FULTON – Casting nets from his father’s wooden boat out on the Mississippi River as a child, Mike Schafer’s love of fishing started at an early age. Today, he’s casting the net a lot wider as the owner of the largest fishery in the United States that deals with Asian carp, caught from the same river and sold at, and processed very close to, his shop near Lock and Dam 13 north of Fulton.

For almost 50 years, Schafer has built the second-generation family business, Schafer Fisheries, into one that caters to customers both at home and around the world, attracting people to its retail store to whet their appetite with a variety of fish and seafood, and shipping products internationally. He’s even helping the farm community and people with a green thumb by selling fish-based fertilizer made from his stock at its processing plant just across the county line in Thomson.

In an industry that’s faced its share of challenges through the years – a pandemic and international tariffs just in recent years – the business has held its own. Schafer can remember a time when there used to be 20 different fish markets within 30 miles up and down the river. It’s a point of pride for him, not just because of the business’s growth, but because it’s part of his family’s legacy. His father, Donald, started it in 1955.

“He opened this, caught a lot of fish, and I remember fishing with him when I was very small,” Schafer said. “It’s in my blood and in my roots. We’ve grown the company from a very small mom-and-pop operation, with retail and a few restaurants back in the day, to where we’re nationwide now,” Schafer said. “On fresh fish, we have our product shipped to California, New York, and a lot of points in between; and we’re worldwide on frozen.”

While grocers have grown too, with neighborhood shops replaced by big-box stores with miles of aisles, they don’t offer the same selection as a place like Schafer’s. Products competing for freezer space and the demand for bigger profit margins have left chain stores with a more limited lineup, much of it processed and frozen.

That’s where a place like Schafer’s has the edge. Its focus is on fresh fish, a larger seafood selection, and personalized service. It attracts fish fans from all backgrounds, from those who simply enjoy it to those who find it’s an important part of their diet, who can choose from a larger selection, learn about its health benefits, and explore different ways to utilize it, such as smoked salmon and carp spreads.

Schafer employs a fleet of fishers who haul in catches from the Mississippi River and elsewhere and bring their fish to the store for processing and sale. Dressing – removing the inedible parts to prepare the fish for cooking – is done only a line-cast way from where shoppers shop, and it’s one of the unique sights that customers can check out when they visit, retail manager Nonie Schaver said.

“It’s fun for people to stop in who have never been here before, see the live fish and see the process with the way we work,” Schaver said. “It’s different than most retail environments you go into. We try to be extremely helpful with people finding things that they’ve never tried before, or things that they’re looking for.”

In addition to all kinds of fish caught in rivers and streams, Schafer’s has a wide variety of seafood and fish-based products that it sells from other companies: lobster, king crab, snow crab, octopus, calamari, alligator, and crawfish and fish from the oceans such as orange ruffle, red snapper and sea bass.

“You can’t walk into Walmart or Hy-Vee and find Sturgeon caviar,” Schaver said. “You can’t walk in and find octopus. Things like that. We have all types of seafood that you can think of. It’s very interesting.”

Fish can also be used as a less-expensive substitute for ground beef, Schaver said. Samples are offered on occasion, and have included spaghetti, sloppy joes, chili and tacos, all made with fish instead of beef. “They’re astounded to know that it’s fish,” she said.

Asian carp wasn’t meant to be a big seller 40 years ago, but the Great Flood of 1993 changed that: It was initially imported to control algae in fish farms, but many escaped into the Illinois River during the flood, and made their way to the Mississippi River a few years later.

All told, the fishery handles between 8 to 10 million pounds of various kinds of fish each year.

While fish can have health benefits in people, it’s good for Mother Earth’s diet, too.

Nearly 20 years ago, Schafer began making fertilizer from parts previously considered waste, including the head innards, as well as from fish that didn’t make the cut for human consumption. The practice, however, goes back a lot longer than that. When Pilgrims came to America during the 1600s, Squanto, a Patuxet Native American, showed them how fish could be used to fertilize their crops.

Today, the SF Organics line is sold both on the consumer level — in quarts, half-gallons and gallons — as well as in larger quantities to farmers. Much of Schafer’s clientele for the fertilizer are from Amish, Mennonite and Hutterite farms, he said.

“Fish do a wonderful job in increasing soil nutrition,” Schafer said “Dairy farmers spread it on their pastures and it raises the relative feed value of the grasses. A cow only eats what it needs to sustain itself, so they can graze a lot more cattle on the same amount of land. It’s very beneficial to them.”

Schafer’s unique stock of fish and seafood, as well as its fertilizer, makes it a destination for customers from all over looking to add some variety to their menu but can’t find what they want at a big-box store. Their fish is also eligible for those on SNAP assistance, who can use their Illinois Link card to do some fishing from Schafer’s freezer. Regardless of the reason they walk through the door for the first time, it’s likely that they’ll walk through it again.

And when they do, Schafer and his staff are happy to see them.

“You get to know them and talk to them like a friend instead of just another person across the counter; it’s very family-oriented,” Schaver said. ”It’s interesting and fun that we get a very wide variety of nationalities who come here. It’s real fun for people to come in and be able to pick out their fish. The kids like to come and see the fish in the tank. Some people think it’s fascinating to see us dress fish, others may not like it so much. It’s an interesting place, especially for people who have never been in here.”

While the farm-to-table movement has grown in popularity in recent years, Schafer enjoys being part of a river-to-table movement, introducing folks to the benefits of fresh fish — and once they get a taste of it, he hopes they’ll be hooked on it just like he was all those years ago, when he and his dad would put up the “Gone fishing” sign and head out on a mighty river.

“It’s pretty unique, it really is,” Schafer said. “We have a lot of people who stop in and see what we’re all about.”

Schafer Fisheries, 21985 Waller Road/state Route 84 in Fulton, is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. Find it on Facebook, go to schafersmokedfish.com and sf-organics.com or call 815-589-3368 for information.