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Oakleys’ ‘crops’ wriggle
on way to market
Story and Photos
by Phil Buchhheit
(Editor’s note: This is the third in a continuing series of articles in which Hometown News will profile farming and farmers in the Upstate.)
In 1996, life got fishy for former chemical engineers Bill and Jean Oakley when they decided they were looking for a new career path and bought a hatchery farm in Woodruff. Thirteen years later, Bill and Jean’s bait farm Mostly Minnows is arguably the premier bait supplier in the Upstate, supplying roughly 120 bait shops with fresh minnows, worms, and crickets.
“We didn’t have a clue about the bait business. There is not much we won’t try and we are pretty confident in being able to do just about anything. There are a lot of ways to make a living. But this was one we looked at because it’s here, it’s home, it’s local. It was conducive to a lot of things that we really valued,” states Bill.
And just like that, the Oakleys became bait farmers.
So how hard was the bait farming business to learn for the two former chemical engineers?
“There are a lot of ways to kill a fish,” Jean stated, with a laugh.
“Some of the things are the same as any business. The customer side, the service side, keeping people happy, and delivering a good quality product are all expectations from industry that translated directly,” explains Bill.
There is a lot of folklore surrounding the best ways to manage bait. And in order to improve and modify ways to do things most effectively and efficiently, an understanding of this folklore was necessary for Bill and Jean Oakley. Once the Oakleys were able to grasp the various methods to produce and maintain a consistently fresh bait, Bill used his engineering expertise to build a variety of equipment that would allow them to efficiently sort and package bait for delivery to over 100 bait stores located in Spartanburg, Union, Cherokee, Newberry, Laurens, Greenville, and Anderson County. This equipment is primarily used in the worm side of the business.
“There are two types of worms that we sell here and they are Canadian night crawlers and red worms,” states Bill
Both of these types of worms are shipped to Mostly Minnows bait farm where they are in turn sorted and cupped through the use of various equipment and machinery before being delivered to local bait stores in the Upstate area.
“The night crawlers that we sell come out of Canada and those you can’t raise here,” adds Bill.
The red worms sold by Mostly Minnows are not indigenous to the United States and are primarily shipped from Belgium. However, they can be produced here and that is something that the Oakleys hope to begin doing in the next year.
“We have done some experimental work in growing and raising worms. It’s just a matter of putting the whole thing together,” says Bill.
On the fish side of the bait farm operation, Bill and Jean have raised their own shiners in 29 acres of water since they bought the hatchery in 1996, from Woodruff native Bill Watson. This side of the business is very labor intensive, requiring nets to be dragged across the numerous ponds to gather the shiners. The shiners are then sorted according to size and transferred to bait tanks before finally being distributed to bait shops.
Due to the labor intensive process of raising their own fish and the volume of these fish demanded by bait stores, the Oakleys have recently decided to begin transitioning this fish production part of their business into purchasing more fish.
“The main suppliers of these fish are in Arkansas and there are farms out there that have 5000 acres of water - they have made it more feasible to ship fish in,” says Bill.
The Oakleys will use the time freed up from purchasing their shiners to produce worms and crickets on their bait farm. They are also exploring the possibility of producing some specialty baitfish that have lower volumes of demand.
Mostly Minnows began raising their own crickets this February. Having previously bought their crickets from another cricket farm, the Oakleys are excited about producing their own crickets and hearing the chirps of additional revenue.
The biggest challenge of the bait farming business is its seasonal aspect. For four to five months of every year, Mostly Minnows is more than busy, constantly packaging bait and keeping two bait trucks on the road 4 - 5 days a week. During these busy months of the year roughly 250,000 worms, 250,000 shiners, and 250,000 crickets will be shipped from Mostly Minnows to Upstate bait stores every week.
“We invest in equipment and technology and we can only use it for four months a year. So we have to be extremely efficient to get the return on our investment,” adds Bill.
According to Bill, while their business peaks in April and May it begins to slow down usually after July 4th due to a decrease in fishing because of the summer heat. The winter months are also slow for Mostly Minnows.
“We will run a truck on the road 3 days a week in the winter time losing money but it’s part of keeping customers happy,” says Bill.
The couple’s commitment to their customers and their ability to be innovative in a type of business that is over 100 years old has made Mostly Minnows more than successful.
“We did over $400,000 in sales last year and in our first year we couldn’t even pay the light bill,” Bill said, as he laughed.
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