Fish-Hawk.Net

Tonight I caught my first freshwater drum, caught on a worm while fishing for catfish on the Ottawa River. I certainly knew it was something different from a catfish based on the fight and love that feeling when you look at what you caught and say "what the heck is that????"

I did keep it, cleaned it up (easy to do) and the flesh is very similar to tuna. Will be interesting to see how it cooks up.

Nice surprise catch!

Nice, let us know how it turns out!

I am glad you are adventurous with what your family eats, you can test drive it for me .

Never eaten one myself but from what I have hears they can be a bit oily, so they need to go on ice ASAP so they don't stink up. Also, avoid the red bits in the filets. Would be nice to hear how it turned out.

We grilled up the Drum tonight along side some catfish.

The Drum was very firm, too firm really for most people at the table. You had to cut it with a knife, consistency of chicken. Taste was excellent, very mild, not oily or fatty at all. The catfish however was the clear winner at our table (as always!).

We all agreed that the drum would be excellent done in a fish chowder since it would surely hold together very well and would not be overpowering. I think it would also be good if heavily battered and deep fried, but I am not 100% sure, again simply because it was a very firm meat.

It cooked up nice and white. I didn't bother cutting out the red spots or the dorsal line like some people say, no one could taste any difference in that meat.

So overall, I would say that I will keep these again and give cooking it another try. It is not going to make my list of favourite fish... but when you consider that they are plentiful, that there is no limit and that the season is always open for them... hmmmmmm........

scarkner wrote:We grilled up the Drum tonight along side some catfish.

The Drum was very firm, too firm really for most people at the table. You had to cut it with a knife, consistency of chicken. Taste was excellent, very mild, not oily or fatty at all. The catfish however was the clear winner at our table (as always!).

We all agreed that the drum would be excellent done in a fish chowder since it would surely hold together very well and would not be overpowering. I think it would also be good if heavily battered and deep fried, but I am not 100% sure, again simply because it was a very firm meat.

It cooked up nice and white. I didn't bother cutting out the red spots or the dorsal line like some people say, no one could taste any difference in that meat.

So overall, I would say that I will keep these again and give cooking it another try. It is not going to make my list of favourite fish... but when you consider that they are plentiful, that there is no limit and that the season is always open for them... hmmmmmm........

Thanks for the post! Clients always ask me why we don't keep sheephead, and my answer is usually something like, just because we don't. Now I'll be able tell them that it's tasty but overly firm. Also, I have to agree with you about the catfish. Underappreciated table fare for sure. Especially the 1-2lbs specimens.

Maybe cut into steaks and bbq'd like tuna since it's firm? These things can get quite big.
I avoided eating pike for years until I tried it and could believe how good it was, so shows you never know until you try.

SeaMonster wrote:Maybe cut into steaks and bbq'd like tuna since it's firm? These things can get quite big.
I avoided eating pike for years until I tried it and could believe how good it was, so shows you never know until you try.

It looked like tuna, so that's exactly what I did!

The difference as I learned is that Tuna is typically cooked medium rare. With freshwater fish you must cook well done. I imagine that tuna steaks would also be considered too tough if they were cooked well done.

I have heard that cooking extremely hot like blackened catfish can also work.

Lots of experimenting to do... but considering this was my first one, I might have to wait a while.

Years ago when we used to put in at Napanee to fish walleye, Drum were plentiful. (probably still are)

So we kept 4 or 5, filleted and fried them. Found them to have a delicate taste, and very good. - not hard to catch. If memory serves, they have a lateral line which we removed, just because.

The locals were surprised and amused we kept them. Whatever.

Your post brought back some good memories. Thanks.