Home Forums Fishing Freshwater what is this?

guess I'm calling it a drum.

No dummy....its a fish!

Definitely looks like a freshwater drum.

Really blue on the head. Dorsal fin was folded in these pics.

yep its a drum.....lil bastards actually have alot of fight in them.....i catch them in the lake every once in a while, when i hook one i usually think ive got a real good walleye or northern and am disappointed to discover a lil drum usually only a pound or two....state record is north of 20 pounds, prolly be real sporty to hook into one that size.....

Pam cought this one last night in a river trolling a spoon.

I guess they have some kind of fish ivory rock things in their heads, earbones... supposed to be good luck, indians and early traders made jewelry out of them.

Freshwater redfish.....drum

They are rubbery textured meat....I don't keep them.

Sheep'shead or fresh water drum.

Correct, Lake Erie is full of them, we catch them all the time when perch & walleye fishing.
They will hit on anything, worms, minnows, trolled worm harnesses, stick baits.....

I never ate one myself, but I've been told their not bad to eat. I think I remember someone saying they are boney.

Some around here refer to them as Jesus fish as the story goes it was supposed to be the fish Jesus fed the crowds with.

If you look at the bones you mentioned N.D. you will see they have the letter "J" scribed on them though one is the mirror image.

sheephead...

It's a freshwater drum.. sheep's head is a salt water fish that looks similar but has black vertical stripes.

In Louisiana, I've seen 'em as large as 50 pounds.

Drum....thats it.

a drum would be my answere and isnt that amazing as I had a walleye fisherman here in kansas told me that where ever you catch drum the walleye will be there also.

Oh it is a good walleye river, no doubt about it.

I see you your drum and raise you one small grinnle



Bowfin



Reelfoot Lake....mouth of Donaldson Ditch

Damn those bowfins are ugly!

We always used the term sheephead, so that is, of course, correct. One time when I was 9 or 10, I got to go with Dad to a FELCO gathering at one of the resorts on West Lake. During the day, there were meetings for the men and the families (Mom had to stay home to go to summer school) ran free. One kid was fishing with a handline for bluegills down through the slats of the boat ramps. The bluegills would come right up between the slats. The big, old sheephead that came out of the depths to bite didn't fit. Can't remember how it got resolved. Another kid pulled off an impressive feat when a bullhead came up to hover with his mouth just breaking the surface. From a distance of about ten feet, the kid stunned it with a well-pitched rock.

Doesn't look like what I was told was a sheephead (many years ago)? Used to catch them from time to time in the Minnesota River. Friend who told me about them cut one open and showed me the bones in their head(s)???

I called my old buddy from just south of Green Bay and he said....

Sheepshead is a Drum....simple, it's a regional (up north) nick-name

Common names for mammals, fish, plants can get interesting as you will see for the common names listed for this fish.

The look for the Bowfin on the net as shown by tedhorn.

Try this for a start:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freshwater_drum

we call them sheephead in lake erie catch them all the time when trolling for walleye.

Yep...Sheepshead if you live in WI.

don't forget the Ivory in their head.

Fresh water drum, in W. Texas they call them Gaspergoo, ?? Drum seems simple enough. Caught one this week on a slab fishing for White bass.

Don't know about the freshwater variety, but salt water drums are prime eating.

gaspergoo

henway

about 3 pounds...

penfore

writing...

And then there is the sad case of the missing mattabaybee.

nothing.....














How am I doin'...?

Great!

Are you sure that you weren't in one of my classes somewhere along the line?

No...but I teach too.......

thought your dogs were the teachers?

They taught me everything I know....

hoarse A

"Why didn't you pay me?" or words to that effect.....

I used to catch a few back when I crappie fished. I usually threw them back but one day I caught one about the size of the one in the picture and put him on the stringer with the crappie and when cleaning fileted him right along with the rest. My fishing buddy was over when we ate the fish that had the drum in and I gave him one of the filets. He was adamant that we would throw no more of them back. miles

You're good.

He must have been bad hungry.....was beer involved?

No beer, just fileted and fried. I ate the other filet and it was good. Not as good as crappie, but good. Better than grinnel. Reminded me of bream. miles

In Meeeeechigan it is a sheepshead!

The "ivory" is the ear bone, otolith is the proper term for them. They sit a little aft of the brain, and the brain stem comes up between them. Using a butcher knife with some heft to it you chop down and back at a little less than 45 degrees. If the blade is heavy enough you can likely cut deep enough with a single whack.

A tweezer will help you find one down in the liquid in the cavities on each side uncovered by the cut. If there are no cavities showing you need to cut a little deeper until they do show.

Thats easy to say.....they are the worst.

There's nothing more spoiled nor opinionated than fishermen, except maybe hunters. We've got a lot of drum in Grayrocks Reservoir here in Wyoming. They fight a hell of a lot better than walleye(try a 5 pounder), bite when walleye won't, love lead-headed jigs with half a crawler, and taste just as good as redfish, bass, northerns, and most trout. If you can fillet a crappie, you can fillet a drum.

You mean their rib bones are like steel girders?

That'd be a large yellow perch.

click, click, click, click..

It's a couple underexposed photographs...

Of fish.

Do I win?

I've not eaten a lot of them, but they eat just fine.

Fresh water Drum. Cut the reddish brown meat out from the white and they are fair to eat.

Never seen this before, but it is beautiful.

I've caught some big Drum over the yrs....yap it's a Drum.

Sheepshead where I come from. We catch them all the time while walleye trolling. Biggest one I ever encountered was just over 16 lbs. An attempt was made to get the lucky stones out of that one. After a knife and then a hatchett failed...a call went out for a chainsaw.........If I remember right Boatboy on here may have been a witness to that. As we say in Quanicassee....it wasn't pretty........

sheepshead are saltwater with black vertical stripes, and I'm not askin