Having recently caught my first drum fish while fishing with a friend and a guide in an estuary near the Gulf of Mexico, I wanted to find out more about the fish. The drum fish (pogonias cromis) sometimes has a dark blue color to it and is therefore sometimes called a blue drum, although the more widely known name for this fish is the black drum.
Although the drum can weigh anywhere from 5 to 30 pounds, even as much as 90 pounds, the ones I caught last month were at the bottom end of the range. But they put up a good fight. I can only imagine the strength of the 113-pound world record. The fish we caught were so hungry when my guide stopped the boat, that – for the first time in my memory – the fish began biting the hook within a few seconds of my first cast.
I had enough sense to keep away from their powerful jaws, which the fish use to crush oysters and other shellfish. In fact, we fished in the saltier part of the estuary near oyster beds, a favorite hangout for the drum. I didn’t hear the distinctive resonant drumming sound that gives the fish its name, a sound that is produced by the contraction of its abdominal muscles against their air bladders, but then again we were kept busy catching, reeling in, and sometimes releasing several dozen fish.
I also learned that the red drum, a cousin of the black drum fish, were the first species to be served as blackened redfish in New Orleans, a delicacy that led to the one redfish per day limit for fishermen that we have today. That limit was hard to get used to at first and has been occasionally increased to two redfish/angler/day, but the fishing guides I’ve talked to agree that the redfish have been making a good comeback in the last few years because of the present limit.
I used a small sinker to keep my baited hook on the bottom. Shrimp turned out to be irresistible to the drum and the trout. Even when my line got hooked on a rock on the bottom of the estuary, patience eventually led to a loosening of the hook with the current and some nice keepers then took the bait. Between catching the drum and a half-dozen trout and a few redfish, we were pretty worn out after four intensive hours of fishing.
Part of the pleasure of the day was sending a photo of about twenty fish that we caught up to my brother, who was shivering in a Maryland cold front that brought the first snow of the year. We spent the day talking, not about politics or world affairs, but about the fun of fishing in Florida waters. The verbal highlight of the day came from my guide, who said during one of the many fish battles we were experiencing: “It doesn’t get any better than this.”
Kevin McCarthy, the award-winning author of “South Florida Waterways” (2013 – available at amazon.com for $7), can be reached at ceyhankevin@gmail.com.