From the Fields - Katie Harris

By Katie Harris, Tehama County fish farmer

We produce rainbow trout. About 80% of our sales is for recreational fishing markets throughout California, and 20% goes to our seafood sales. During the summer, we focus on seafood sales, and we’re just getting ready to kick off our stocking season. We have a lot of inventory that we’ve been building up, and we’re getting ready to start stocking in Southern California and the Bay Area.

The most noteworthy thing this year is we have significantly more water. All our farms are on springs. With the past year’s winter, the rains have been able to recharge those springs. Having more water at all our farms allows us to grow more fish.

Our greatest challenge is the cost of goods. Cost to raise fish has gone up substantially. Fuel prices dictate so much of our margins because we transport fish all over the state. Trying to adjust for inflation and what we can pass on to our customers is absolutely our greatest challenge, particularly for me as I try to set pricing for the year.

Feed is another huge cost for us. Our feed varies dramatically. What we feed our baby fish is very different than what we feed our larger steelhead. It has different nutritional requirements based on the life stage of the fish. Our babies get a feed that has much greater protein.

Recreational fishing markets remain very strong in California. We stock urban areas, and there’s still a lot of people in the greater Los Angeles area, San Diego and Bay Area who want to go fishing. Seafood sales have been lower since COVID. We sell our fish into high-end restaurants, and the restaurant market remains somewhat weak for a multitude of reasons. That’s definitely been a challenge. We compete in the seafood world with different species, so there’s much more competition in the seafood side than in recreational fishing. Recreational fishing is really sustaining us right now.