## Facts

- Adams owned a farm in Suffield, Connecticut, bounded on the east by the Connecticut River.
- The disputed area lay between Adams’s shoreline and the middle of the river opposite his farm.
- The location was above Enfield Falls and not affected by the sea’s ebb and flow.
- The river at and below the location was used for transportation by water and was important to the public; all citizens held a common right of passage for that purpose.
- Pease and another defendant used fish boats and a seine to fish across the disputed area and took approximately 3,000 shad.
- Adams claimed title to the riverbed to the center of the stream and asserted an exclusive right of fishery in the waters over that bed.
- Adams sued in trespass, alleging the defendants forcibly entered his submerged land and took fish.

## Issues

1. Whether a non-tidal but commercially used portion of the Connecticut River is “navigable” such that the right of fishery is common to the public.
2. Whether, above tidewater, a riparian owner has an exclusive fishery to the middle of the river, subject only to a public easement of navigation.

## Decision

- The court held that, for fishery rights, a river is “navigable” at common law only where the sea’s tide ebbs and flows.
- Because the location was above tidewater, Adams, as the adjoining proprietor, held the exclusive right of fishery opposite his land to the middle of the river.
- The public retained an easement to pass and repass on the river as a highway with vessels, boats, and other watercraft.
- The defendants’ fishing with a seine in Adams’s several fishery constituted a trespass.
- Judgment was entered for Adams.

## Legal Principles

- Public fishing rights exist in the sea, tidal rivers, and tidal arms of the sea; in non-tidal rivers, fishery rights belong exclusively to adjoining proprietors.
- The boundary between public common fishery and private several fishery is the presence or absence of tidal influence, not the river’s practical capacity for transportation.
- Above tidewater, riparian title and the associated exclusive fishery generally extend to the middle of the stream, while the public retains a navigation easement.

## Conclusion

The court ruled that, because the Connecticut River at the relevant location was above tidewater, the riparian owner held an exclusive fishery to midstream and could recover in trespass against non-owners who fished there, despite the public’s continuing right of navigation.


Adams v. Pease, 2 Conn. 481 (Conn. 1818)