Local Features
(2010-02-26)
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Workers wear waders and wetsuits to harvest catfish.
Photo by Forrest Wynne
NOTE: See pictures from a catfish harvest on The Front Blog.
The weekend is the busiest time at Holmes Restaurant and Lounge in Murray according to owner Robin Holmes. Holmes says catfish is one of the most popular items on the menu.
"We'll sell 70-percent catfish over anything."
Customers like Kenny Jones say catfish is just something you eat if you've grown up in western Kentucky.
"Well, y'know it's just a good food and a good alternative to meat and, uh, other things you might normally eat for a meal."
Holmes says he serves a high-quality American catfish. He refuses to deal in fish from foreign countries.
"Even though the price is terribly cheap, and, and your bottom line, your profits, could be better, if I won't eat it, I won't serve it. That's always been our motto."
One of the regulars at Holmes Family is octogenarian John Murdock. Murdock's kitchen window overlooks a wide field; a pond ripples in the cold winter wind. Murdock is a retired professor from the University of Wisconsin and the founder of Ponderosa Farms in Calloway County. Murdock's son runs the main farm now, but Murdock a few years ago started a small catfish operation.
"After operational costs, we're clearing about seven hundred to a thousand dollars an acre."
Murdock has catfish in 45 acres spread out over nine ponds. They're not much to look at. Each is a smooth, five-acre square, too murky to see far into. Without being told, you wouldn't know 25-thousand pounds of catfish swim beneath the surface. The only time the tranquil waters change is when Murdock flips the switch to turn on his aerator paddles.
With so many catfish swimming around, oxygen is at a premium. The turning of the paddles increases air in the water to keep Murdock's fish healthy.
"We try to maintain those, that production level. Try to produce about five thousand pounds of fish per acre per year."
The "deep south" states produce more catfish than Kentucky ever will, but Murdock has hopes for this region.
"Fish fits well into the farming system in western Kentucky. It's about the only area in Kentucky where you have areas that are of soils that are well-adapted to catfish production and have the supplies of water that we need."
During the March to October harvesting season, Murdock sells his fish to "pay lakes" in central Kentucky. Pay lakes are usually packed with fish. Visitors fork over cash for a good chance of catching something for dinner. Murdock has also sold to fish processors, who have strict standards about the kind of catfish they take. Processors outline everything from what a catfish can eat to how big it can be.
"The guy that comes and gets them basically controls that by saying these fish are too small'."
Murdock spent seven years living in Asia, and says quality control there is oceans apart.
"A lot of the fish is grown under houseboats, in raw sewage basically. And, uh, the control of what goes into those fish is just, is just not controlled as tightly as the products that we use here in the states."
Murdock is quick to add that many Asian catfish farmers produce safe fish. He says the problem is mainly a social issue, because workers are not paid a living wage. Murdock says as long as fish farmers in those countries are kept poor, there won't be parity in the global fish trade.
"The ideal situation would be to have better control of this at the port of entry, but, uh, if,uh the USDA would have to hire a lot more people to do that if they checked all the products that come into the country."
Despite the misgivings some may have about the quality of the fish they eat, Murdock is a loyalist. He ends our meeting simply with: eat more catfish.
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