Bucksnort Trout Ranch
Farmer
About
Bucksnort Trout Ranch was established in the mid 1960's at Exit 152 of I-40 just west of Dickson in the very north west corner of Hickman County. The reason it was established at this location was to take advantage of an amazing natural resource that is what still makes us unique today. That natural resource is Thornton Spring. This amazing water source is directly on the farm property and produces about 2.5 million gallons a day of pure limestone filtered aquifer fed spring water at a constant 56 degrees year around. Because of this spring being on our property, this water never flows through other farm fields or along roadsides to pick up contaminants so our trout live their entire lifecycle in pure spring water in gravity fed gravel bottomed raceways that simulate a natural stream.
Over the decades several individuals have owned the trout farm. Most have operated it as a pay lake where the public could come to fish, and many have provided our trout to local restaurants. I have owned the property since September of 2016 and initially focused on the public fishing and restaurant supply side of the business, but Covid has caused us to have to make several changes in order to survive. We currently are focusing more of our effort into getting our quality product directly into the hands of consumers, mainly through farmers markets, home delivery, and some local grocery stores that focus on locally grown. In addition to providing our quality fresh trout, we are also branching into providing other trout products such as smoked trout and smoked trout dip. These products are proving to be very popular.
While we are currently not open to the public for fishing, we are constantly looking for additional avenues to reach out to our local consumers to provide them with the freshest, purest, highest quality seafood product available in Tennessee.
Programs and Partners
Production Practices
Antibiotic And Hormone Free Non Gmo
At Bucksnort Trout Ranch we fully recognize that there are consumers that have a negative view of farm raised fish, and in many cases this is a fully justifiable view. However at our farm, we do things a bit different. We pride ourselves in being able to say that a fish from Bucksnort Trout Ranch will be a purer, higher quality product than what would generally be available as wild caught. The reason we are able to do this is our water source.
The reality is that our oceans and rivers are not as pure as they once were, and therefor you are never certain what a wild caught fish has been eating. At our facility, we know exactly what our water quality is. Our source is a limestone filtered aquifer deep underground. The springhead is on our property, literally a few yards from the beginning of our raceways. This means we have full control of the water quality since it never flows through any other farm fields or along any roadways to pick up contaminants. Our facility is literally the headwaters of our stream. We don't ever confine our fish in tanks or subject them to recirculated water. Our system is a single passthrough gravity fed facility with gravel bottomed raceways that simulates a natural habitat.
Any natural healthy system like this will produce large quantities of natural aquatic plants, and ours is no exception. Because we have a zero tolerance for chemicals being introduces into our water, we do 100% of the control of these aquatic plants by hand. This is by far more difficult than using an aquatic herbicide to control their growth, but we believe in a 100% natural environment for our trout, so we go the extra mile to do all this by hand.
While they are labor intensive to control, these aquatic plants to have a very beneficial impact on our overall production process in that the are an excellent natural habitat for many native critters that our trout love to eat. Snails, salamanders, and scud (a tiny crustacean that looks like a tiny shrimp) thrive in the moss and pondweed and are an important part of the trout's diet helping to give them a natural wild caught flavor. We also supplement their diet with a high quality trout feed from Cargill. We never introduce hormones or antibiotics into our trout's diet.
We take the utmost care in keeping our product pure throughout the harvest and delivery process as well, right down to using ice made with our spring water for processing and delivery so that when it arrives at your door or at the farmers market, our fish has never so much as touched a chlorinated ice cube. We also work to minimize packaging waste by utilizing reusable coolers instead of insulated cardboard boxes to transport our products.
We do all this so that our valued customers can be confident that they are eating the purest, freshest, highest quality seafood available in Tennessee while having the smallest impact possible to the environment.
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