Black Drum on the Half Shell


 

Andy Erickson

TVWBB Pro
Went to the Louisiana coast for some fishing off of a private pier at a fishing camp this past weekend. Caught a bunch of Black Drum along with other fish. We fried a bunch of it up Saturday night and brought home a couple filets with skin and scales on. So on the grill they go with scale side down with salt and pepper and a lemon, butter and garlic sauce spooned over top. Awesome fish to eat.

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I've never ate any black drum either,, how do they taste? Strong or mild? Looks good though!

Very mild, sweet and moist. A great fish to eat! Most restaurants when serving local fish in Louisiana use Black Drum as their "house fish" unless it is stated otherwise on the menu.
 
Cool,, thanks!! We do an annual camping trip at the beach every early November and the black drum are usually biting. I've just never taken the tie to clean and eat one.
 
Black drum are delicious. They are indistinguishable from their cousin the Redfish aka Red drum. Both are wonderful when they're small (puppy drum). Bull drum and redfish (over 27") are really not good table fare, especially the black ones aka big uglies which gets filled with worms as they get older. Bull redfish are ok if made into a courtboullion, but I always release them. The legal 16-22" (smallest you can keep is 16" in LA) ones are the ones I like to keep to eat.
 
Black drum are delicious. They are indistinguishable from their cousin the Redfish aka Red drum. Both are wonderful when they're small (puppy drum). Bull drum and redfish (over 27") are really not good table fare, especially the black ones aka big uglies which gets filled with worms as they get older. Bull redfish are ok if made into a courtboullion, but I always release them. The legal 16-22" (smallest you can keep is 16" in LA) ones are the ones I like to keep to eat.

Yep, all true. We limited out on black drum (20) for four people and they were all 16 to 20 inches.
 
Nice cook Andy. I had always been told by my Cajun friends not to eat the black drum - they always threw them back or used them for crab bait (but those were the big ones). Consequently I have never tried it - now I'm going to have to give it a shot...

Regards,

John
 
Nice cook Andy. I had always been told by my Cajun friends not to eat the black drum - they always threw them back or used them for crab bait (but those were the big ones). Consequently I have never tried it - now I'm going to have to give it a shot...

Regards,

John

Yep, like JPowers said, the big ones over 25 inches or so are full of worms. Anything below that you should be good to go. Lucky for us, we didn't catch any of the big bull black drums.
 

 

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