Fresh Water Mussels

[adrianna3]

I was watching the latest episode of Man vs. Wild last night and he was in Hell's Canyon, on the Snake River. It was beautiful country. He found a large patch of fresh water mussels and cooked up a bunch. He claimed they were good. Now, I know this guy, (Bear Grylls) is a little over the top. I've seen him eat live snakes and week old sheep carcasses, for the sake of dramatics, of course.

A guy at work tried some fresh water mussels out of the Cowichan River a number of years back. He said they tasted like mud and had the texture of an old tire.

Has anyone else tried fresh water mussels?
What river were they from?
What time of year did you harvest?
What was your opinion?

Thanks in advance for your responses.

[bee15]

never tried them but they are in nanaimo lakes and matheson lake also cowichan lake will live in freshwater aquariums cant understand why anyone would bother gross.like eating freshwater snailsI would think.

[nedarb2]

yea, there all over the bottom of cowichan lake and when ever we camped up there when i was younger ide always see how many i could collect (hundreds and hundreds, they are everywhere!!), then one day i got the grand idea of boiling and frying them all up, and man you couldnt even eat one. They were like bitter rubber absoloutly disgusting. We fed them to the fish.

[nedarb2]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UpSlpvb1is

[adrianna3]

Well, that's what I figured about the mussells.

That's also what I figured about Bear Grylls, too, Nedarb2. He does some of the stupidest things I've ever seen as far as survival situations go. Good way to get yourself killed.

[Dogbreath]

I've heard that if you leave them alive in freshwater for a few days changing the water often they're OK to eat.

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[wildwest]

The only time I got freshwater muscules is when the battery died ,he-he!

[porcupine]

Lots of freshwater mussels in the lake where we go moose hunting. Nice big juicy ones that taste like mud. Yuck.