When Mike (10 yrs old) and Mark Fruge (8 yrs old) were hungry for crawfish (http://www.cajuncrawfish.com/), they were caught fishing for crawfish on property farmed by a neighbor, “Cotton” Andrus.” He was none too happy to find the boys fishing in his crawfish pond, but they “thought they had permission” …just not from the farmer. Scared and still hungry, the boys run home and vow never to cross that fence again.
Mike and Mark are still hungry for crawfish and have no money while working their way through college. They settle on a plan hatched by Mike. The plan is to start their own crawfish farm (and get Mark to do all the work) to pay their way through college.
The plan? Well let’s just say that Mark didn’t like doing all the work and they really couldn’t afford to eat the crawfish they caught, but 20 some odd years later they are an overnight success.
Mark continues to grow the farm in acres and quality. They have added rice to the mix, and now farm 1500 acres of rice and 1500 acres of crawfish. In 1989 Mike started a small route selling crawfish to restaurants far and wide. Of course this was not real work, according to Mark as all Mike did was ride in the truck and talk on the phone. Today what started in the back of a pickup truck is a full service seafood company covering major markets in Louisiana, Texas, and Oklahoma.
