River fisheries in Bangladesh is characterized as ‘‘open-access’’ and the history of administrative and legislative measures bear ‘‘contradiction and dilemmas’’ in resource extraction. Because of the persistent dilemma in government policy, continued increase in fishing pressure and other anthropogenic reasons, the River resources degraded substantially. Over the past ten years, the Department of Fisheries (DOF) in collaboration with NGOs implemented community based fisheries management (CBFM) approaches with the technical assistance from the WorldFish Center. The principal goal of the approaches was to provide access rights to the fishers through organizing poor fishers and the community to introduce sustainable fisheries management in beels, floodplains and River sections. The project implemented CBFM approaches in 39 river sections of which 15 sections belonged to the Fatki river (30 km long) that flows through Magura and Shalika upazilas (Sub districts) under Magura district. Each river section had a management committee that included representatives of direct beneficiaries, resource users and community leaders. The project developed an institutional mechanism for linkages and coordination among the river section committees to overcome the problem of cost and benefit sharing. The CBFM experiences suggest that management and institution building process in river management is complex, and requires participation of all concerned stakeholders including local government institutions and administration. CBFM-2 river fisheries management developed a broad-based institutional framework that includes community and local government along with the direct beneficiaries and resource users. A positive feature of such institutions is their ability to facilitate flow of information among agents, which is a key to maintain solidarity within and across groups. This paper draws lessons from the CBFM experiences in Bangladesh to manage river fisheries resources in Bangladesh.