Just moved up in the Aubrey area and fishing local neighborhood ponds, but see ton of ponds online that have names like they're public but appear to be on private land. Is there a way to find out if it's public or private, or just safer to assume it's all private and hope I can find out who owns it and ask for permission to fish?

Most of them are on private property, named after the owner or previous owner. Try googling the lake name to see if any results come up.

You answered you own question. Unless you know 100 percent a water body is public, assume it's on private property. You will be surprised how many land owners will give you permission to fish on their property if properly asked. Good job.

I guess that's what makes me nervous, because when googled stuff comes up like Hook and Bullet saying that it's public property. But nothing about it feels public, and I can't tell looking at satellite imaging who the owner would be. Oh well, guess I'll just try good ole word of mouth and see if I can find a local who knows.

Thanks

Look at the appraisal district maps. That'll often show you what land is involved and you can easily look up ownership.

Hook and Bullet is wrong. It shows everything as public. Don't use that site.

Uncle Zeek, that tip was awesome thank you. Learned a lot about areas I had wondered about in Denton County. It said it was owned by Pickens Lake LLC out of Plano, which brought up more questions than anything. This thing looks so fishy and I just want to wet a line dangit. ha

So in my experience, you can usually look up an LLC, that's public information. I looked that one up for you, and it appears to be incorporated at a residential address.

https://opencorporates.com/companies/us_tx/0802460543

This is undergrad business knowledge speaking (so don't consider me an authority by any means) but it's not uncommon for people to incorporate an LLC that technically owns their real estate. When I see a name/address like that, I usually assume it's someone incorporating their propoerty for liability reasons.

There's a caveat though. Sometimes they are just holding onto the property as an investment. Like, waiting for a developer to buy it and build a strip mall or another "luxury" condo complex or something. If that's the case, I'll go check it out and see if it's undeveloped (nothing at all built except maybe fencing). If there's no signs explicitly saying otherwise, I'll fish it. It's risky, but as long as you aren't worried about an incidental contact with local cops, who will wncourage you to move along, it's a risk sometimes worth taking. Just play dumb, "oh, I didn't know" and mosey along, and probably don't go back. It's likely they have some kind of monitoring for the property, or it's a problem area for cops and they regularly check up on it. You see 'em once, you'll see 'em again.

90% of the time with commercial properties thaf have ponds, as kong as you aren't sitting on your tailgate next to the water with a cooler full of Natty Lite, the owner isn't gonna care, because the nature of a Limited Liability Company means their liability is limited as far as any mishaps that might occur. Hike your gear in, and clean up when you go so there's not an issue for other guerilla anglers

Okay that makes sense. I looked up the company and couldn't figure out any information on them really, but did look like there were some roads out around it but nothing on the property at all. I may make my way up there and play ignorance one of these days. I've just done some neighborhood pond hopping with only a couple of little dinks. So getting closer every day to venturing out there.