It was 1931 when Dick first walked these streams. He wasn't barefoot, but his cheeks were tanned, and he was carrying a Prince Albert can of worms. This was unique compelling stuff for a little boy raised in Pittsburgh, compelling enough to bring the young veteran of WWII back to these mountains in 1948 to start the first commercial trout farm in the South.
This meant ignoring his deceased Father's advice, "Don't stay in these mountains, you'll starve", and it also meant dropping out of the Yale School of Engineering, where, until then, he had been an honor student. These imprudent acts were, to some extent, vindicated in the year 2001, when Dick Jennings was inducted into the Western North Carolina Agricultural Hall of Fame. Thus, the Sunburst Trout Company was born.
Their trout are sustainably raised in waters from the Shining Rock National Wilderness, with no hormones or antibiotics ever.
