>> Today, we'll be visiting a farm that is doing things a little differently.
Instead of raising their rainbow trout outdoors in a flow-through
system or spring-fed pond, as most trout farmers have done for hundreds of years,
we will see how one midwest farmer has brought production indoors. >> My name is Mike Searcy. I raise
rainbow trout in Indiana, and I've been doing this since 2014 in a recirculating aquaculture system.
My favorite thing about rainbow trout is, one, they're beautiful fish. They have a lot of appeal.
They are already accepted in the marketplace. They're a mild flavored fish. They lend themselves
well to many recipes.
>> Many trout farmers, like Mike, raise trout from eyed eggs purchased from U.S. hatcheries.
>> Our eggs are shipped overnight to us packed on ice. We get them every eight weeks. Presently we're getting
six thousand eggs at a time. Now we don't grow all those eggs out to market size. They're often sold as fry or fingerlings to other area fish farmers.
>> Most trout farmers feed their fish specialized diets that are formulated to provide fish with all the nutrients
they need to grow and stay healthy. Fish feeds come in many different sizes starting with particles
that are so small the feed looks like a powder. >> It takes us about 15 months to take a fish from egg
to market size. Our market size is a pound and a half to two pounds. The reason for this is after
talking with chefs and seeing what it is that they want, they want a nice eight ounce fillet. We could
do it a little quicker. We could feed them a little more aggressively, but at present, we are getting a
very good quality fish, and we're happy with that. Water quality is everything to a fish farmer,
especially raising trout. Trout require very pristine water condition with high oxygen levels.
So we spend a lot of time and effort in filtration, keeping that water.
Even though we recirculate as much as we can, we want to keep a very high quality level of water.
One thing that I promised myself when I first thought about fish farming, and that was to be
a good steward of the environment. We do sit on an aquifer. We have a great abundance of water below
us, but that doesn't mean we need to be wasting it. So we do try to recirculate everything we can.
What drives the market for our fish, the reason that they are so popular is because we are local.
We're sustainable, and it's fresh. What we send to market, what's swimming at seven o'clock in the
morning could be on someone's restaurant plate that evening. That's fresh. I do sell fish to the
general public. We sell out of the barn. Anyone that wants to come out and purchase fish, but they all
have to process them themselves. I'm often asked if I eat my own trout. The answer is yes. I love
eating trout, and I think our quality of trout is excellent. The way I like it best though is smoked.
We put it in the brine for at least eight hours and then smoke it with fruit woods, and there are
many other ways of eating trout but that would have to be my favorite. I do not have a secret
recipe to our trout brine. It's just that I can't remember it off of the top of my head.
You can find Mike's Not So Secret Trout Brine along with other recipes featuring fresh,
locally produced rainbow trout by visiting eatmidwestfish.org