Smoke In Chimneys supplies spring-raised trout to some of the most distinguished restaurants on the East Coast. The farm uses a brilliant “redneck invention” to kill bugs and it could not be more American.
In fact, it might be worth looking into the patent…
What the fish eat as food is also what you eat when you then eat the fish. This invention gives them a healthy all-you-can-eat buffet!
What is Smoke In Chimneys trout hatchery?
Fish farms have a bad reputation. It is often deserved. Thousands of fish are typically crowded together in dirty water that is filled with waste and leftover food, which can make the fish sick and spreads diseases more easily. To make matters worse, the dirty water and chemicals can also pollute nearby rivers and oceans.
Smoke In Chimneys is different. It wants to be everything that a commercial fish farm isn’t.
Ty and Shannon Walker revitalized a 1930s trout hatchery in Virginia. They hatch, raise, process, and distribute trout to restaurants, co-ops, stores, and individuals around the state. It started in 2022.
The goal of Smoke In Chimneys is simple: produce a quality of trout matched only by those caught in the wild through land-conscious and sustainable practices, and to facilitate powerful experiences of encounter with God.
At most hatcheries, the fish are raised in tanks made of concrete or plastic or artificial channels known as “raceways.” All of the trout at Smoke In Chimneys spend the majority of their lives in earthen ponds. They are grown and raised in the fresh mountain spring mineral water that comes out of the rocks just meters away from the hatchery building. They feed on naturally-occurring bugs and only the highest-quality aquafeed.
Smoke In Chimneys is the future of sustainable aquaculture. Its fish are sustainably-raised without antibiotics and hormones in a clean environment that closely mimics nature without decimating the population of wild fish stocks. Pretty cool. Super American.
How do they kill bugs on the farm?
Ty Walker created one of the most unique inventions I have ever seen. Mind you, it is extremely niche.
Smoke In Chimneys is located in New Castle, Virginia. The 22-person town sits right near the border of West Virginia.
As you could imagine, summer in the hills of Appalachia can get buggy. Most people probably put a bug zapper on the porch.
However, a zapper fries the bugs and a fried bug has no nutritional value. That is not a problem for the average person who does not run a trout farm. Who cares about the nutritional value, right? Walker does.
Instead of zapping the bugs, he created his own redneck rig. A light hovers on top of the fish with a weed-eater head spinning below it. The light attracts the bugs. The weed-eater head smacks the bugs down into the water below.
That essentially presents the fish with an all-you-can-eat buffet.
Walker explained it like this:
“A bug zapper can’t do the same thing because when the insect is electrocuted, all the nutritional value in that organism is lost because of the high voltage. ⚡️ It would be like eating a steak that is well done, steaks that are well done are worthless. The only way to eat a steak is rare. This Bo-Jo Fish Light gives the fish, a rare steak buffet all night. 🥩”
Brilliant. I don’t know where else this specific invention would be applicable but it serves its purpose at Smoke In Chimneys.