Paddle boat registration, invasive species permits and inspections, and launch fees vary from state to state and even within a state. If I paddle in PA I always have to figure out if where I’m specifically launching and if it requires a launch permit. Ohiopyle State Park on the yough in PA does their own thing- and it varies by the weekday or weekend and time of year. The state wildlife areas/parks require launch permits (like the Casselman) and yet there are a lot of areas that don’t require anything. Bucks county and Tohickon creek was totally bizarre in the 80s. You camped in a closed campground where the gate was left wide open (officially the campground closed for the season the weekend before). Instead of registering you paid a fine and then you paid another fine to park along the road to takeout- and all of that was considered normal by the folks I was camping and boating with. So PA is one place I try to do my homework.
At least in Ohio you can carry your out of state id with you and not get ticketed for boating. When I lived in Ohio I didn’t register my boats. I seldom boated in Ohio and when I did I took my chances with off the radar runs but OH is a state that enforces.
I have boated in several states that have some sort of boat registration requirement but I was blissfully unaware. Hopefully it was just for residents. I forget which states require that you register with them or you must register with your home state.
Sometimes the permits and stickers go inside the pelican box. They just aren’t designed for inflatables- think rafts and duckies.
A much bigger deal is your right to river access. That varies greatly from region to region. Tribal land, ranch land, king’s land can all make paddling problematic.
Enforcement of the rules varies greatly as well. If you are in a national park, state park or designated state wildlife area, or at a popular blm access then enforcement is more likely. If you want to boat in the Tetons and you are in the national park I think you have to get a special permit in addition to the invasive species permit. Deschutes in Oregon around Maupin is very confusing- I’m not sure they know what they are doing. There are a few places where the forest service gets wound up (like the natahala, or parking off the pavement at the Tellico) but generally they are pretty laid back about paddlers.
So I met a lone kayaker in Swirly Canyon on the South Fork of the Payette. I couldn’t help but grin when I caught him glancing to see if we had our invasive species stickers- he was a ranger boating alone but you couldn’t really tell until we chatted him up. I got stopped once in WV. A ranger was waving us down running down the bank from the road as we descended dunloup creek (goes into the New at Thurmond) because somebody had called 911. I guess they were afraid we didn’t know about the waterfall which we had no plans of running. That was really weird for us because we were having a dry hair day.
In general I don’t try to cheat the system but sometimes the rules get a little overwhelming when they vary so much from place to place.
Tommy Chase (Baxter State Park retired ranger) and I had a good talk the last time I was up in Maine at the Matagamon Wilderness Campground. When I was taking scout groups out in the early 80s, he was frequently checking to make sure we had our pfds and permits. We had a good chuckle about that, 40 years later.
Bottom line, sometimes you got to pay the MAN and sometimes you don’t. I try to go back to places where I feel like I’m wanted, not abused.
