re: What are people eating?

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Do any of the catfish farmers like you offer any direct-to-consumer sales? I buy beef, pork and other items from a local farm that has a great website that bypasses most retailers. They sell direct and also place in some local specialty markets.

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Farmers? Not really. I know a few who let people come catch their own fish with a pole and charge by the lb what they keep but most farms stopped doing that due to liability of people standing around pond banks while workers feed, cut grass, etc. Also many people would try to stash hidden coolers in the ditch and come back to get it later.

Each pond can have over 100,000 lbs in it and can cost 600-1200 dollars for seine crew to harvest a pond. So you cant harvest up the fish and sell just a few lbs here and there, you need to be able to sell thousands of lbs to make it worth the harvest cost. And each time you pull a seine net through it stresses the fish and you lose some. It’s not practical to harvest unless you can sell 30-40k lbs out of the pond that day

You can buy direct from the processors if you go to the plant and save money. Usually 3-5 dollars a lb depending on what fillet size you buy whereas grocery stores will be 7-9 dollars a lb

I think right now a 15lb box of 3-5 oz fillets is around 80 at the processor. Sysco sells it for 110 to retailers/restaurants. A 15lb of miscuts (random sizes) is like 30 bucks at the plant

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FWIW Farmed raised fish are not healthy for you with all the hormones and chicken crap they feed the fish.

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Well you’re misinformed. We don’t feed any hormones to our fish or chicken crap. At least not domestic catfish farms I can’t speak for imported.

Our fish are fed a floating pellet made of soybean meal, corn meal and fish meal and oils. No hormones. We hardly even use antibiotics, only in extreme disease outbreaks. We manage water quality to prevent disease with salt, potassium permanganate, copper sulfate and granulated chlorine.

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I know we used to grill steaks, chicken, and sausage every week but that has changed to every 2-3 weeks or so.

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Wtf

I still grill multiple times a week. I’ll take a near empty checking account over a stomach with no meat in it.

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Wrong, wrong, wrong. Americans on average eat too much protein. The Atkins diet is dangerous-- any level of protein which provides more than 15% of calories from protein is hazardous to human health; kidney dysfunction and increased risk of colon and other cancers (from animal source protein) are the chief culprits. Read the Pritikin Diet book published in the 1970s, for clarification on this subject.

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Holy shite this is misinformed. Maybe pick up a book written after the 1970s.

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deltaland

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Here’s what I hope. I hope y’all’s business picks up and we avert the disaster that seems to be headed our way.

But just in case, I hope you and producers across the region are thinking of developing ways to barter your fish, beef, chicken, rice, etc with the goal of feeding the rest of us if it all falls apart. I’m sure you can find plenty of people who will commit to being armed security for your trucks in exchange for food if it comes to that.

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That doesn't sound free to me, baw, but it does sound delicious!

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LOL, I never said it was free...

It's just doesn't cost me anything right now.

I hoarded fishing gear in a time of outdoor addiction for about 15 years and am currently equipped to catch anything from micro-fishing muddy tiny streams in central OK all the way up to landing bull sharks from the beach in Galveston. My log-jam flathead rigs are capable of handling goliath grouper. I just take really good care of my stuff so I rarely, if ever, have to replace it. Pretty sure I've got quite literally about 4.8 miles worth of various #test fishing line if you laid them all out end to end, and I've got about 85 pounds worth of hand-poured no-roll and bank sinkers from 2-6 ounces. Don't even get me started on terminal tackle and lures. Plus, I make custom in-line and "R-wire" spinnerbaits because I have a very picky preference in color, weight and vibration, and even the high dollar name brand spinners are a joke compared to my customs.