Landowners are blocking public access to a renowned river known for its fishing – because of anglers they say are trespassing on their property by standing in the river to cast.
The controversy surrounds a stretch of the Lower Provo River in Utah, some 50 miles from Salt Lake City.
There, fishermen have operated undeterred for years, due to a 2010 statute that allowed them to float on rivers but forbade them from setting foot on the riverbeds.
But law enforcement in Wasatch County rarely enforce that stipulation – spurring people like Steve Ault, a relative of a former governor who owns 3,000 acres along the river, to formally request a shift in the county line so his property sits elsewhere.
In interviews administered both this and last week, the 70-year-old complained about fishermen repeatedly accessing his land, and a lack of law enforcement he said is to blame.
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He’s trying to shift the county line such that his property resides in Utah County — not Wasatch — with hopes that county’s Sheriff’s Office will do something about it.
Speaking to both The Salt Lake Tribune and Fox 13, he said he does not necessarily mind people fishing on his land – he just wants to charge them an access fee.
‘If you take [a state coalition that won a legal battle for public access to the river in 2017], and apply this to any other private property owner, you wouldn’t want people in your backyard and have a right to be there,’ Ault told the Tribune.
‘You would never allow someone to walk through your yard to get to a gate that goes to a park, right?’ he said, slamming the Utah Stream Access Coalition as ‘the Utah Socialist Access Coalition.
‘But that’s a very similar situation here.’
‘We can own property here, and we can have businesses, and we can do things that they can’t in other parts of the world, and yet,’ he continued,
‘[But] there’s groups and individuals that would take that away.’
Ault is the brother-in-law to former Utah Gov. Gary Herbert, who served as the 17th governor of the red state from 2009 to 2021.
During his tenure, the Utah Stream Access Coalition won a suit against the state – one that found that this particular stretch of river was ‘navigable’ and thus public, due to local laws.
By the state’s definition, ‘navigable’ means a waterway that is large enough to be used to transport goods and people, which the coalition believes it is.
The Utah divisions of Forestry, Fire and State Lands and Wildlife Resources, however, has yet to confirm their belief – a hindrance compounded by the fact the state last year passed a law that would punish anglers who access rivers that run through private land.
But that’s only if local officials actually enforce the law – something Ault says is not happening.
Instead, he said he’s been force to post ‘no trespassing’ signs about his sprawling property, despite living in a home dozens of miles away.
To ensure no one is getting the best of him, he has hired a security guard – one he said finds his signs trashed just about every week, tattered and in need of a replacement.
He further claimed to the Tribune that the guard also routinely finds trash left behind by people they suspect are anglers, due to the the abundance of trout in the area, and the fact that the route that straddles the river is somewhat less traveled.
It’s even more empty now, after a Utah Department of Transportation contractor razed hundreds of trees last year to make room for a state-sanctioned trail that has yet to be built.
In an interview with the local Fox affiliate this past Wednesday, Ault said he has taken issue with this as well – claiming to own portions of the property that were dug up.
‘It’s the worst, in my opinion, one of the worst environmental disasters this state has ever seen,’ Ault told the outlet.
Recalling how he was ‘in shock’ after stumbling across the demolition, he said it had been his for almost forty years.
‘We own the land underneath the railroad tracks up to the edge of the highway,’ he said, pointing across the river. ‘We own 1,4000 acres that way.’
The land in question, however, is the state’s property, right outside his purview.
That said, a 3.5 mile-gap between two trail networks it was meant to link remains, as construction has been called off due to the a litany of suits over who decides access to certain areas of the river, including a contested ‘fisherman’s easement’.
The easement applies to one side of the waterway, while another questions the railroad route on the other.
Both are being contested, with the latter seeing the trail project temporarily called off.
The gap won’t be filled unless the court rules in UDOT’s favor, but Ault views it as a victory.
Gesturing to now naked section of the river where ‘spectacular pines and quaking aspen and just big, big old trees’ once grew, he said he is considering a lawsuit, but the damage is already done.
‘It will take ten generations before it is ever even close to looking the same,’ he told Fox 13.
Now, he’s turned his attention to the controversy surrounding public river access, hoping to protect the land from further desecration.
He said the uncertainty stems largely from the Wasatch County attorney’s office, which prosecutes cases in the area.
They issued a statement this week saying the courts haven’t decided whether anglers accessing the land is technically trespassing, pointing to the multiple ongoing lawsuits.
The county office still looks at cases individually on their own merits, the statement noted, saying that if cops and officials produce sufficient evidence, they would charge trespassers.
‘Wasatch County takes its responsibility to uphold the law very seriously,’ the office told The Tribune.
‘However,’ they added, ‘we also take our ethical responsibility to not prosecute persons who may not be violating the law very seriously.’
Meanwhile, the state Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands hired a river analyst tasked with settling such disputes six years ago, but the Tribune reported that person has since been relieved.
In the meantime, now such determinations have been made, and the shores lining the stretch of the Lower Provo river remain marred either by unfinished construction or trash from visitors, Ault said.
Layne Edwards, who owns Park City Fly Fishing Guides, said this has left people from both sides frustrated, with no swift solution in sight.
“We have folks that are paying us to take them on a guided trip, and we have a responsibility to provide them with a positive experience,” Edwards told the Tribune, noting how his agency has not had any clients seek a tour along the river in more than a year.
‘And the last thing that I would want our guests to experience would be a bunch of negative energy.
He blamed the ‘no trespassing’ signs put up by property owners like Ault, and the ensuing conflicts it created between anglers and property owners.
Ault’s request to redraw the county lines, meanwhile, has yet to be heard, as the state project – like local fishermen’s rights – remains in limbo.
DailyMail.com has reached out to the Wasatch County Attorney for comment and further clarification on the current situation.