SOMEWHERE IN FLINDERS
A little mussel history
Mussels were first grown experimentally in the mid seventies using the spanish raft method. Ropes, with mussels attached would hang underneath a wooden raft which is attached to a mooring. To the left of Flinders pier, when looking out to sea, is where that raft was located. In the mid-eighties, mussel farms in Port Phillip were suffering from continual algal bloom which can affect the health of the mussel, and ours by consumption of affected mussels. Establishing a lease at Flinders was an obvious location to overcome this issue. By the late eighties mussels were being produced from flinders on a commercially successful basis.
The Flinders Aquaculture Fisheries Reserve was created in the mid nineties, an area of 440hectares. Development took off quite rapidly with farmers from Port Phillip establishing new farms. Deep water longline culture has been the preferred farm set up. It seemed at the time that this was the future for flinders, large scale mussel production. But it wasn’t to be.Flinders Mussels remains, and expanded operations in 2018, doubling its lease holdings.
