.... I've been hunting state beaches lately. State parks in all essence. I've had cops drive by on the beach, I've had lifeguards, and everyone in between. Most I get is a wave.
Yes. CA state beaches have historically been open game. Despite "cultural heritage" boiler plate language in the state park's dept's code. You can even (gasp) find a 51+ yr. old coin, and be totally ignored. So I guess the subject has never been scrutinized for clarifications. A sort of "grandfathered in" situation ?
One time however, about 15 yrs. ago, I knew a guy who got hassled by a state archie on one of the state beaches. My friend , at first, thought it was a joke. Some stranger saying "you can't be doing this on state beaches". But he soon realized he was talking to an archie, who had
just happened to be at that beach that day to give a lecture at a museum there. And
just happened to glance down on the beach and see the md'r. The two of them squared off, with my friend refusing to leave. The archie stormed off saying he was going to get a ranger/LEO. My friend resumed hunting. But after a few minutes got the willies, and decided to leave before anything became of this.
He reported what had happened to him on a CA md'ing forum. Naturally the rest of us just assumed that the archie was mistaken. Because, afterall, we all *know* that you can md CA state beaches, right ? So it would merely be a matter of looking through CA park's codes, and "setting the guy in this place" to prove him wrong. Right ?
But the more we collectively looked into it, the more we realized we better leave good enough alone, and NOT "seek clarifications". Odds are, that archie went back to Sacramento, and odds of him ever running into an md'r again are slim to none. So too do I suspect a lot of supposedly off-limits places get born: A fluke incident like this happens, and md'rs rush for "solidarity" and "seeking clarifications" to "fight scrams". That was 15+ yrs. ago, and you can still hunt CA state beaches till you're blue in the face.