Blaze Malone has been working with crawfish since he was 16.

Now at 21, Malone has paid back his father, who initially bought and stocked the ponds that Malone now runs his business out of.

“It’s something I’ve always been interested in,” Malone said. “One of my dad’s friends has always had ponds and we just kept hanging around. We watched how he did it then went to Louisiana and bought several thousand pounds of crawfish and every year we haven’t had to restock because they reproduce so well.”

Malone fishes more than 40 acres of water, on three ponds, that allows him to place about 300 traps out.

Malone runs his traps once every other day, to keep his crawfish supply fresh.

“We just put the traps in the water and it draws the crawfish towards them,” Malone said. “It puts off a scent and they come to the traps. I pick them out and put them to 30-pound bags and sell the crawfish in those types of bags. When I take them out of the pond and put them on ice, they go dormant and when someone adds hot water, they come back alive.”

Malone has had consistent business since he first started five years ago.

He has kept a tight knit group of people that he sells to, but still always has bags left over.

“I have people in Marion that I sell to,” Malone said. “Everybody around town buys them from me.”

With such a short season, about March until June, the work is hard for the quick seasonal turnaround, but Malone says it’s worth it.

“I have a lot of fun out here at the ponds,” Malone says. “My brother and sister come out and help me sometimes and we have a good time with it. On days its real hot we will play in the water after we run traps. I have other buddies that help out too.

“It’s just a great time.”