A Day in the Life of an Oyster Farmer

Days like this serve as a great reminder of why we build awesome gear in the first place.

We spent a long day on the water with the crew at Lowcountry Oyster Company, following founder Trey McMillan—better known as “Cricket”—as he moved through another workday on his farm in Green Pond, South Carolina.

Lowcountry Oyster Company operates the largest oyster farm in the state. With floating cages anchored in the ACE Basin—a 350,000-acre protected wetland formed by the Ashepoo, Combahee, and Edisto Rivers. It’s a special place. 

Tides swings are big, conditions change constantly, and no gear lasts long if it isn’t built right. 

Most of the boats, cages, and processing equipment we saw weren’t ordered from a catalog. They were welded or built on site. Most equipment was custom built or the crew here has gotten creative in repurposing tools for their job at hand. For example, Cricket even pointed out that he uses an agricultural-grade potato sorter to size and sort oysters. Because it’s reliable. Because it gets the job done. Generic pieces of farm equipment just wouldn't cut it out there. In the salt, a custom solution was required

That same thinking extends to the gear he wears every day.

See the full story on YouTube. Filmed and directed by Thomas Runion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjeJyjOlkcM&t=26s