John Hayes, Post-Gazette Private fishing club operator Donny Beaver at his Spring Ridge Club near the confluence of the Little Juniata River and Spruce Creek. Click photo for larger image.

Donny Beaver, the fishing preserve entrepreneur at the center of a landmark private property case, says he's baffled.

Having worked much of his life in preservation and stewardship of natural resources, he doesn't understand why Pennsylvania anglers bristle at the mention of his name.

Beaver, 54, is owner of the Spring Ridge Club, a private trout-fishing preserve that owns or leases about 30 miles of property along some of the state's best trout and steelhead waters. In February, a court ruled that the commonwealth owns the streambed and water to the low water mark on the Little Juniata, which was previously declared to be navigable. Therefore, Beaver could not prevent people from floating or wading through the waters along the Little Juniata properties he manages.

Conservationists and the state were pleased with the ruling because it could make it easier to insure access to other disputed waterways.

Beaver said he planned to appeal the case. During a recent interview at a Spring Ridge clubhouse, east of Altoona near the juncture of the Little Juniata River and Spruce Creek, he said whether or not he loses the appeal, he's considering several not-for-profit alternatives that would keep prime fishing waters out of the hands of developers.

"The highest valued properties are along trout streams, and they're not being bought by guys who want to conserve it," Beaver said. "They're guys who want to make money from changing it. ... We're trying to protect these fish. That's what started all this."

Beaver grew up in an extended family that owned or leased 1,700 acres on the banks of the old Raystown Branch of the Juniata River. They built camps, hunted, fished, stocked pheasants and maintained the land until they were evicted by eminent domain when the river was impounded to create Raystown Lake.

While studying pre-med and biology at Wheaton College in Illinois, Beaver wrote papers on trout habitat and mine reclamation and tied flies for Chicago sporting goods stores. After college, he applied for a job with the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission, but made far more money cleaning office buildings, a side job that grew into a successful industrial cleaning business that won several environmental awards.

Beaver invested in land and opened a deer hunting preserve near State College. In the early 1990s, he left the cleaning business but kept a financial stake.

"As the business got more successful and I had more resources available, I started to ask, 'What do I like more than anything else?'" he said. "I love hunting and fishing and this whole notion that I could participate in the management of it."

In 2000, he merged his game preserve with the private Espy Farm preserve at the confluence of the Little Juniata and Spruce Creek. The next year, when the frequency of corporate-sponsored hunting and fishing trips began to wane, he proposed to several of his best clients that they invest in a private club.

The Spring Ridge Club membership fee is now $85,000, and it's going up this year. Beaver refers to it as a "membership deposit" -- after five years, he said, members can get it back. Beaver said membership fees and additional income from nearly 120 members is invested in land acquisition and leases, habitat improvement, building clubhouses and a $900,000 yearly payroll for a staff that includes a biologist, fishing guides, office workers, controller, camp managers, sales and marketing representatives, and the purchase of trout from a hatchery operated by his son. Beaver says he lives off his silent-partner interest in the industrial cleaning business and doesn't take a profit from the Spring Ridge Club.

The club maintains small bits of stream-side property. including two leases in Ohio along about a mile of Conneaut Creek. Pennsylvania steelhead holdings near Erie include less than a mile of Elk Creek and a half mile of 20 Mile Creek. In Bedford County the club has 5 miles along Yellow Creek, 2 miles along Beaver Run, a half mile along Potter Creek and a half mile along Three Springs Creek. In Blair County the club has a half mile along Bell's Gap Run and a mile along Tipton Run. In Huntington County it has two sections bordering Spruce Creek and more than a mile bordering the Little Juniata River. In the Penn's Creek watershed, there is property along 3 miles of Penn's Creek, a mile of Elk Creek and a mile along Little Pine. In Columbia County there is 4 miles along Fishing Creek, and in Carbon County a mile along Michael's Creek.

In total, Beaver owns or leases about 30 miles of noncontiguous stream-side property. Half of that, he said, remains open to the public. The Spring Ridge Club stocks some private portions with adolescent trout raised in its hatchery.

"To this date, we have never shut off a single inch of water that was publicly accessible," Beaver said. "It was already private property before we got there. Our strategy has been, if it's closed, then what am I taking? Actually, I'm opening it up to 120 members who brought in almost 2,000 guests last year."

Beaver says no screens prevent fish from migrating out of Spring Ridge waters. Club members are required to buy fishing licenses and trout or Erie stamps, and all Fish Commission rules apply.

"The difference," Beaver said, "is when our members go out with our guides, we don't let them kill any fish, even where the regulations say you're allowed to. It's all catch and release. That's why the fish are so big -- they've been living there wild for five or six years. And when they get on your line, they don't know they're not wild."

For their money, Spring Ridge Club members don't get the equivalent of fish in a barrel. A two-hour fly fishing excursion on Spruce Creek, under the tutelage of guide Dave McMullen, turned up four nice browns and a rainbow. They were caught -- some fowl hooked -- dead drifting small Copper Johns with a Hare's Ear dropper in slightly high, stained, 46-degree water. The experience was similar to standing in the middle of a good steelhead run with a guide explaining what to use and how. McMullen said many of the club members aren't experienced fly anglers, and Spruce and other creeks are stocked with the number of trout that will provide a quality angling experience under normal conditions.

Beaver says it's in Spring Ridge Club's interest to appeal his case for rights to ownership of the stream bed adjacent to the former Espy Farm.

"We stood up for what we believed was right," he said. "The title said we actually owned the [stream] bed. The state said they owned it. OK, so prove it, take us to court, which is the process we're going through now."

An oral hearing preceding the appeal will be held April 18.

Beaver sees himself on the side of anglers fighting against developers who would ban fishing and spoil the land with shopping centers, condominiums and business offices.

With about 83 percent of land adjacent to trout streams in the hands of private owners, Doug Austen, executive director of the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission, said the state is exploring a range of options that would encourage landowners to provide public access.

"What I'd like the state to do is protect as many high quality streams as possible so the public can get at them, not just a limited number of people who have the wherewithal to [afford club membership]," he said. "There is a whole range of things we're looking at."

Those options, he said, include conservation easements and tax incentives in exchange for public access, the formation of public-private conservancies, and leasing or buying land, all coupled with increased law enforcement, stocking and habitat improvements.

Beaver said his for-profit fishing club continues to be a viable option. But he would be interested in participating in the establishment of some type of non-profit conservancy that kept anglers in the water.

"I'm just the messenger," he said. "I'm a realist. Here's what's going to happen in the next 20 years: somebody without an interest in conservation and fishing is going to get these properties and none of us will be able to get on it. It's coming. It's not a matter of 'if.' Fishermen and the state need to get on this now."