I’ve had some strange emails over the last four years. That’s how long Peter has let me write this column in Northern Aquaculture. For this, I am very grateful. And that he tolerated late submissions, gave me literary latitude (not that I have much), and let me get away with so much. The price was right: all the space (under 900 words) to rant and rave if I would a) keep it clean (hard in a sex column), b) keep it simple (well, what could be simpler), c) be regular (my fibre intake is way up).

There are some other people to thank, the first of whom is you, the reader. I have had so much fun talking to people who are closet reproductive physiologist and some part-time amateur gynecologists of fish. I suppose it took coming out as a fish sex person led others to it. I’m amazed to hear from people in the North, the East, the Far East, Florida, California, Chile, Taz, NZ, the UK and even Norway. It’s great to know so many other people are weird too.

Monty Little and Jim Brackett are my supporters at Syndel. Both these men realize the importance of giving to the industry without condition. I was permitted to donate company time to research and write these articles on their ticket. These two have been involved in world-wide aquaculture for a log time and believe like we all do, that helping others helps us to. I owe them big kudos. Jim also kept me from splitting my infinitives, dangling my participles, ending a sentence in a preposition and ensuring subject/verb agreement. (Not that I knew what these meant.)

Likewise, Paul Casey and Randy Peach helped out by proofing articles and pointing out when I was being stupid or verbose. They also provided source ideas for new articles. That’s always welcome in a dry spell.

These columns couldn’t be written and polished without Rick Bradshaw. He scalped pictures, corrected my grammar, reminded me it was time to write, cajoled, coerced and chided me into one more article. And through all of this, we’ve been able to maintain a friendship. He was the real driving force behind the articles as he is in all things we do and deserves most of the recognition for what has gone into Sex on the Farm. Incidentally, he chose the title, which leads me to the fun stuff.

I’m out watering the garden. An older neighbour comes over and starts wagging his chin. Then he gets down to it: "I was surfing the other night and a hit came up with your name. Is that you?" "Yep" I say "I write a column Sex on the Farm for an aquaculture paper." My interest deepens "I didn’t know you had an interest in fish reproduction." I smile. His answer: "Well, will you look at the time – gotta run!" He doesn’t come over very much anymore.

Early on, I was really impressed that our website got so many hits. Then it was explained to me that if you Google the article name, you end up places that can get you fired. However, when we filtered through the detritus, there were still a significant number of people who wanted information on broodstock. And so the emails come in.

I have been asked about dhufish in Australia, paddlefish in Louisiana, tropical fish wherever, lungfish and trout (!) in Mexico, bonefish in Cuba, arapaima Argentina, anything edible in China, brycon in Columbia, pacu in Brazil, betas in Singapore, everything in Malaysia, sturgeon in Germany, hot places, cold places, places without names. I feel a little like Lou Bega. Wolfish, walleye, pickerel, pike, cod, crappie, bream, bass, sturgeon, sablefish you name it. I’ve been asked for advice to spawn frogs, snakes, mudpuppies and birds. I’ve made many friends in Nigeria who want me to help them get money to needy children. They must be my friends; they keep emailing me.

On the serious note, we had three motivations for writing Sex on the Farm: 1) to educate and entertain on the topic of broodstock management, 2) to promote animal welfare issues through the judicious and most propitious use of our broodfish, and 3) promote broodstock as a cost center: to recognize the value of broodstock managers (and their fish) and to formulate SOPs to be efficient. Each of the articles was multi level so that the readership, whether they were ball cap and short sleeves or boardroom and starched collar, could get the message. I hope we’ve achieved that.

SOTF is not dead, merely restin’. There are many other topics to be discussed and sometimes updates to information are necessary. As long as fish sex is necessary to keep this industry going, there will always be something about which to write.