev that he “didn’t have to ask for permission” but was doing it out of courtesy (and also so he could have safe parking off the main road).

Under Virginia law, however, he did have to ask for permission to be on his property and in his stream.

This type of entitlement to someone else’s dominion is what ruined the moment. Blevins was too nice to say anything, privately knowing this was now a favor he would only grant once.

Think about it: When you fish on someone’s trout stream, you are using their land to get to their water.

As with any owner, someone -- probably them -- worked hard to earn the money to buy and tend to this land, and their land is a part of them.

Respect is the essence of the issue.

Blevins recounted a story of how a few years ago, he saw someone on his stretch of river who was fishing, then started throwing beer bottles and busting them in the river rock.

Downcast, he then told me about another time he and his wife, Joyce, were sitting on the banks and some anglers walked right by them and didn’t even speak or acknowledge they were even there.

It is incidents such as this that stick with landholders and make them wary of fishing requests.

His land is posted now, and even with our longstanding friendship, I always thank him for the chance to fish.

As our Commonwealth’s countryside gets auctioned off to the highest bidders, this will only get worse.

This is another reason why there are so many leased streams, and posted areas now.

That investment banker from Charlotte doesn’t care that you used to swim in his hole on the Jackson River. All he knows is you are using something for which he paid big bucks.

It is truly sad that so many areas are fenced, posted and patrolled, but the facts are clear. You have to ask for permission, and be prepared for whatever the landowner says.

One of my beefs with the VDGIF site is their trout maps for the stocked areas are very vague in regard to directions and the legal access of the areas.

It still feels weird to duck under someone’s fence and cross an open pasture en route to a legal area as mandated by the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.

A whole lot of Put and Take water is on private property and this habitat is declining too as landowners get fed up with the garbage and the fraudulent disrespect from the users.

The Commonwealth gives owners free stocked fish in exchange for the program, and there is a point where the free fish is not worth the abuse to the property.

With Jim Hylton, Dale Brackens, and the other hatchery owners happy to deliver a load of trout for a couple of dollars a pound, a landholder could have all the fish they wanted … and privacy from state stocking trucks and the hungry angler’s in hot pursuit.

You have to think about this next time you drop your cigarette or can from your car. Would you want your yard looking like the stocked sections you have recently fished? I wouldn’t.

Fishing on any water you don’t legally own is a privilege that is supported by a humble request for permission … and rooted deep in an awe of the land, water and respect and gratitude for the landowner.