“But he paddled on for two miles through the private property in the town of Long Lake, spying a deer, a nesting goose and moose scat. He had to carry his canoe for only four minutes to bypass a small rapids.
“Except for the carry, all of the waterways — the pond, the outlet and the brook — were obviously navigable in the everyday sense of the word,”
Except being the key word here. He trespassed plain and simple.
The U.S. Supreme Court has already ruled that navigability does not make a difference if the body of water was considered private under State law. Kaiser Aetna v. United States. Sounds like the New York courts are trying to overrule New York law on this subject.