Similar battles are being waged across the country. At issue in each case is the clash of two entrenched American values: the right to private property vs. the principle that our woods and waters are part of our common heri¿¿tage. Running beneath it all is the undercurrent of class warfare, which pits those with significant means against those without. Montana, with its vast acreage and excellent trout waters, is a particular hotspot. James Cox Kennedy, the CEO of media conglomerate Cox Enterprises in Atlanta, is fighting local fishermen over access to the portion of the Ruby River that flows through the nearly 4,000 acres of his ranch. On Mitchell Slough, a part of the Bitterroot River, the billionaire discount broker Charles Schwab and the singer Huey Lewis have banded together with other landowners to argue that the slough is actually an irrigation ditch and shouldn’t be open to the public. The Bitterroot River Protection Association says the slough is free flowing, which under Montana law would make it open to the public. In Ohio, a bill in the state legislature that’s backed by powerful home-builder and real estate associations would close off access to the shores of Lake Erie to the public. It’s being contested in court by fishermen, duck hunters, and the National Wildlife Federation. In Louisiana, a small body of water that either is or isn’t part of the Mississippi River (depending on your side) is the focus of a tug-of-war between a group of fishermen who want to keep it open and a timber company that says it’s private. Locked for its own good?
Beaver and other landowners believe there’s a higher cause to be served by private water: the conservation of habitat that is rapidly degrading and disappearing. On many of his beats, Beaver claims he has improved stream banks and structure for fish. His decision to make the Espy Farm water on the Little J ¿¿catch-and-release, he says, helped move the state to designate nearly the entire 13-mile river the same way. “And we’re preserving these waters in the face of unplanned sprawl,” he says. “The biggest threat to our streams is Home Depot stores and retirement communities being built on the banks.” Terry L. Anderson, the executive director of the Property and Environment Research Center in Montana, which promotes private-land ownership as a means of conservation, takes it a step further. “These private-land stewards improved the fishing on their land, and once they did so, everyone started arguing for access,” he says. “If they get it, the net result is a diminution of incentives for private interests to save these spots.” But others don’t buy the conservation argument. According to Sherlock, Yellow Creek had a naturally reproducing population of brown trout before Beaver came along. “Now he dumps in huge rainbows and feeds them pellets a few days before his guests come,” says Sherlock, who last year formed the Yellow Creek Coalition to help convince landowners to keep their water open. Regarding Beaver’s claim of a greater good, Allan Bright, one of the plaintiffs in the Little J case, says, “I don’t want to hear him say he’s protecting the resource. It’s a money¿¿making business and that’s all.” Some have more pointed views. Floyd Wood, a retired farmer, says he fished Mitchell Slough, the piece of the Bitterroot under contention, since 1945 and only stopped because of the recently erected No Trespassing signs. What’s happening there, he asserts, is not ¿¿conservation-“it’s merely the wealthy trying to hoard the best fishing for themselves. “Those rich fools said there was no fishing there until they came on the scene,” Wood says. “They’re lying. They just want to jet back to California and brag about the water they own.” To be sure, the decrease in the number of family farms in the nation and the growing financial burdens of those that remain have helped drive the change. So has a f Field & Stream Online Editors