[RandomStranger]

For reasons of anonymity I won't give away my exact location, but a couple of months ago we moved to this lake front house not too far from Halifax. When we moved in, we were a bit surprised by the "no trespassing" signs the previous owners posted at various points around the property. Now we better understand why.

In the last couple of weeks we have had multiple occasions of people equipped with fishing rods just randomly crossing our backyard / lawn. Last week someone just passed by maybe two meters from my home office window (next to the kids bedrooms). I was in a call because otherwise I would have gone out and talked to him. And my son mentioned more people were crossing our lawn earlier today again.

Since we have young kids this is making us all very uncomfortable. Maybe strictly sticking to the shore line would be one thing, but we're really talking about crossing our lawn and even just walking a meter or two away from our house as well.

This most definitely feels like trespassing and an infraction of our privacy. I'm well aware of the angling act and the right to pass upon and through "uncultivated" land but as far as I understand (and I called a conservation officer today) to confirm, that really doesn't apply in this case (I don't think it can be reasonably argued our mowed lawn is in a "natural state").

The lake itself has plenty of easily accessible public access all around. And we have seen many people fishing in those places (it is clearly popular). In my opinion it's just a small group of people that are lazy and prefer to take a "shortcut" rather then walking the 500 meters more to access some of the other spots.

I'm hoping to (calmly) talk to one of the trespassers if I get the chance. I'll probably put some camera's up as well.

My wife is far less forgiving - if she sees them I'm sure she'll call the police.

 

[RandomStranger]

And this evening we had another 2 guys fishing on/near our property - but they stuck to the shoreline the entire time. Even had heavy duty boots on and waded through the shallow water, clearly avoiding getting onto our lawn too much. And they did not cut through our lawn (which can easily be avoided). Neither did they get near the house. They were quiet and did not leave any garbage behind. If people are fishing this way (respecting home owners) I have no qualms with that (and I believe it to be well within their rights as well). Just a shame that there's some other types out there as well (who are souring the experience for us).

 

[fishon]

Its a hot potato issue. If you enter trespass in the search box at the top of this webpage you'll read threads and see its not as cut and dried as you would think, being a landowner here in Nova Scotia.

fishon

 

[fishing fanatic]

From your explanation, those who are walking next to your house and across your lawn are in violation and shouldn’t be doing so. They need to access the lake from one of the other areas you mention or bushwhack through the woods (uncultivated land) until at the shoreline. Once at the shoreline, they can walk legally around the lakes shoreline. A persons lawn is not considered uncultivated land that’s in its natural state.