I'm not an attorney, nor am I an expert on property laws. I do however, know the laws on the rivers that I fish most of the time."Below the mean highwater mark" means exactly what it says. If you stay below the "mean" or "normal highwater mark, you're usually OK. Just to be safe, I tend to wade whenever possible. If I'm up to my ankles in water, then I know I'm below the high water mark. Again, you want to exercize a bit of caution when doing this. Make sure you know your rights on whatever river you're fishing on, or you could wind up looking an idiot. Also, Sometimes if you just find the land owner and ask, they will let you on. Save using a loophole in the system as your last resort when it comes to accessing a stretch of river. In general, I will treat the landowners as well as they treat me. I've wnet to landowners in the past and they've told me "NO" and even though I knew that I could legally fish through their section of land, I didn't because they were halfway cool in the way they treated me. To the same token, I've had landowners threaten to kill me for simply hiking down the river..... Needless to say, I make it a point to fish their property every chance I get, just to spite them. But seriously, try asking first, you'd be surprized at how many landowners will let you access their property for fishing purposes..... A nice fish or two once in a while never hurts either.