How do you find out if kayak fishing is permitted?

[Grayson Everett]

There are a lot of small ponds and lakes here in New York. What are the regulations on non-motorized kayak fishing? Some of them have small county or city-run parks. Do I contact the county or NYS to determine if kayak fishing is permitted? What about launching from public land?

[FullFlavorPike]

In most states (afaik) hunting and fishing are controlled at the state level. Your state department of fish and game (or fish and wildlife) will probably have a glut of resources.

County and city level regulations may be available online with relation to the little parks and stuff, especially for manmade waterways that are part of public parks.

If you like paper, a DeLorme Atlas and Gazetteer guide for NY might also be useful for finding boat launches and stuff. Those are pretty great books for the northeastern states. My dad swears by his ME and NH gazetteers.

[JohnMckroidJr]

There are some weird rules for some of the lakes in upstate NY, so I would definitely err on the side of caution to avoid a stupid fine. I would check the respective city and county websites, if they don't have the answers there, I would call them to ask where.

[DanaPT]

Scope them out. See of you see others, I mean calculate your risks. I agree with above^^^, assume the answer to fishing is no, be aware of fines.

Btw..

How would you know there are fish in the area you want to fish with your kayak?

I hope you find something to catch!

[sharjak]

Maybe Google Regs or fishing reports on the body of water?