About Us
What makes a Bucksnort trout so special? The magic is in our amazing water source.
Here at Bucksnort, God has blessed us with an incredible natural phenomenon, a 2.5 million-gallon a day natural spring. Before bursting out of the ground directly on our property at a consistent 56 degrees Fahrenheit all year long, our water is filtered by miles of limestone in a massive underground aquifer. The result is the purest large volume cold water source around. And because the spring head is on our property, we are able to preserve that purity as our water never flows along a roadside or through a farm field before flowing directly into our fish grow-out facilities.
Our facility is designed to be gravity fed, so we never pump or recirculate the water our fish live in. The result is the closest thing possible to simulating a completely natural stream environment for our fish to grow in. We also have a very strict no chemical policy on the farm. All of our vegetation control, whether on land or aquatic is done by hand, never by spraying chemicals. This is a lot of work, but is a small price to pay to preserve the natural purity of our eco-system.
History of Bucksnort Trout Ranch
The trout farm first opened to the public in 1966 and at times would supply trout to the restaurant market in Nashville and Memphis. Current owner, Jim Anderson, purchased the property in 2016. Jim immediately set about bringing back the wholesale side of the business. He knew his high quality, fresh trout would be in high demand as the Nashville food scene continued to blossom. In 2018, the very difficult decision was made to shut down the public fishing side of the business to concentrate fully on expanding production at the Farm and reestablishing the wholesale side of the business. Currently Jim is supplying his famous trout to many of the premier restaurants and hotels in the Greater Nashville area. However, it was still important for Jim to allow his local community to enjoy their trout for themselves. So, In addition to selling to the restaurants, Bucksnort trout can be found at multiple farmers markets in the area.
So just where did the name Bucksnort come from anyway?
Over the years, there have been several theories about this, but the one the locals favor (and therefore the one we are going with) goes something like this:
Our amazing spring water has not always been used just for raising trout. Back in the early days of Middle Tennessee history, the area around the Farm was known for some of the finest moonshine in the South. In those days, a sip of moonshine was often referred to as a “snort” and legend has it that the best moonshine in the area was produced by a local named “Buck.” Buck’s fine moonshine was of course referred to as a “Buck snort” Eventually “going to get a Buck snort” got shortened to “going to Bucksnort” and one of the most colorful place names in America was born.