One fish species that doesn’t get much attention is a cousin of one of the Alabama Gulf Coast’s most popular inshore species. Everybody is familiar with the red drum, or redfish, but not many people talk about its first cousin, the black drum. If you’ve fished Alabama inshore waters for any length of time, you’ve likely encountered a black drum while fishing for other species.
How to Catch Black Drum
However, if you want to target black drum, here is how Captain Jay Gunn of Jayhook Inshore does it. He starts first in the Intracoastal Waterway Canal, especially if it’s windy. Obviously, the tactics can vary depending on whether you’re fishing from the bank or in a boat.
“Make sure you have a big enough lead to keep your bait on the bottom, either a pyramid sinker or Carolina rig,” Gunn said. “Hook a small blue crab or half a crab and cast it to the edge of the riprap (large rocks lining the canal). If you’re fishing from the bank, stick the rod in a rod holder or tailgate of your truck, open a beverage and plop down in your lawn chair. Nothing happens in a hurry in the canal. But people probably catch more black drum in the canal elsewhere.
“If you’re fishing the canal in a boat, you may run into a school and catch five or 10 fish before they go past you. If I catch one, I anchor up and see if any more are with him. But you might come back to the same spot the next day, and there won’t be a drum around.”
Best Bait, Rigs, & Lines for Black Drum
Black drum are crustacean eaters, from bent mussels and oysters to crabs and shrimp. Gunn said he’s never caught one on a live croaker or any other live baitfish. As for rigging, he suggests using at least a 20-pound test line to be able to apply enough pressure to keep the fish out of structures like bridge pilings.
Use 2/0 or 3/0 circle or Kahle hooks, and remember not to set the hook with a circle hook. Just apply constant pressure and let the hook slide into the corner of the fish’s mouth, where it will be impaled. Alabama has no size or bag limit for black drum, so you can keep as many as you’d like.
Best Spots to Catch Black Drum
Gunn said he loves to catch black drum when the weather is too bad to get out in open water, and he especially loves to catch those black drum that are 20 inches or smaller, called puppy drum. “The puppy drum have whiter meat than redfish of the same size,” he said. “The 20-inchers fight hard and are fun to catch.” Gunn said the puppy drum hang along the banks of the canal, and the larger black drum, called the Big Ugly, cruise along the outer edge of the rocks.
The canal isn’t the only place where anglers hook a black drum. They hang out on reefs with oysters, and surf anglers will hook a black drum on occasion. “The people who fish the fish with for pompano set rigs with fish bites and sand fleas (mole crabs) will catch them,” Gunn said. “They’re like sharks, they’re everywhere.”
Gunn compares the puppy drum with another species that is becoming more popular to target, the sheepshead. While on a sheepshead trip, Gunn caught a couple of puppy drum. “We fried them with the sheepshead and couldn’t tell the difference,” he said.
