Homeowners, Anglers Clash Hayden Lake Residents Have Had Enough Of Sharing Shoreline With Public

First a baseball bat-wielding woman chased Larry Schnabel down the street because he asked her to move her car.

Then some anglers began bringing toilet paper to the same road-side fishing spot across from his dad’s home - and not to re-stock the bathroom.

There isn’t one.

“They’re defecating in our front yard,” said an incredulous Jack Schnabel, Larry’s father. “This has got to stop.”

A long-simmering spat over homeowner rights and fishing access is coming to a head along the developed shores of Hayden Lake.

On one side are a dozen homeowners on the south side of Lower Hayden Lake Road east of Tobler’s Marina.

They complain that a narrow roadside area where visiting fisherman have parked for years has grown too popular and now attracts a sometimes unruly crowd.

Anglers argue homeowners are exaggerating the situation. Besides, they said, there are few other places to fish from shore.

The feud is pitting old ways against new, and is a symptom of a region-wide problem: As North Idaho’s lakeshores grow crowded with homes, access to waterways is an increasingly frequent flashpoint.

Similar water access squabbles have surfaced on other lakes in recent years.

Anglers still are fighting appeals over a landowner’s 1995 effort to fence them off a peninsula on Hauser Lake. A handful of Lake Coeur d’Alene homeowners at times have threatened to fence the public off popular Sanders Beach.

“I remember when I used to be able to walk right down to Lake Coeur d’Alene with a shotgun and hunt ducks,” said Cliff Renner, a Lakes Highway District commissioner and a 60-year resident.

“Pretty soon it’s going to be so that if you don’t have a boat or own lakefront land, you won’t be able to get to the water at all.”

Hayden Lake homeowner Robin Eiesland is sympathetic but points out times have changed.

“My family’s been in North Idaho 100 years; I know what this place used to be like,” she said. “The county should have bought property all around the lakes a long time ago. It didn’t. And we can’t go back.”

Eiesland lives along Cooper’s Bay with the Schnabels and paints a scene rife with modern problems.

Her neighbors hear loud radios from dawn to dusk and are surrounded by litter. They find beer bottles in their mailboxes and are threatened when kicking strangers off private docks. One neighbor’s front yard smells like human waste because there are no bathrooms nearby.

The rocky wall that forms the lakeshore here - originally built by Chinese laborers - has crumbled under years of weight from parked cars. When Larry Schnabel pointed this out to a visitor, she scurried after him with a bat.

“I was scared,” the 34-year-old said. “She was a big, mean lady.”

The shoulder is so narrow that parked cars often hang into the roadway, yet some visitors spread blankets and let children play there. Anglers have been known to back into the road when landing a big one.

“It’s an accident waiting to happen,” said neighbor Phyllis VanLeuven.

The solution they seek seems simple - neighbors merely want “No Parking” signs. The rest, residents said, would take care of itself.

But there’s another side to this fish tale.

Kootenai County sheriff’s Capt. Ben Wolfinger said the area is a tight traffic squeeze but he’s had only three parking complaints in all of this year.

In 30 years of trout catching, Mary Piggot, a well-known area lake defender, never has seen the problems Eiesland described.

Bob “Rainbow Bob” Williamson, a retired painter who has suffered three strokes in the past year, said the fishing is all being done from a public right of way.

Williamson was the only person with a line in the water on a recent afternoon. He said Hayden Lake is so developed that only two other public areas remain - Honeysuckle Beach and a sportsmen’s access.

“This is the only place I can park, get out, put out my lawn chair and fish,” he said, showing off pictures of a prize 14-pound trout. “I can’t walk. I can’t climb. This is all I can do.”

Renner has fished area lakes all his life and said most folks who use the Hayden Lake site are respectful, elderly fishermen. Some even fish from wheelchairs.

“I’ve never seen more than five or six people there at a time,” he said. “I mean, we’re talking about an area that’s only six car-lengths long.”

When Renner suggested in-filling a portion of the lake to expand the parking area for anglers - thereby solving the traffic problem - homeowners were horrified.

“The impression I get is they just want the fishermen out of there,” he said.

When pushed, Eiesland reluctantly agreed.

“Authorities wouldn’t let this happen in any other neighborhood,” she said. “Why here?”

Last month, she and the Schnabels asked Kootenai County commissioners for help.

“Is there a problem? Absolutely,” said county Commissioner Dick Panabaker. “Do I have an answer? No.”

Commissioners passed them on to Renner and the highway district, which will debate the situation next week.

“I don’t know what we’ll do,” Renner said. “It’s a popular place, and I’m reluctant to give it away.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo

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