CEDAR FALLS - Milo Gadow scooped a net full of small fish from the metal hauler in the truck bed.

He passed the net along to Tony Brady, a mussel propagation biologist with the Genoa National Fish Hatchery in Wisconsin, who sorted them into four mesh cages partially immersed in the waters of George Wyth Lake.

In two of the cages were fish inoculated with larvae that would hopefully produce ample amounts of pocketbook mussels. The last two cages contained fish inoculated with larvae that Brady said should produce similar amounts of black sandshell mussels.

But Brady and Lyndsey Anderson, the mussel project coordinator at Hartman Reserve Nature Center, will have to wait until September to see if this year's project can be considered a success.

"We are trying to reintroduce a second species since we got good production out of the first at this site," Brady said.

This is the third year Hartman has joined with the Wisconsin fish hatchery in an attempt to reintroduce mussels to area waters. Historically, the area supported nearly 40 mussel species, but a survey in 2005 produced only two live mussels.

In the first year Brady collected just four pocketbook mussels from the George Wyth Lake site. Last year's crop produced about 400. He hopes the black sandshell mussels will see similar success this fall.

Mussels, which are filter feeders, are considered good gauges of a river's water quality. They are also a natural filter system for the rivers, feeding on particles suspended in the water around them. However, the water must be relatively clean and clear for a mussel to survive. Too much sediment in the water will smother the mussels.

Brady, Anderson and the crew of volunteers, mostly from George Wyth and the Cedar Valley Walleye Club, also took another four cages to Alice Wyth Lake where they will try to once again produce a good crop of pocketbook mussels. Last year's cages did not produce any mussels; however, Brady said several extenuating circumstances could have contributed to the failure, including the fish themselves.

Last year Brady was scrambling at the last minute to find fish for the project after a muskrat attack depleted much of their stock in Wisconsin.

If river levels cooperate Brady will return to the Cedar Valley later this summer or fall to search for mussels in a portion of the Cedar River running through the Rotary Reserve. In 2006 Brady deposited young mussels into the water, but he was unable to do an official count in 2007 because of high waters. However, he was able to place some of the mussels collected from George Wyth Lake in the same area last summer.

Brady said there was some concern about water quality along the Cedar because rivers flanking those waters - the Wapsipinicon and Iowa - both proved to be healthy living environments for mussels.

"We created one bed of mussels above Waterloo and Cedar Falls and another below. This will allow us to see if there is something with the municipality that is causing the mussels to disappear," Brady said. "It may also be an agricultural issue."

A control group has been placed in the Wapsipinicon.

Gadow, a member of the Cedar Valley Walleye Club, said projects like this are a step in the right direction for the next generation.

"We need to find out what killed the mussels off and why only the pocketbooks have been able to survive," he said. "At least our younger generations will have something to look forward to, maybe seeing the black sandshells surviving in this river."

Contact Emily Christensen

at (319) 291-1570 or

emily.christensen@wcfcourier.com.