You could feel the drumming vibration. It came from the
side of the gunnel. If you put your ear down there it sounded
like a strong, but not to loud, base drumming. Shallow
sounding baa-booms like someone lifting the mud up from
the bottom and then letting it drop back down. The sound
was really eerie. Baa-BOOM . . . Baa-BOOM . . . Baa-BOOM.
Imagine a crescendo of Baa-BOOM, Baa-BOOM resonating
out in the lagoon. This meant one thing – Black Drum were
moving in a school, and moving our way. That's how they
communicate. They look something like redfish although
more stout and much bigger in proportion, and also more vocal.
The sound was coming closer. We staked off the flats boat and
waited. Moving now would spook the school. We were next to
a drop off of about eight feet of water down near a canal that
runs into the lower lagoon.
The pulsing noise had our hearts racing. It was 8 pm, an early
summer's evening; the sun was just starting its decent. My crew
had never had this experience and they were in for the one of
their lives. Black drum are cool fish.
Some have been known to reach 146 pounds. The rod and reel
record is one that was caught off Cape Charles, Virginia and
a weight of 111 pounds. Black drum are related to redfish,
but have a really hunched back appearance. It has a short,
deep body (less than three times as long as it is deep to the
caudal fin). Its back is high arched, and the mouth is low
and horizontal in front with whiskers below, like a southern
kingfish or whiting. The throat, like the redfish, has large
plates that are used for crushing shellfish, or shrimp. They
love crabs, big crabs. Six-inch grabs are nothing. The body
has a deep silvery color with a brassy sheen, and the fins are
blackish. There is no black spot on their tail like redfish,
but they do tail. They are like vacuum cleaners, sucking
Although a strike is slow, black drum put up a great fight.
On a crab fly there is nothing better outside of a 20-pound
jack that can equal the strength and brut force that a black
drum can put on your line.
They were getting really close. I motioned Josh to get line on
the deck and ready to make a short cast in front of the pod
with time enough to let the Bay Crab sink down. Charlie got
off his fly as well. Both were using a darker nickel sized,
weighted crab imitations. As the pod got within sight of the
boat they stopped. The front row stopped so fast they almost
piled into each other. Josh was excited and he even looked
a little nervous. This was a pod of about 40 to 50 fish and
they were BIG. Even though it was overcast and cloudy
you could still see this tidal wave coming at us.
They stopped and looked. They were motionless. We were
motionless. The first two rows of drum were over the crab
flies. Crab flies, when jerked, sink back down at an angle, like
I whispered to Josh and Charlie, "Do a short, quick strip and
then let the crab settle back down. Be as stealthy as possible."
They did as I said, but nothing happened. There wasn't any
movement at all – everyone was frozen – time went still.
The sun was lower on the horizon now. And the sky was
multiple shades of orange and red. It seemed like an eternity
and then came a push along our starboard bow. I motioned
for another quick strip, short retrieve and another strip.
All of a sudden Josh's rod almost came out of his hands. The
tip bent down at high speed into the water, right up to the fourth
snake guide. The drum had sucked in his fly. The 9wt DFR
was bound for glory, and the fight had begun. Then as Charlie
started reeling in, as is customary when someone has a "fish on,"
a drum spooled off about a 100 yards of backing from his 10wt
DFR. This was going to be really interesting with two guys
hooked up at the same time.
I pulled the push pole out of the staking position and put it back
in the pole holders. The drum was peeling off line like they were
running survey lines across the lagoon. This could be a tangle
nightmare if the fish crossed. Josh and Charlie's first trip to the
lagoon would be etched in their memories for a long, long time.
An hour later, these two drum had dragged us about 3 miles into
the lower lagoon. I could see that both Josh and Charlie were
wearing down. Things were pretty much under control. We
got some strange looks from boats passing by. I bet it looked
like we had a couple of sailfish hooked up.
I put the engine down a ways to increase drag on the boat and
hopefully help to tire the fish. For 90 minutes we were at the
mercy of these two brutes. They pulled us right into the Whales
Tail (just south of Haulover Canal), but they were finally slowing
down, and also running out of lagoon. They were headed for
We finally managed to haul them over to the boat. Josh had
a 38" drum and Charlie a 42" drum, fairly good size but not
record breakers. We couldn't get Josh's fly out, it was deep
in the fish's throat, so we broke off the line. Charlie's was
barely hooked. The crab fly was hanging onto the upper lip.
We took the fly out, took a picture and then released the fish.
The monocore line held up well and I'm happy we were using
16-pound tippet with 30-pound Mirage Shock tippet. Both
guys had a great story to take home and what they learned
about our Black Drum, drumming. ~ Doug.
Capt. Doug Sinclair has relocated from New Smyrna Beach, Florida to
Grantsboro, NC. He specializes in fly-fishing and light tackle charters.
Doug charters the Coastal Carolina area of New Bern or Oriental.
Catch him on the web at
www.flyfishacademy.net or call him at (252) 745-3500.
Doug is also a Sponsor here on FAOL.