Protecting fishing rights from interference

Fishing rights can be acquired by an express grant, such as a sale or lease. In certain circumstances, they can also be acquired by prescription following long-term use. This article considers how you can protect fishing rights once you own them.

One very important way to protect fishing rights is to ensure that registerable rights have been properly registered with HM Land Registry. Fishing rights which have been separated from ownership of the bed of a river and sold to a third party, for example, can be registered as a ‘profit à prendre’. Even where such rights have been registered, however, they can still be subject to challenge.

Case study

We acted for a client who was a keen fly fisherman and owned a fishery in the south of England. Our client’s fishing rights allowed him fish from a riverbank owned by a neighbour, ‘Ms A’. He had also acquired, as part of his purchase of the fishery, certain ancillary rights, which included the right to pass over Ms A’s land to access the fishery and to any trim trees and bushes on her land that caused an obstruction to fishing.

Ms A erected fencing on her land very close to the riverbank. The fencing was so close that it prevented our client from fishing, as he no longer had sufficient room to back cast.

We wrote to Ms A’s solicitors explaining that an unlawful interference with fishing rights is actionable. We stated that we would commence court proceedings on our client’s behalf if the fencing was not moved further back from the riverbank.

Initially, Ms A refused to move the fencing, so we issued court proceedings. Our client claimed damages for the interference with his fishing rights and sought a mandatory injunction, requiring Ms A to move the fencing further back. Ms A then relented and settlement terms were agreed, pursuant to which she agreed to move the fencing and pay our client damages.

Interference with fishing rights can take several forms. We have also acted for clients where:

• They owned exclusive fishing rights, but third parties sought to fish the relevant waters without their permission
• Canoeists were paddling in waters where our clients owned the fishing rights, preventing them from casting off
• A neighbour persistently allowed cows to enter a river at a location where our clients owned the fishing rights, preventing them from casting at those times.

We were able to advise our clients on how best to protect their fishing rights and the options available to them.