Martentrapper, Here in Ohio the land owner owns, on navigable water, the land under the water. The state does own the water but not the land under it. That plus on road frontage, the land owner owns right out to the center line on the road. Back when fur was worth something there were many heated exchanges with bridge trappers.

Michigan is the same and years ago I was one of those involved in a few permission disputes between trappers trespassing and those with permission! Back in the day, many road trappers plead ignorance. LOL

I give you credit for your optimisim, but I would not consider only retaining some trapping rights on certain waters a win at all, just less of a loss. We are not winning in MN when they take only some of our gun rights.

we have a very small amount of room left in Montana and some folks from Oregon are taking advantage of that fact. But not to sure they are pro beaver trappers.

In New Mexico we aren't supposed to trap on public land, a court case brought by fishermen{ I think}, the court ruled that the public water flows over public land. I trap beaver for several acequas or ditches in New Mexico I can't get a permit to trap out of season but during the season I trap beaver on public land and water!!? Here in the north the Mexican-American war never ended, Iam almost considered a year round summer person!

Here some registerd traplines have private land within the boundaries of the RTL To trap the private land you need a written permission from the landowner.The landowner can give permission to trap to someone other than the RTL trapper if he chooses.
If there is a beaver pond or lake within the private land and it is acessable from an RTL by a navigable watereay the fur in the lake and waterway belong to the RTL trapper not the private land trapper,even if no permission was given to anyone or not.
Was settled that way in a courcase here a few years ago.RTL trapper in these cases cannot set on any land only in the water(floats beaver or rat houses or beaver dam or under the ice.

In Oregon there are just a few "officially" designated navigable waterways. But the original state's definition of what is navigable holds that if a waterway was used for the transport of people or goods prior to statehood in 1859 than it is "navigable" and the state or the feds own the water and the land under it.

I therefore will hold to the original definition in my trapping and if a game warden sees it differently we will see each other in court.