Four Keys for Big Black Drum
 

Great time on Grand Isle in December. Mild weather, good fishing, not too many people, awesome food.

I caught this one on 12 lb mono line using crack crab a few weeks ago.


In the second pic?.. story.


I took this friend out a few time to experience saltwater fishing. We stopped at a spot and I baited him up with a whole med size crab. I told him that this should catch something big. 10 minutes later this fish took the bait.

Nice job!

The 5th key
 

The Fifth Key to big black drum.
Fish Capt. W's Boat stall !!!

Mathgeek, your videos always have a lot of good info.

My approach to black drum however is exactly opposite to yours. I'm a sight fisherman/fly fisherman, and big black drum in shallow water make a great distraction between catching bull reds in shallow water.

I look for shallow oysters in about +- 2ft of water, and can faily consistently put large black dum in the boat on fly.

The drum will get on the oysters and tail as they root for food. Generally it's really hard to get a black drum to eat a fly or artificial unless it's actively feeding, and even then your cast/retrieve has to be very accurate. Big drum won't move far out of their way for a fly or artificial, you've pretty much got to present it on the bottom in the path of the fish. I'll make a cast ahead of and a little past a feeding fish and retrieve my fly to intersect with the fish as he passes, you'll see the fish either tip down or rock side to side to eat teh fly and that's when I strip strike to set the hook.

Redfish are a lot more opportunistic and will often eat a fly or lure that is presented to them even if they aren't actively feeding. I've caught many many big black drum on fly and we've put drum over 40 lbs in the boat this way.

Last time we fished Heberts we caught 100 hardheads very quickly in a magnetic hook study. It turns out magnets reduce the catch rate of hardheads, but increase the catch rate of drum. See figure 4 and table 1 here:

https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1511/1511.09302.pdf

Sounds like a good time, but never really been into fly fishing or sight fishing.

I'm more of a soak bait sort of guy.