Tulsa World: An unlikely dream: Entrepreneur's persistence results in successful fishing club

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An unlikely dream: Entrepreneur's persistence results in successful fishing club

Cathy Beck leads a fly casting lesson near Siloam Springs, Ark. KELLY BOSTIAN/Tulsa World

By KELLY BOSTIAN World Outdoors Writer
Published: 11/1/2009 2:28 AM
Last Modified: 11/10/2009 1:34 PM

Read Kelly Bostian's blog

SILOAM SPRINGS, Ark. - A group of anglers gathered on a gravel bar at the edge of a gin clear stream under a blue sky and foliage gilded by the touch of coming fall. They listened intently over the rushing of the stream to the teachings of Lefty Kreh, the 85-year-old icon who some call the godfather of American fly fishing. Below the limestone bluffs, native-born rainbow and brown trout, deep bellied and heavy shouldered, rested nearby; dark torpedo shapes like ghostly flaws under the water's mirror-like surface.

The scene was the result of the unlikely dream of a Tulsa teenager who daydreamed of trout while at Metro Christian High School and as a caddy at Southern Hills Country Club. He has grown into a young outdoors industry entrepreneur whose dream is materializing just over an hour's drive from his hometown.

Adam Maris — baseball fans will recognize the last name he shares with a famous cousin — had options when he left college. He studied business and chemistry and shadowed a neurologist for two years. He played college ball with major league dreams that were not to be — but he did land an offer to work in the front office for the Boston Red Sox. Still, he chose to chase that high school dream.

"It's an idea I came up with while caddying. Something like a country club, only for fly fishing," he said.

Others had expectations about medical school or the BoSox.

"When I told my folks that I wanted to take my life savings and start a fly fishing club, my folks, my parents and my grandparents, they thought I was crazy," Maris said.

"We thought he had gone plumb loco," said his grandfather, Ed Smith.

But five years, later his Spring Valley Anglers is the largest such club in the country, with 63 properties, 152 miles of private waters for fishing and 58,000 acres of private land for hunting in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming and Florida. Members of the limited club, who pay dues of $334 a month, have access to it all.

The Arkansas stream, now home to the recently purchased headquarters and eight miles of private stream access, is where it all began. Maris hosted a members' appreciation day there last Sunday. It included the instruction from Kreh, renowned fisher-photographers Barry and Cathy Beck and top Canadian guide and well-known outdoor TV "Flygal" April Vokey (who happens to be Maris' girlfriend). After the day's events, as people crowded into and around the kitchen to prepare barbecued steaks and other fixings for dinner, the gathering looked and felt more like a family reunion than a business appreciation meeting.

As big and established as the club may seem, Maris' 20-something face and the newly purchased headquarters with new construction evident inside and out belie its relative youth. Maris credits a growth spurt over the past two years to the club's vice president Phil Napolitan, who played college baseball with Maris at Oklahoma City University. Napolitan joined the new business after he left the Detroit Tigers.

"He is truly the straw that stirs the drink," Maris said.

But it was Maris who kick-started the dream. He found the stream through many hours of scouting and driving around while he was still in high school, he said. He wrote the landowner a letter every month for three years just to get permission to fish the spring-fed stream, which is home to naturally reproducing trout.

His first access point was a leased section with an old farmhouse several miles downstream. Grandfather Smith described it as "leaky-roofed and fly- and rat-infested."

"I have to admit there were some nights when I laid in that farmhouse and thought, 'I could be in Boston,'" Maris said.

"It's taken about nine years, since I was a senior in high school, getting permission and then with leases and finally this year we made this purchase," he said of Spring Valley Anglers' new home.

And what a home it is.

Kreh, who has fished the world as an outdoor writer since 1952, praised Maris and appreciated the stream as a "natural, wild type fishery."

"There are not many streams in the Midwest, or the United States today, that are as clear and pristine as this one," he said. "The other thing that has impressed me is that Adam is one of the most dedicated young men I've ever met; hardworking. I wish there were more young men like him. If there were I don't think our country would be in the kind of mess it's going to be in."

Spring Valley Anglers

Adam Maris, president

Headquarters: 15 miles north of Siloam Springs, Ark.

See: springvalleyanglers.com

Memberships: 150 slots (a handful are open)

Cost: $334/month

Also available: Guided trips, instruction, corporate groups, outdoor travel

Also: Spring Valley Conservancy (conservation group that restores and protects streams)

Good day’s catch: 10-12 trout of about 16 or 17 inches

Club Record: 35-inch rainbow trout “There are bigger brown trout out there, but they’re too smart” — Adam Maris By KELLY BOSTIAN World Outdoors Writer

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