When I bought my first canoe
They had to be registered with Game & Fish.
I had a receipt from the guy who sold it to me BUT… he was not the guy who originally bought it so my receipt was legally useless.
I had to track down the original owner, put an ad in the paper and so on to get the canoe registered.
It cost me $$$ and months to do and finally when I had the proof of publication and the letter of release from the original owner, G&F told me that the laws had changed and I no longer needed to register paddlecraft in Arizona!