CARY Valdimir Seaton has been wading through moss and dodging snakes in muddy ponds just south of Cary for two years now.

“I’ve got this stick because I’m scared of snakes,” the 23-year-old said as he plodded through in chest-deep waders with a steel rod in his hand.

He’s one of five workers who round up catfish from farm ponds to be taken to processors.

As he waded through, he was helping push a 2,000-foot net across a pond where catfish live until they’re gathered and shipped off.

Across the pond, another man walked slowly through the dark green water, while two others drove tractors on each side of the pond, dragging along the nets used to herd the fish to one side of the water. A fifth man rides in a boat, from one side of the net to the other, making sure the fish stay in front of the net.

The men use the long net to move the whiskered fish to a small part of the pond, where they are herded into a “sock,” a long holder with webbed netting used to take them out of the water.

The WWM Company, owner of the fish farm about 3 miles south of Cary and another near Rolling Fork, has seen billions of catfish through nearly all phases of their life cycles. The fish stay at the farm from the time they are fertilized eggs until they weigh well over 2 pounds, about three years.

This time of year is harvesting time at the 15-acre-long ponds. Much of the catch will be sold to a Louisiana processor and some in the Mississippi Delta and Alabama.

The fish begin in one of five brood ponds where literally millions of eggs have been fertilized. Then the eggs are taken to the hatchery where they are born in five to seven days. The baby fish, called fries, are taken to their own pond where they stay until they are fingerlings, 5 or 6 inches in length. Next they are taken to different ponds, food fish ponds, where they swim until shipped to a fish processor.

Bill Stark, manager of the Cary fish farm, said when he accepted his job right out of college overseeing the 1,100-acre catfish farm, he thought it would be temporary. Twenty-six years later, he is still there.

“I don’t think we’ll come up with many today,” Stark said one day last week, “probably 5 or 6,000.”

The job of raising catfish and making a profit out of it appears to get harder every year, Stark said.

For the company to make a profit off of its catfish, it must sell a pound of catfish for at least 65 cents, he said.

“Right now we’re at about 60 cents,” said Stark, driving on a road between two of the ponds. “Last summer it sold for 50 cents.”

He said if the market does not improve, some catfish farms, including the WWM Company, may go out of business.

“We’re just trying to stay in business now,” he said.

Hugh Warren, executive vice president for Catfish Farmers of American based in Indianola, took a more optimistic tone about the immediate future of the 400 catfish farms in the state. He said some are struggling, but “there is cautious optimism that prices are improving.” He said prices are higher than in the past.

Throughout the U.S. industry, some believe lower quality fish from abroad is the cause of many problems and have accused Vietnamese fish farmers of trying to flood the market with a fish similar to catfish that is cheaper but of lesser quality. Some of the foreign catfish is labeled “Southern raised” on its packaging, they say.

In the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act passed by Congress and signed by President Bush in 2001, no food can claim to be from the United States unless it was born, raised and processed here.

The Catfish Farmers of America is suing Vietnamese fish farmers of “dumping” its fish into American markets.

Warren said he would not comment on the lawsuit since it is still pending.

Catfish is the fifth most consumed fish in the country, behind shrimp, tuna, salmon and Alaskan Pollock, Warren said. It is also the fourth largest agricultural crop in the state. The whiskered fish has an economic impact of about $2 million on the state.

“It’s still mighty important to many communities and areas in Mississippi,” Warren said.