A float gate is a device that allows recreationists to pass safely through a fence line in an un-motorized watercraft, but discourages livestock from passing through the same opening. Because the float-gate concept is relatively new, these designs should be considered experimental and used only as examples. Build your float gate to meet your individual needs.

The 1985 Stream Access Law allows stream barriers to be erected, but public use must be accommodated. A float gate is a means of complying with this law. Fish, Wildlife & Parks will not build or fund the construction of float gates, although it will provide and place notification signs for the completed gate.

Fish, Wildlife & Parks
Fisheries Division- Float Gates
Helena, MT 59620
(406) 444-5667

This model is one of the least expensive and simplest float gate designs. The barbed wire can be threaded through PVC pipe or garden hose during fence construction (or the cover can be slit lengthwise for placement on an existing wire fence). Disadvantages for this design include the likelihood of capsizing the floater unless the fence wire is strung loosely enough to allow it to be lifted up. Also, only small rafts or canoes can pass beneath the wire. Floaters must use caution when encountering a gate of this design; they should get out of the water craft before passing through the gate.

This design is inexpensive and easy to build. It also is self-adjusting to varying water levels when the builder leaves the cable slack enough for it to ride on the surface during lowest flow or bow out downstream during high water. The cable should be threaded through a length of PVC pipe, aligned in the middle to prevent watercraft damage. Floaters may pass over the sheathed portion. However, livestock may be able to step over the cable in water depths of less than two feet.

Although this gate is easy and inexpensive to build, it is effective only where a deep channel is cut below a high bank. Water depth alone prevents livestock from moving through the gate. Whenever possible, smooth wire should be used where floaters or their watercraft s might contact the fence or where debris might snag on it.

This gate is effective over any depth of water and needs little adjustment for varying water levels. However, it is more complicated and relatively expensive to build. The looped cable should be moved with a come-along up the level adjustment spikes to accommodate rising water levels and winter ice. Whenever possible, smooth wire should be used where floaters or their watercrafts might contact the fence or where debris might snag on it. The PVC gate should be placed over the main channel, which may not always be in the center.

This version of the gate is easier to construct, but its use is limited to narrow channels because of the length of the fence poles (2x4s may also be used instead of poles). The shoreward ends of the poles should be lightly nailed so that ice flows will be able to flex them.