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Donny Beaver Beaten Like a Junkyard Dog in Court: Spring Ridge Club Can't Close Off Little Juniata

By Tom Chandler 2/8/2008

Some Happy Friday
news from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

Fishing preserve entrepreneur Donny Beaver has dropped his court case against state agencies, thus closing the book on a lengthy battle over the public's right to fish the Little Juniata River, one of the state's most coveted trout waters.

In a letter to Commonwealth Court dated Monday, Mr. Beaver's attorneys indicated that he would drop his challenge to a ruling handed down a year ago by Huntingdon County Common Pleas Judge Stewart Kurtz, stating that the Little Juniata is navigable and open to the public.

Mr. Beaver had claimed that a section of the river was private and could be fished only by members of his club.

I'd love to seal this one with alliteration (because alliteration makes me happy, that's why), but I'm afraid "Bye-bye Beaver" would be a little premature.

He's firing up the same operation on Lake Erie, and is moving West to Colorado, where presumably he'll continue stocking obese fish in waters that can't really support them, playing havoc with fisheries above and below him.

This isn't all good news: withdrawing the appeal also prevented this ruling from becoming a legal precedent across the entire state, though certainly related cases would use this as support for the protection of public waters.

Still, for now... (wait for it), Bye Bye, Beaver.

See you on the (public) river, Tom Chandler.

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Tom Chandler

As the author of the decade leading fly fishing blog Trout Underground, Tom believes that fishing is not about measuring the experience but instead of about having fun. As a staunch environmentalist, he brings to the Yobi Community thought leadership on environmental and access issues facing us today.

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[...] when Donnie Beaver enters into the equation #8211; the much-disliked #8220;entrepreneur#8221; who has repeatedly tried to illegally bar public access to public waters [...]
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[...] Club #8211; the Western version of Donny#8217;s Spring Ridge Club (which has repeatedly tried to keep anglers from lawfully floating the Little Juniata and illegally strung barbed wire on property it it didn#8217;t even own) #8211; bought a high-end [...]
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Aaron: Thanks, though for the record, my editorial integrity is absolutely for sale to the first guy who can put me on big, wild fish... 8-)
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As someone who has sat eagerly on the sideline since this all started back in 1992... I'm still not sure I understand why people are intent on mentioning that his withdrawal has a down side. The fact is he and his club lost. They started the appeal, but withdrew it. That still means they lost. Each case in the state is going to be different because each stream has a different history, so even if he ... more kept his appeal in and then lost, you still couldn't solely rely on this case to pattern after. At least not any more than you can now. Whatever the case, it's good to see he lost and finally decided to own up to it by withdrawing the appeal. Thanks for the coverage Tom. We need more guys like you to cover the issues without slanting you columns based on who does or doesn't let you fish for their hatchery trout.
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