David Meeks fishtailed a little in his professional career and crawfished just a bit when he accidentally hooked a new business opportunity three years ago, but since he grabbed the bait, he’s been as happy as a clam in the mud at high tide.
Meeks is the captain of Flying Fish Seafood & Company headquartered in Davidson. Working with a small fleet of family and friends, Meeks has reeled in a whopper of a business providing a weekly supply of fresh-off-the-boat Carolina coastal seafood directly to Lake Norman-area residents.
Each week, Meeks or other members of his merry band of fishmongers head out from Davidson not long after midnight for pre-arranged, wee-hour rendezvouses with deep sea fishing boats returning to North Carolina or South Carolina docks. The Flying Fish representatives cherry-pick the catch, load coolers and return west to prepare for that afternoon’s wave of regular customers.
There are no middlemen in this business as Meeks is in charge of research, procurement, shipping, prepping and retailing the weekly bounty the sea has to offer. At a bare-bones shelter off N.C. 115 at Presbyterian Road, Meeks arrives each Thursday afternoon bearing hefty coolers stuffed with freshly filleted fish, scallops, shrimp and whatever other salt-water delicacies his fishing boat supply line delivered that morning.
Usually, before he finishes stacking coolers on the folding table set up under the aluminum carport, regulars start rolling in, anxious to score their weekend seafood fix.
Shrimp, usually accompanied by scallops, is a staple, and standard varieties of ocean fish are available along with other seldom-discussed but highly acclaimed catches. Last week, for example, hog snapper was high on Meeks’ list of recommended entrees. Showing off thick, hand-sized portions of stark-white hog snapper, Meeks says many of the knowledgeable old salts he does fish business with describe the variety as the best-tasting thing in the ocean.
“I don’t know if I agree with them,” Meeks says, carefully placing the plump fillet back on the bed of crushed ice. “I don’t know how you could ever say what’s absolutely the best.”
But just the tempting prospect of a new dining discovery was enough to convince some of the Flying Fish regulars to add a chunk of hog snapper to their order.
Not long after Meeks sets up shop (it’s usually a little after 3 p.m. on Thursday, but the regulars would prefer you come sometime after 4), cars begin pulling into the gravel lot, is decorated along the N.C. 115 frontage with a large wooden train set that one of Meeks’ friends is hoping to sell.
Many customers know what they want — in fact, some call ahead to make sure their selection was part of the day’s catch — and others allow Meeks to show-and-tell them about each cooler’s contents. Some are there each Thursday afternoon, stocking up for a weekend full of seafood sampling.
“I think I’ve been coming here for several years now,” says Cathie Lovelass of Davidson whil
ordering shrimp, salmon and a slender tilefish fillet. “I tell folks about it and I think word-of mouth is the best way to spread the word. You can’t beat it. You just can’t get it any fresher.”
A first-time customer, Lisa Littlefield of Huntersville, says she had recently heard someone talking about the fish market and just happened to be passing by as Meeks was setting up.
“We just got back from the coast,” she says, “and I had to give this a try.”
As Littlefield takes her packages of seafood back to the car, she asks Meeks when her seafood was pulled from the ocean.
“This morning,” he says, before quickly adding, “no, wait a minute. It was actually caught last night but the boat didn’t get back to the dock until this morning.”
