Donny Beaver and Field and Stream call us out

[dryflyguy]

Guys:

I've been fly fishing for 25 year, and have wet a line pretty much in every area of the state.
I have seen my share of stream sections get posted, and in almost every instance, it's because of people like Beaver buying or leasing it to make money. But he claims he's just trying to preserve things - BS!
I really can't remember anywhere being posted because of a housing development, or any other reason, besides greed.
As for organizing a group to raise funds for land access, it's pretty tough for us average joe's to compete with the likes of Beaver.
I remember when the Espy farm section of the little juniata first got posted in 1990, Charlie Meck tried to form a such a group.
It must not have gotten too far though - I didn't hear anything about it shortly afterwards. Of course, that was before the internet. A medium like this would certainly help things a lot.

 

[JackM]

I think that more effective than land and easement acquisition would be a public relations and volunteer outreach campaign to inspire landowners to share their stream access and inspire anglers to act gratefully by respecting privacy and cleaning up their acts.

It could be appropriately called the SHARE OUR STREAMS COALITION. Donations could still be a component, but this would be leveraged by volunteerism.

I recognize that individual groups and organizations already have this type of effort as a part of their usual activities, local TU's come immediately to mind, but perhaps an organized and concerted effort statewide, with assitance of PFBC, DCNR and DEP would have a broader and more lasting impact.

 

[OhioOutdoorsman]

Tim,

You bring up some really good points. Paying for water is very much a double edged sword.

However, it would be nice to have an organization that could buy land and accept land and monetary donations to preserve access and habitat forever. I look at Hemlock Creek and Porcupine Creek think it would be great to do a simular thing for other streams, especially those like the central PA limestoners which are, at least for now, public treasures.

 

[littlejuniata]

Well guys it is Econ 101, if you have a commodity, you should capitalize on it, it is survival. So the landowner is going to "FINALLY" after eons of time, going to get his due, guides, motels, gas stations, tackle dealers PFBC and many others make money from the landowners streams so why shouldn't he? It will either be a hundred guys at $10,000.00 per year or a five hundred guys at $200.00 per year, take your pick. Stocked streams would command lesser amounts premimum streams premimum amounts. Would you pay $100.00 bucks a year to fish the Rothrock water on the Little Juniata if the decision was either that or sell the water to a high-end fishing club? You bought all your "stuff" (clothes, car, shoes, etc etc) when you go to the movies, then you have to pay to get in, relate that to fishing!

 

[Padraic]

OhioOutdoorsman wrote:
Padraic,

I am not in any way calling out or criticizing this website.....just wondering if the internet could be used as a fundraising tool. PAFF is probably not the most appropriate place for this. PAFF is a wonderful website, and sounds like it is like most forums, is a profitless labor of love for those involved.

I know you weren't criticizing the site. I think DB was. And he was totally off base doing so. In fact, I think there might be a breare rabbit thing going on. I wonder if he would like to see a group try to use a site like this to try to keep a stream open, and when they fail he can point to the experiment and say "See I am the only workable solution"

 

[salvelinusfontinalis]

im callin him out! seems to me that ever since he lost the little j case he has been doing alot of p&r trying to get sympathy and justification for his actions. and he is apealing the case asking the state to prove they own the streambed! what a money grubbing pig hiding behind the face of a conservationist. i was on the website and they were saying that they dont make money! they have over 120 members now and they spend 900,000 dollars a year to maintain land and streams, raise pellet feed fish, hire guides and the whole 9 yards. under my calculations 85,000 dollars times 120 is alot more 900,000. furthermore, i wonder how many of those streams have enough wild trout in them to be a class a section, but they wanna stock those pellet feed hogs over them. good job donny!
doing it for the kids! whos kids, george bush's kids? i dont see my kids, or grandchildren or greatgrandchilden ever being able to afford your member fees so they can fish for trout buddy. dont tell me your doing it for the kids! maybe your kids because the will have the oppurtunity to be as greedy as you are!
funny thing is donny, if you would join forces with TU then you wouldnt have to "spend so much money" on stream restoration. in fact you could have gotten grants and volunteers to help with all that stuff.....oh yeah i forgot that would require that the land be opened up to all flyfisherman not just your members. i heard that donny tried to lease a part of lititz run in the millport conservancy once. lynn didnt go for it....because TU is a non pressure organization that allows her to not participate at anytime. i guess donnys contracts are lockin in for so long.
trust me donny it bothers me a little that you think the average joe on this website does nothing but "*****" about you. truth is i dont think about you hardly at all. its not worth the small amount of brain power to think of it. but it bothers me that you think thats all we do, and that we are "ineffective". most members here are tu members. we work hard to restore wild trout streams and water quality to EVERYONE! including you. can you say the same?
also it is through discussions on here we can detirmine what fisheries need help. we get insight on how to make them better from tu people from every county. we talk about patterns and techniques. and if we trust the person full-heartedly places to go and enjoy a day on the stream. UNLIKE you we have the ability to have a community that is proud to be apart of the flyfishing experince. your members hide, like yourself and use the media to defend or justify your actions.
so please stop calling yourself a conservationist and start just calling yourself an outfitter!

 

[RLeeP]

>>Beaver is creating or at least greatly accelerating the problem he is publicly bemoaning.>>

Will nails it...

I've seen some doozies over the years, but I can't really ever recall somebody trying so hard and in sucha transparently shameless manner to put lipstick on a pig, and in full view of the world at that.

Mr. Beaver has decided he has seen the future and funamentally, is using his alleged vision to hasten the priviatization of Pennsylvania waters. But where is the evidence that his vision of the future is real? That's the most amazing part of this entire masked ball. He himself is creating it every day.

It's like something out of Kafka....

My view is that the key to this is not in trying to match people like Beaver dollar for dollar. Pennsylvania needs to rev up a strong and active easement program, even it it is 50 years late and even if, for the sake of better liquidity, it means funamental changes in the structure and funding of the Commission. Another big part of the answer, IMO, is in supporting existing conservacies and other organizations with a history or willingness to engage in private/public land acquisition partnerships. Because of the way these organizations routinely work, one dollar sent their way is a match for 20 of those from folks like Beaver.

But above all, I simply cannot believe the "up is down and down is sideways" audacity of this guy in what he is saying. If the stakes were not so high and if people weren't actually getting sucked into buying Beaver's peculiar and convoluted reasoning, it would be hilarious.

But the stakes are high and people are getting sucked in. So, it isn't funny.

 

[salvelinusfontinalis]

Spring Ridge members currently have exclusive access to about 30 miles of legendary trout waters, and the club is adding several miles of great trout fishing in the Poconos barely two hours from Manhattan, plus outstanding steelhead fishing near Lake Erie. All of the club’s waters began as some of the best in eastern America, and they’ve been sculpted to become and remain world-class.

great so now they are gonna come up to my favorite neck of the woods. probably on the delaware. becareful donny thats navigable water!

 

[TimMurphy]

Dear Sal,

I think Beaver has some property over in Monroe County.

He did briefly control the lower couple of miles of Mud Run but he has since abandoned that property and it is under the control of another club as it has been for many many years.

Regards,
Tim Murphy 🙂

 

[ian_brown]

Instead of easements, I wonder if it would be easier to tailor the Clean and Green laws. For those who don't know, these laws lower the property taxes on land if the owners meet certain criteria. If the property ceases to meet the requirements, the owner has to pay back the difference with interest.

I wonder if there is some way the laws could be changed to make it more appealing for riparian property owners to enter their property into the program.

 

[RLeeP]

>>Instead of easements, I wonder if it would be easier to tailor the Clean and Green laws. For those who don't know, these laws lower the property taxes on land if the owners meet certain criteria. If the property ceases to meet the requirements, the owner has to pay back the difference with interest.

I wonder if there is some way the laws could be changed to make it more appealing for riparian property owners to enter their property into the program.>>

My prefenece would still be easements, but you make an excellent point, Ian. And one I had forgotten about.

I'm old enough to remember the Hammermill Paper debacle back in the late 70's. Hammermill was a big user of Clean and Green for tax relief purposes and as a result, they were an excellent public citizen so far as access to their properties was concerned. And they held pretty significant tracts with a lot of small trout water on it through much of the state. When Carl Ichan drove Hammermill into the arms of International Paper and IP came into ownership of all this land, much of this changed and there was a loss of quit a bit of access. IP's policy was to lease to clubs which they do extensiely in their base in the US southeast. Gradually, through a lot of effort by sportsmen's orgs and PA's resource agencies, much of what was lost was regained, at least for angler use.

I'd certainly agree that tax abatement incentives should be a part of the mix. It's just that the way things seem to be headed, I'd find more comfort in a a legally binding easement program..

 

[littlejuniata]

Db & SRC are masters at manipulation, check and see how they manupulate the various charatible organizations to enhance their image, like the Redbone Classic, while those organizations are great DB gets all that fine publicly without hardly any out of pocket expense. It IS NOT pleasant to see both Trout Unlimited and SRC with Barry & Kathy Becks mugs all over the pages, if the Becks are that hard up for coin it is time to get new writers or photographers at minimum it is not good for Trout Unlimited to promote the Becks. It is posssible that the trout on the cover of Trout is one of DBs pellet puppies, photographed by the Becks, DB would love that!!

 

[salvelinusfontinalis]

omg lj that thought makes me sick to my stomach. if the becks are hard up for cash maybe they should revoke thier src membership saving themselves 85,000.

 

[OhioOutdoorsman]

The CAP program gets my vote. Matching dollars, an infastructure to find and buy land, and the backing of the state. All of the other methods are nice and should be pursued but they all rely on landowners being somewhat generous. Only ownership preserves permanat public access and habitat protection and is not affected by the whims of a landowner, legislature, or judge.

I say lets raise money for CAP.

Its time we start talking with our wallets. I will see if I can use my Missionfish Account on ebay to donate to CAP. We should distribute CAP donation forms on streams and consider selling items and services to raise money for it.

Thanks for the link, as an out-of state liscence purchaser, I don't get a regs booklet with my liscence.

 

[salvelinusfontinalis]

iam with ohio on that! im thinking about raising some money for CAP. ive been flirting with someideas here and im gonna try to work out the details. im gonna donate when ever i can. this is a great program and it goes to the heart of the problem. if donny beaver truely cared about angler access on pennsylvania water. we would donate too.
they dont give you a booklet? so you get a lisence but they just expect you to know the regs. nice.

 

[OhioOutdoorsman]

Tim,

I really do hope that fish are seen as a public commodity. In Ohio, you can fish any stream from a boat, as soon as you step out you are tresspassing. In Texas, deer are considered private and not public property. There is very little public hunting land. I just don't have enough faith in the navigable waters laws to protect our access to fishing over the long term.

I hate to see it come to a land grabbing contest, but from what I have seen with hunting leases here in Ohio, I can't help but think there will be little public access for hunting and fishing on private land for free in the future.

We also need to urge landowners to donate land to the public, this is another strategy.

I realize this may make the problem worse in the short term, but I feel its the only long term solution.

 

[OhioOutdoorsman]

Its my obligation to know the regs, whether they give me a booklet or not. I could always buy my liscence in PA. Just easier to do it online or at a local store.

 

[salvelinusfontinalis]

oh i see, i thought you were getting it in pa. my bad 😳
oh and in regaurd to what ohio said. that is why i said we should take a moment to be thankful for what we do have. god bless sgl(thanks to the hunters) and god bless nature preserves. most of those is what ohio was taking about with land owners donating land. some of the ones here in sepa provide the most solitude and pleasurable fishing experience for wild trout. for everyone! i thank any landowner that has done this....you are a true conservationist and did something for everyone and future generations. DB could learn something from these people.

 

[ryanh]

Well you have to admit that DB is winning the PR war. From 50thousand feet everything he says sounds good. Good for the sport, good for the trout and good for the fisherman. Like he was just out flying a kite one day and SHAZAM!! Gets this idea how to save the sport through selfless acts. Sure I embilished but not much more than what is being written about the guy. It is kind of disillusioning to see how much of the sport is sympathetic to him. We are protrayed as the dumb locals who are too busy dragging our knuckles to beable to manage a resource.

Sory Tim I stand by my compensation for access view. If you have a large tract of land you are going to manage it effectively in such away that you take advantage of its attributes. If it is on primo trout water that is definantly in the equation. Some of us are knuckle draggers and I wouldn't want them on my property. They need some incentive other than altruism to let us Joes on their turf. I have run people out of my property. I have also permitted people to use it. A system (like the red tag farms for deer hunting) Lets the public know who will let them play and gives the farm some incentive to let the public in.

 

[littlejuniata]

Salve, they can't get there 85,000 back if the haven't given it!! Another thought, a lot of these folks for all pratical purposes "got in free"" to clubs like Spring Ridge with the tax breaks for the obscenly wealthy guys. The Yellowstone Club dues are $250,000.00, homes in the guarded community are to 12 million.