October and November 2006 — In my fishing endeavors, I have always sold my own fish to the public. Unfortunately, my sales history is best described as chaotic. I never developed a rhyme or reason to my routine. It was just one renegade fish-selling adventure after another. I had a couple of tricks that seemed to work consistently, but even those never held a solid footing that resembled anything close to an organized business practice.
My San Juan Island, Wash., fish-selling experience has been completely different. I have fully developed a niche and technique for selling fish in a fun, efficient, and totally organized manner, and it all has to do with my wife and the Internet. Our fish list is the most wonderful sales tool I have ever experienced. We just shoot out an e-mail, and the customers are there the next day. It is like MAGIC!
Every time I returned home from a fishing trip, I brought fish to sell. The most I brought was 130, and the least was 30. The 30-fish time was a joke. They were gone in just a few minutes. I could have sold more, but I was gone fishing so much I didn’t want to put my time into hanging out on the corner selling fish when I would rather be hanging out with my family.
The highlight of the season’s selling was the community Halloween fish feed we sponsored at the elementary school. A gal named Lynette was the mastermind of this event, although I masterminded the fish and the promotions.
Lynette’s idea was to use the couple of hours between the time school gets out and when it is time for the kids to go trick-or-treating. Instead of a sugar-ridden after school party, she was looking to feed these kids a wholesome meal. She lined up soups, salads, and all kinds of volunteers. All I had to bring was the fish.
And fish I did bring. I earmarked 20 big, beautiful fish for the event. I had volunteers come and learn how to do the magic No Bones About It fillet cut I developed where the pin-bones are cut right out of the fish while it is being sliced into quarter-serving-size chunks. The chunks are small enough to keep grabbing and not worry about looking like a pig for eating so much fish.
We made admission free for all kids, so it brought a lot of people in from the dark and scary night. I barbequed the fish in a frantic pace — the experienced cooks suggested I start cooking 20 minutes before I fired up the grill, because they knew that barbeque could never keep up with the rate of consumption, but I ignored their warnings — I like to feed it to people right off the grill.
Needless to say, it was a madhouse. I was high-grading all the skinny pieces from the pile of seasoned chunks of fish, because they would cook faster. And cook they did. There were a couple of times when I had just a few people waiting, but I pretty much kept up with consumption the whole way through. What a gas!
TO BE CONTINUED…
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