Caribou and I went to Lake Grapevine tonight.
We were fishing for cats using chicken livers. We got a bunch of small bites and he got one keeper so it was a good time.

One of the fish I caught puzzled me. It looks just like a croaker which I would catch in saltwater. Do those occur in fresh water? If not, what is your best guess on what it was?

Sorry, I did not take a pic. It was the first fish and I was eager to get some cats instead of messing with it.

yes, somebody answer this for us.

found it. white bass

http://www.utahfishinginfo.com/utahfish/whitebass.php

You sure it wasn't a freshwater drum? Aren't croaker what they sometimes call black drum and red drum?

Freshwater drum are literally the freshwater version of that family of fish, and they're native to all of Texas.

http://www.thejump.net/id/goo.htm

http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/huntwild/wild/species/fwd/

I definitely was not a white bass. I have caught those before and it did not look like that.

I think it was a freshwater drum. It looked exactly like the one pictured hanging vertically on your thejump.net link.

Thanks!

Croaker are separate from black and red drum.
I never heard drums called croakers.
Croakers are very distinct, they are purple and make an amazingly loud croaking sound when you hold them.

you sure? as i remember it, it looked just like the white bass in that picture.

I am pretty sure. It did not have stripes and the body was longer.

100% it was a goo (freshwater drum). The smaller ones look very much like croakers. Croakers are also in the drum family.

I did not know that. Thanks for the info!

Yeah. Try googling pictures of Gaspergoo, or freshwater drum. Same thing. They can have a purplish color at certain times of year in certain water bodies. If its real quiet and they are schooling and the water is shallow enough sometimes you can hear them making drumming sounds through the water. Heard it from my pier at Lake Mathis from time to time. As far as eating them, some people love them, most people hate em.

Freshwater drum.

The only freshwater cousin of the croaker, red drum, black drum and speckled trout.

Do they taste like the saltwater croaker and drums? The saltwater fish taste good to me.

Exactly what I thought. Also, I took that picture lol.

I may not know Saltwater Fish especially well, but I know freshwater fish VERY, very well. And the description sounded exactly like freshwater drum. The mouth of that family of fish is very distinctive.



Very close to red drum. They're fantastic blackened, half shelled, or deep fried.

Oh nice! I will have to keep the next one I catch to try it.