BY CHUCK MARTIN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
![[trout]](/editions/1998/12/13/trout1_130x171.jpg)
Dave Smith's Freshwater Farms of Ohio nets 140,000 trout a year.
(Michael E. Keating photo)
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WEST LIBERTY, Ohio - The corn and soybeans long have been gathered, and the surrounding flat, black-as-chocolate-cake fields have been plowed under. But in a metal-sided building at the edge of this central Ohio town, Dave Smith's crew works fast and hard on a Thursday morning in December, harvesting another crop.
Five workers stand around a table wearing rubber aprons, quickly slicing and cutting rainbow trout fillets, rarely pausing to look up. "We'll do about 400 fish today," says Mr. Smith, owner of Freshwater Farms of Ohio, who comes in from a back room where he was cleaning fish. "About 1,000 this week."
While he talks, glistening fish fillets continue to flop-flop into plastic containers on the table.
Mr. Smith, actually Dr. Smith - he earned a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin - has operated Freshwater Farms for 15 years. It's the largest aquaculture operation in Ohio, hatching about 140,000 fish a year. He ships fresh and smoked trout all over the country, and restaurants such as the Golden Lamb in Lebanon and Little River Cafe in Oregonia feature it on their menus.
Driver Susan Yocum will load her truck and deliver trout processed this morning to restaurants and grocery stores in the afternoon.
"All of our products are in and out the same day," Mr. Smith says. "That makes us different from meat and poultry processors."
It's his goal to sell all of the smoked trout, which is lightly salted and air-packed, within five days of harvest.
"We found out one store was bringing in older fish and selling it under our name," he says. "We stopped selling to them."
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WHERE TO BUY
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Freshwater Farms fresh and smoked trout are available at Dorothy Lane Markets in the Dayton, Ohio, area: 2710 Far Hills Ave. (Ohio 48), Oakwood, (937) 299-3561; and 6177 Far Hills Ave., Washington Township, (937) 434-1294.
Freshwater Farms offers a variety of smoked trout products and cheese for sale at its Urbana, Ohio, retail shop or through mail orders. Prices range from $6 for an 8-ounce package of smoked trout to $11 for 12-ounce smoked trout cheese balls. Gift boxes range from $14 to $40.
Order before Dec. 22 for Christmas delivery: (800) 634-7434. Retail store: 2624 North U.S. 68, Urbana. Open 1-6 p.m., Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday.
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Tall and bespectacled, a boyish grin makes Mr. Smith look younger than his 45 years. He is outfitted in aqua-blue - suspendered pants, sweat shirt and cap - accented by white rubber boots.
Since he raises the trout indoors, Mr. Smith can harvest trout year-round. He is busiest during the holidays, as more people serve the sweet, delicate fish at parties and send gift packs of Freshwater Farms products to friends and relatives.
Beginning at 6:30 a.m., Mr. Smith netted the trout from an indoor pool at the farm, a few miles down the road in Urbana. He put them into barrels of water and trucked the fish to the processing plant. He started cleaning them at 8 a.m.
Mr. Smith gets plenty of help from his family; his wife, Carol, and mother, Faye, both wield knives at the fillet table.
"I never cleaned a fish before Dave started the business," says his mother, laughing. She is packaging fresh fish to be trucked to Dorothy Lane Market in Centerville.
Later that afternoon, Mr. Smith's father, Dick, will come in to run the retail shop.
"Dad and Mom really love the retail end of the business," Mr. Smith says.
Another member of the Smith family, his photographer sister Karen Loffing, who lives in Chicago, shot photos for the Freshwater Farms brochure.
Fish fascination
Dick Smith says his son always has been fascinated by fish.
"I nearly flunked a course at Ohio State because of Dave's first fishing trip," says the elder Mr. Smith, who earned a degree in electrical engineering.
"We were living in Columbus and Dave was 2. I took him fishing instead of taking an exam. Since then, I think Dave has known he wanted to do something with fish."
Dick Smith eventually settled in Urbana to work for Grimes Aerospace, and to raise his family of two sons and a daughter. Dave Smith was an excellent student, always quiet and easy-going, his mother says.
"He and his brother were opposites that way. "Tom always wanted to be a pilot."
Tears well in her eyes as she tells how her younger son, Tom, died four years ago in a plane crash.
"Tom was always a big supporter of aquaculture, too," their father says.
Dave became interested in aquaculture while an undergraduate at Ohio State. Next, he went to Louisiana State to work on his master's in marine science.
"A few people were just starting to farm-raise catfish down there," he says. "And a lot of folks thought they were crazy." Mr. Smith knew they weren't.
To prepare himself further, Mr. Smith went to the University of Wisconsin to pursue a doctorate in nutrition. As he was about to finish his studies, his father spotted an old chicken farm for sale in Urbana and called to tell him he thought it would be a good place to locate his aquaculture operation.
"People in Urbana would ask me then what Dave was going to do," Dick Smith says. "I'd tell them aquaculture, and they'd just get this look on their face, kind of like they didn't believe it."
"Now, some of those same people ask to set up tours of the farm."
Lots of happy trout
Where chickens once cackled and pecked, thousands of trout swim in long, narrow gurgling tanks called "raceways." Mr. Smith and his father built most of the tanks and equipment that keeps the water clean, oxygenated and at the proper temperature, between 50 and 70 degrees.
"Trout are very particular fish," Mr. Smith says. "The water has to be just right."
As he walks by the tanks, the trout follow him at the edge like horses behind a fence, waiting for a handful of food. A school of trout in another tank swims in a large circle.
"Those are happy trout," Mr. Smith says. "If something was wrong - if the water wasn't right - they'd be hiding in a corner."
Mr. Smith buys fertilized trout eggs from a hatchery in Washington State. With the help of farm workers Tim Nagle and David Mitchell, he raises the trout to harvest weight - 16 to 18 ounces for fresh fillets, 22 to 24 ounces for smoked. It takes about 14 months for the trout to reach that size.
His quest to learn keeps the scientist involved in research. He is raising perch on a test basis, and next year Freshwater Farms will take part in the first U.S. Department of Agriculture study of farm-raised walleye pike.
In his soft-spoken way, Mr. Smith is evangelical about aquaculture. He served as president of the Ohio Aquaculture Association for seven years, and testified three times before Congress on industry standards and regulations. He sells hatchlings and offers advice to other farmers, and gives tours to families and school groups.
"It (aquaculture) is the future," he says. "Hopefully, it will some day allow us to leave wild species alone."
![[trout]](/editions/1998/12/13/trout1_418x550.jpg)