Went fishing on Texoma yesterday and brought my jug lines with me. I took my grandpa and my dad with me. We chummed with 20% range cubes, which I have never tried before, and caught plenty of cats, but not as many as normal. Caught a good amount of gar, and a fish I had never seen before. My grandfather said that it was a freshwater drum. Any one else ever catch these when fishing for catfish? I have fished these same spots before and never caught one. I think maybe the range cubes brought them in.

Gasper goo, Drum. Catch them all the time. Their not very selective on what they eat. Caught them on cut shad and when slabbing for sand bass or striper.

Yep I've caught them when using carp as bait. They taste pretty good fried in a lemon pepper seasoning mix.

They are dumb fish actually have rocks in their head

They are a great bait for blues.

Catch them all the time, they will eat anything just about that is laying on the bottom. Never had any luck with them as cut bait. Fried them with catfish once and neither my wife or I liked them.

Great cut bait use the all my life on the Sabine river caught some big cats it a cheap bait too

I have caught a fair amount of stripers on cut drum.

Eaten them along side cats and white bass and found no discernible difference.

Have used them as cut and live bait to catch blues and yellas, they work about as good as good as any other fish for live/cut bait. They are not oily like carp are. I don't know that I will ever understand how they get such a bad rap as food fish, aint nothing wrong with them. I guess about like people at the coast that think redfish are the bomb for table fare and black drum are nasty.

I have been fishing for 45 years and never caught a drum until three years ago. I then started catching on the regular at Tawakoni, Lavon and Hubbard.

Reggie

I keep the bigger ones for the table, small ones for cut bait. I think they taste just fine fried or you can do them like redfish. Fillet but keep the scales on. Grill in foil (season to preference) and the flesh lifts off the skin side.

Small black drum (saltwater) are fabulous table fare. However, I've tried all sizes of FW drum and many recipes but I am not a fan. Grainy meat is my best description for the texture. Taste is not objectionable but not great either. Frying with cornmeal coating is the best bet. If I was camping out and that's all I caught, no problem, I'd cook'm up. BTW, they really bite on small crawfish. The "rocks" in their skulls are called "otoliths." Biologists can "read" the growth rings in these and tell the age of the fish and the growth rate for each year of growth.

Probably more than you wanted to know!

Good information, thanks

I read on a blog that they are good eatin'. In Mexico they take the rocks out of the fish's head and make a tea out of them for Kidney problems.