Freshwater Drum.

[jdmidwest]

We would catch the bulk of them in the spring before the lake warmed up, so the meat was pretty good. Not much different than the white bass we were catching around the same time. I would like to try them blackened, so I may have to keep a few in a few months during the white bass run.

It is funny how people have the wrong ideas about alot of fish and their edibility. We used to can carp and make fish cakes out of them. Pike and pickerel are good eating, just too many bones. We also snagged buffalo in the spring and canned them too. I can count on one hand the grinnel I have caught, never tried to eat one. Caught a many gar, never tried to eat one of them either.

Just thinking back, most were hooked in the side of the mouth or roof, never noticed alot of lower lip hooks. There was an old tale about why they are called drum, they drum their head on the bottom of the boat, I have never witnessed it.

[Al Agnew]

Always figured they were called drum because of the noise they make underwater. Used to be some huge drum in Bismarck Lake, and on a quiet evening just before dark you could hear them all over the lake.

Never ate a bowfin, but I've eaten just about every other fish you can catch in Missouri. Gar aren't bad, just exceedingly tough to clean. Bob Todd, who seems to like to try to eat anything, experimented with gar and finally figured out that a very sharp, very sturdy meat cleaver and a mallet was the way to go. Just lay the gar on a board, place the cleaver behind its head, and whack it with the mallet. Then put the cleaver back an inch or so and do it again, all the way to the tail, cutting the fish into steaks within rings of the armor plate scales. Then with a sharp fillet knife cut the steaks out of the ring of armor. After that, just fry the steaks and they were pretty decent. One thing about gar...they have zero bones, just a hunk of cartilage where their backbone should be. They are too primitive a fish to have bones. Another thing about gar...don't ever eat the eggs, like I do with bass, the eggs are poisonous!

[BredMan]

I love drum fishing on the Mississippi. My buddy called me 'drum stick' as a joke and to poke fun at me until I got him involved. I changed his attitude first time out. You can sit and catch the little worm suckers all day but if you know how to pound the rocks in the channels you will get into the big ones. The big ones will rip the rod out of your hands, fight very hard, and make your arms ache after a few hours. One big misconception about drum is that they are a rough fish and don't taste good to eat. Actually they are very tasty if you keep them on ice.

I too used to dig the the 'rocks' out of their head and kept them in a big jar. I would show them to people who thought I was joking about fish with rocks in their heads!

[oneshot]

Caught and ate several.Made me think of this picture.

oneshot

[fishinwrench]

Hookups with Drum seem to happen all the time when I'm bass fishing or chasing whites, but I bet if I went out specifically targeting Drum I'd get skunked more times than not.

The L.O. area biologist reported to the local newspaper that Drum have been feeding heavily on Zebra mussels and alot of people around here are now thinking that "Drum will solve the ZM problem".

I did some quick research on that and learned that because of the slow digestion of such a diet a fish could literally starve to death with a consisent belly full of them. The biologist failed to mention that in the published report, I guess he just wanted to say something to cheer up the folks that are all stressed out about the Zebras. Then again, the ommision of that tidbit might have been at the discretion of the editor... who happens to own property here and typically avoids printing anything that could be percieved as "bad news" regarding the lake area.

Nevertheless, whenever someone mentions the Zebra mussels now, there's always someone within earshot that says "oh but they'll be gone soon... Drum are eating all of them"

[laker67]

Hookups with Drum seem to happen all the time when I'm bass fishing or chasing whites, but I bet if I went out specifically targeting Drum I'd get skunked more times than not.

The L.O. area biologist reported to the local newspaper that Drum have been feeding heavily on Zebra mussels and alot of people around here are now thinking that "Drum will solve the ZM problem".

I did some quick research on that and learned that because of the slow digestion of such a diet a fish could literally starve to death with a consisent belly full of them. The biologist failed to mention that in the published report, I guess he just wanted to say something to cheer up the folks that are all stressed out about the Zebras. Then again, the ommision of that tidbit might have been at the discretion of the editor... who happens to own property here and typically avoids printing anything that could be percieved as "bad news" regarding the lake area.

Nevertheless, whenever someone mentions the Zebra mussels now, there's always someone within earshot that says "oh but they'll be gone soon... Drum are eating all of them"

Hi FW. I thought that zebras could only live in clean water that was not infested with ecoli or whatever. The next drum I catch, I will rip it open and see. Normally I throw them on the swim dock for the resident bald eagle. If I find that drum are actually eating the zebras, I will not kill another. I caught a drum back in the 80's that now I often wish I had weighed. It was below bagnell, on the old townhouse side. I roughly measured the fish by holding it to my side. With tail touching the ground, it came to my belt line, that's 40 inches. Mike and I estimated the fish at 30 pounds. I caught this fish on a live crawdad while we were fishing for catfish.FW is exactly right. Anything that is truly detrimental to the lake, is a "hush hush" don't let the public find out. Most will lie through their teeth to avoid telling the media.

[Guest]

There's nothing like netting a drum.

You end up wrestling it to the floor of the boat, while it mangles the net and slimes up the carpet real nicely.

Looks like somebody smeared neosporin all over the carpet.

[Outside Bend]

Hi FW. I thought that zebras could only live in clean water that was not infested with ecoli or whatever.

Zebra mussels can live in some pretty heavily polluted waters- the Great Lakes were already heavily affected by nutrient and industrial inputs when zebra mussels arrived in the late 80's, and they've been thriving there ever since.

[Kayser]

I have gotten into them while trolling a local powerplant lake, but nothing over 5lbs. I really wish I could get into the really big ones on the Mississippi River. They put up a fight almost equal to a smallie, and hit like a freight train. Not bad eating, either. When you say pound the big rocks, do you mean drift the wing dams with worms on the bottom, or use something a little more substantial in a little different spot?

Rob

[fishinSWMO]

We catch quite a few on the Spring over in OK. Not bad eating, we just keep them and fillet them with the white bass. Here is a picture of my brother with a big one caught while wading the Spring river looking for whites.