Craig,
I am have noticed something recently that I hope you can clear up for me. I have recently fished Melvern and as you know zebra mussels are present in Melvern. I have caught many live wells full of crappie and had no issues with it getting plugged up. I have also caught a few walleye and had no issues with the live well plugging up. A couple days ago I ended up catching a 6 lb blue cat while fishing for crappie at Melvern and threw him in the live well. We had probably 15 crappie and that blue cat in the live well at the end of the day. When we loaded the boat and pulled the plug on the live well I couldnt get the live well to drain worth a crap. I bailed the water out and came on home thinking it must have been full of scales or something else in the drain line.
Tonight I blew the line out and it was plugged full of zebra mussel shells. It was just the open shells, nothing else was present as far as the actual mussels (at least in what I recovered from the plugged drain line).

So my question is, do blue cats eat zebra mussels and then "puke" the shells out later? I have to believe it was the blue cat that caused this as I have had a whole lot of fish go through this live well and never had this issue before. I know for certain they did not come from the intake for the live well as the screen is too small to allow them to get through the intake. These zebra mussel shells had to come from something I put in the live well and I am fairly certain it was the blue cat that did it.

If it makes any difference, I recovered probably 75-100 shells from my live well drain line. No telling how many came out before it plugged up.


These zebra mussels are just nasty thick in Melvern now. They have cut our line several times recently. Get just the slightest hung up and pull just a little bit and it cuts the line like a knife.
Sad to think that this could have and can be prevented if people would engage their brain and use their head for something other than a hat rack.....