Making Mussels
THERE’S A WHOLE lot of fishing going on at the local mussel bar. No kidding, right? Well, here’s a plot twist: We’re not talking about the rod and reel stuff.
Sure, there’s plenty of that, and we’ll hit those points in a minute. For now, we have to tell you about one of nature’s most amazing reproductive strategies.
To frame it, ask yourself why all the mussels in a reservoir, stream or river don’t grow in one enormous mass. Considering that these bivalve mollusks creep at a paint-drying pace, they simply cannot cover enough area to ensure effective spawn distribution.
Instead, they recruit fish to do the job for them. Intrigued? Read on.
REPRODUCTIVE STRATEGY
Quick Background: Freshwater mussels native to North America are part of the Unionidae family, which boasts approximately 759 species worldwide (about 300 in North America), according to The Mussel Project, which catalogs this family. Other bivalves may use different reproductive strategies, but with bass anglers mostly encountering the Unionidae bunch, we’ll focus here.
Contrasting with black bass spawning, in which a male fertilizes eggs laid by a female, mussels use a two-stage process. Males release sperm and females siphon it into their shells, where fertilized
