What is the history of public rights to fish and boat on rivers and streams in Colorado?
In the 1700s, (while our nation s founding fathers were enacting laws to ensure public rights to fish and boat on rivers and streams,) the land that is now Colorado was mostly wilderness. It was inhabited by several Indian tribes, who often fished and canoed on the rivers and streams. In the 1800s, numerous fur trappers canoed the region s rivers and streams as they gathered beaver pelts. Settlers used rivers and streams to float logs down from the surrounding mountains to build the territory s first towns. Residents and visitors alike fished in the rivers and streams, for food and for sport. Colorado became a state in 1876. The Colorado State Constitution, like other state constitutions, declared public ownership of running waters, subject to appropriation for irrigation. It said, The water of every natural stream, not heretofore appropriated, within the state of Colorado, is hereby declared to be the property of the public, and the same is dedicated to the use of the people of the st
