Caught 2 cats yesterday both had a lot of mussles in their stomach. I wanted to know how to go about finding mussle beds on graphs what they look like are they usually in a certain depth.

Not sure which brand of graph you have but on the Humminbird SI units they have a red/green pallet that shows hard Rocky bottoms real well. Works well for shell reefs in bays.

I have a lowrance elite 7ti

Study the shoreline for evidence of the mussle beds. The shore will be covered with them and easily spotted when lake levels fluctuate. You can bet when they are in the shallows or on the bank they will be deeper also.

That's the way I fished before graphs were invented....Not that I'm old!

Plus one for Jimbo's way. That's how I found all the beds we fish. During drought and duck seasons.

The bigger blues I catch out of Raybob nearly all have a belly full of zebra mussels.
Feels like gravel in there.

I read where one biologist suggested the blue cats might help control the zebra mussels. I know I've caught a lot of blues with regular mussels in their stomach over the years.

Up our way the blue cats DO eat zebra mussels ..... They love them and are easy to catch I know where there at here by pulling anchors with those buggers riding shotgun

But will they pass them ?????

Oh yeah they pass them. I know because when I put the 1st one in the live well when we were done fishing on the ramp there were about 6-7 open shells at the bottom of my live well.

There is a reason I don't like putting blues in my livewell. They puke zebra shells up and really mess up things. If those shells get into the pumps and valves you gonna have to spend some money. Been there.
Always use a cooler to put blues in especially out of RayBob.

Thanks for the suggestions fellas.

I have cleaned blues with mussels in them all the way from there stomach into the intestines and coming out the exit hole. They digest them. Cleaned one with a dove in it one time. They seem to be like a shark, eat anything and just pop it right down the exit trail.

I was once told by a TPWD Biologist that blues, channels, and drum often feed on them. However, they pass them live so the fish feeding on them don't really have an effect in controlling the zebra mussel population.

Iv had many blues and channels from Belton puke them up and/or pass them in my livewell.

That's not good. But thinking about it, they seal themselves up in there shell, I guess the acids in the cats stomach don't break throw that seal.