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Anyone know how you fish Buck Lake? Can you just drive in the new gate?

Privately owned and no fishing allowed. Posted on the gate as well.

How does someone own a lake? Can you get permission to fish it?

In Florida you can own lake bottom... and you can control access if there are no public navigable waters that flow into or out of the lake.
For example parts of Lake Jackson lake bottom are owned but you can still fish them if the water is high enough.
But if your wading the moment you feat hit the bottom your trespassing.

As far as Buck Lake- Private.
From the property appraisers website it looks like two owners have lake access... I'l let you do that research.

It is owned by the Stewart family

bman wrote:In Florida you can own lake bottom... and you can control access if there are no public navigable waters that flow into or out of the lake.
For example parts of Lake Jackson lake bottom are owned but you can still fish them if the water is high enough.
But if your wading the moment you feat hit the bottom your trespassing.

As far as Buck Lake- Private.
From the property appraisers website it looks like two owners have lake access... I'l let you do that research.

It's a little more complicated than that in Florida. Overall, most larger lakes, rivers and streams are publically owned subject to certain issues. They must have been navigable in fact or subject to navigation and commerce upon statehood (March 3, 1845), which is usually determined by historical record (steamboats on the river, canoes on the lake carrying goods). Also, they must have no legal conveyances of submerged property to a private owner from the Crown (like Spanish Land Grants, fairly common in NE Florida) or from the U.S. Government or the State of Florida itself (Florida did sell a fair amount of submerged lands years ago, and also conveyed "swamp and overflow" land by the ton).

Then there is the issue of the boundary between the public lands below ordinary high water on fresh water bodies and mean high water (for salt water) and the privately owned marsh or uplands. This is relatively cheap and easy to determine on salt water, but difficult and expensive plus fraught with legal problems on fresh water. As a result, most lakes and rivers have no "official" boundary even if publicly owned, so often times dry weather periods can cause some real interesting challenges. Lake Jackson here in Tally does have an official boundary, but even it has a lot of probably illegal development that has gone on during dry periods. Its a mess, really. A great example of how things can go is the Wakulla River, where Ed Ball just fenced it off and said it was his, and since he had a local judge on his side he got his way for as long as he wished, up until the State bought the uplands and there was no more issue.

Most commonly, people just do what they please on lakes as long as they have local permits and it is really hard to "prove" violations. These days, not much state pursuit of such violations is going on, anyway. Environmental and public interest state lands enforcement is almost totally gutted out.

EJ

I contacted the family who owns access a couple of months ago. They are not interested in anyone fishing, hence the oversized signs along HWY 90.

I did fish it once before it was posted. Fishing was OK. The lake is choked with vegetation. Piney Z is great alternative.