Freshwater Drum: Sheepshead, Gaspergou and How to Catch Them

The freshwater drum is the only drum in North America that lives its whole life in fresh water: a silver, humpbacked bottom feeder of big rivers, lakes and reservoirs. Most weigh 12 oz to 5 lb, and the world record is 54 lb 8 oz. Northern anglers call it sheepshead, Louisiana calls it gaspergou, and Iowa’s advice for catching one fits on a line: a nightcrawler on the bottom, from the bank.

The “lucky stones” that beachcombers pick up on Lake Erie are drum ear bones. Rings on those stones aged one Lake Winnebago drum at 58 years.

What is a freshwater drum, and what else is it called?

It is the only North American freshwater member of the drum and croaker family, whose closest relatives are the red drum and black drum of the coast. Its range is the longest north to south of any North American freshwater fish, by the IGFA’s account: from Manitoba and Hudson Bay through the Mississippi basin and eastern Mexico to Guatemala.

The names change with the river. Missouri and Minnesota anglers say sheepshead or sheephead. Texas lists gaspergou and gou, which the National Park Service traces to the French casse-burgeau, “to break a clam.” Purdue’s Fishes of Indiana adds “white perch,” “rock perch,” “grinder” and “silver bass,” and Ohio adds “grunter,” “gray bass” and “silver perch.” The Ohio DNR writes that Native Americans called it the buffalo fish, because its grunt sounds like a bison.

One name causes most of the mix-ups: the sheepshead of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts is a different fish, a saltwater porgy with dark bars. The table below shows how to tell them apart.

How do you tell a freshwater drum apart?

Look at the back and the mouth. The drum’s head and body slope steeply up from a blunt snout to the dorsal fin, which gives it a hump. The mouth sits low, the lips are milky white, and the dorsal fin is long and split into two parts. The Minnesota DNR adds a mark no other freshwater fish has: the lateral line runs right through the tail.

Feeding in the shallows, a drum can pass for a carp or a buffalo, the West Virginia DNR notes, and a small one for a shad. On a bigger fish the humpback settles it. And a drum is not a carp at all: it belongs to the drum family, while the common carp belongs to the carp family, Cyprinidae.

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Where do freshwater drum live, and when do they bite?

Drum live in the big water of the middle of the continent: from the western slopes of the Appalachians to the eastern slopes of the Rockies, by Texas Parks and Wildlife’s description. They are native to Lakes Michigan, Huron, Erie and Ontario. USGS also records stockings outside the native waters: Illinois lakes in the late 1800s and Colorado in the 1950s.

Look for them over sand, gravel or mixed mud and sand in large rivers, lakes and reservoirs. Iowa finds them in reservoirs at 30 ft or more, and Oklahoma at 20 to 60 ft, shallower in warm spells. They tolerate muddy water better than many fish. The Ohio DNR says they are mostly active at night, “when large schools of them feed in shallow water.”

The spawn temperatures come from the Iowa DNR (66–72 °F on the Mississippi in May and June) and the West Virginia DNR (65–70 °F in April and May). Texas drum may spawn in April or May. The deep schools of summer and winter, and the scattered fall fish, are the pattern Arkansas writer Keith Sutton describes from years of fishing for drum. In his experience they bite from January through December, if you can find them.

How do you catch freshwater drum?

Fish a bait on the bottom where the current breaks. The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission gives the simplest rig:

1. Slide an egg sinker of about 1/2 oz onto the main line, heavier in strong current.
2. Tie on a barrel swivel so the sinker can slide.
3. Add a monofilament leader of about 12 in.
4. Finish with a No. 2 or 4 baitholder hook, or a light-wire No. 1 circle hook.
5. Bait it with worms, a crawdad tail or a piece of cooked shrimp.

It is built like a Carolina rig, a sliding sinker, a swivel and a leader, with bait in place of a plastic. Drum have small mouths, so a small hook works better. They also bite lightly and swallow the bait, which is why the commission likes the circle hook: tighten the line instead of setting the hook hard.

For line, the commission suggests 15 to 20 lb mono or 20 to 30 lb braid. Braid is thinner, so the current pulls less on it while you wait. Anchor above a current break, an eddy or a drop-off. Cast several rods to different depths, and stay put once one fish bites, because drum travel in schools.

Worms have probably caught more drum than any other bait, the commission writes. Sutton threads as many nightcrawlers as fit on a No. 1 or 2 baitholder hook, and he likes small-hook jigs for deep fish in summer and winter. The guests on a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service podcast agree: “Worms on bottom. You can’t go wrong with that.” They also use small jigs, crayfish mimics and shrimp, “like you’re fishing for catfish.” Drum often take a bass angler’s grub, swimbait or jig fished near the bottom, and Sutton lists spinners, spoons, crankbaits, blade baits and jerkbaits among the lures that have caught him drum.

A hooked drum pulls hard but does not jump. Sutton reports more than 50 drum in two hours on a nightcrawler, eight of them over 10 lb, on a hot August day when the bass and catfish would not bite.

How big do freshwater drum get?

Most are 12 to 20 in long. Missouri gives 12 oz to 5 lb as the usual weight, with a state maximum of about 40 lb. The big ones are big, though, and the top records are decades old.

The IGFA all-tackle record is 54 lb 8 oz (24.72 kg), caught by Benny Hull at Nickajack Lake, Tennessee, on April 20, 1972. Iowa’s record of 46 lb, 38.5 in long, came from Spirit Lake in 1962. Texas lists a rod-and-reel record over 30 lb and a trotline record of 55 lb.

Drum rules vary by state. Missouri counts them in its combined daily limit of nongame fish. Check your state’s rules before you keep a big catch or try bowfishing for them.

Are freshwater drum good to eat?

Yes. Many anglers call the drum a rough fish, but the West Virginia DNR calls it “excellent to eat,” and Texas says it is “prized as a food fish in some areas.” The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission says the fillets have no intermuscular bones and the meat is firm.

How you treat the fish decides most of it. Ice it as soon as you can; Sutton warns that a drum on a stringer or in a wire basket dies fast and the flesh soon spoils. Fillet it like a bass and trim the dark red meat along the lateral line. Then fry it in seasoned cornmeal, blacken it like redfish, or make poor man’s lobster: cubes boiled for 5 to 7 minutes in crab boil and served with a butter dipping sauce. Arkansas adds one condition: drum are best “when caught out of cool water.”

In an Ohio Sea Grant taste test, MeatEater reports, 75% of tasters said their attitude toward drum improved after trying it. Check your state’s fish advisory for the water you fish before you keep drum to eat. The EPA says most people are not at risk from fish caught in U.S. waters, but pregnant women, children, older adults and people who eat a lot of fish should follow the local advice.

Why do drum grunt, and what are the lucky stones?

The drum gets its name from its sound. Special muscles vibrate against the swim bladder, and Oklahoma notes the grunt comes from mature males in the spawning season. When schools spawn in the shallows, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says the drumming can be loud enough to hear from shore. The National Park Service adds that anglers can feel a hooked drum vibrate “like a cell phone.” How fish hear such sounds is the subject of our page on whether fish can hear.

The lucky stones are the drum’s otoliths, the ear stones a fish uses for balance. The Minnesota DNR says a drum’s can be more than 1 in across, and they have been used as currency, jewelry and good luck charms. West Virginia describes a distinct “L” shape carved into each one. Biologists count their yearly rings like a tree’s.

A sectioned freshwater drum otolith from an archaeological site on Doty Island, Lake Winnebago, Wisconsin, with its growth rings; the uploader aged this fish at 74 years. Photo: Hockeypoc, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0).

For Lake Winnebago drum, bomb radiocarbon dating confirmed the ring counts to at least 52 years, give or take two, and the oldest fish in that study was 58. The average drum lives 6 to 13 years.

The throat holds the other tool: heavy, molar-like throat teeth that crush crayfish and shells. Drum eat zebra mussels in Lake Erie, Texas notes, though not nearly enough to control them. Missouri calls the old idea that drum live on mussels a myth: they eat mainly fish, crayfish and insect larvae.

Drum spawn in open water, and their eggs float to the surface, which West Virginia calls unique among North American freshwater fish. The young feed walleye, bass and perch, and in Texas freshwater drum are among the most common foods of the alligator gar. For the rest of the fish outside the bass, trout and catfish families, start at the freshwater fish species hub.

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