Thread: Ask the Biologist

I get a kick out of the folks who go to New Orleans and rave about the blackened redfish. It's just a Drum! Try and feed them freshwater Drum and they turn up their nose. Had a friend who did a taste thing one year. Most of the guys id'ed Drum as Walleye. Course you have to get one about 4 lbs to get any meat. I did catch some at Eldorado a few years ago that we could feel the shells in the gut. My duck hunting buddies make fun of mudhens...but they have never eaten 'Breast of Coot". It was a high dollar items in east coast restraunts back in the early 1900's...market hunters got top dollar for those mudhens.
Don't knock it unless you tried it!

Originally Posted by kscatman

ok Craig next question. I have never read anywhere until I got on here that drum eat zebra mussles. I'm a little skeptical because when I was at eldorado a couple of weeks ago I caught a bunch of drum and kept them. they were so rail thin that you could read paper thru the fillets......just horrible thin, they looked like horrible. If they eat zebra mussles they would have had some in their stomachs and should of been healthier looking right??? or maybe there is no nutrional value to the mussels. just curious. thank you again!
travis

Travis,

From 2005 through 2007 we had fat drum at El Dorado. During this time period, the zebra mussels had encrusted nearly everything under the surface of the water making for an abundant food source for the drum. There appeared to be a couple of good spawns of drum during this same time period as drum catches increased. In 2007 the lake encountered the first "bust" of the zebra mussel's "boom and bust" nature. Adult zebra mussel densities dropped off substantially during late summer 2007 which caused a decrease in available drum food. With increased numbers and limited forage, the drum are now quite skinny.

Drum do feed heavily on zebra mussels when they can find them. I've also seen common carp completely filled with zebra mussel shells. Blue catfish will eat zebra mussels. As the zebra mussel densities decreased, so did their occurrence in the diets of the fishes in the lake.

Thanks for the info craig, that's pretty intersting. maybe lakes should stock drum heavily like blue cats to help control zebra mussles. ahahaha. that's a joke folks.

Originally Posted by kscatman

they are outstanding eating!!! I very rarely let one go these days. I get made fun of alot but when people are eating them they have no idea.

pound-for-pound they are scrappy fighters as well. More than once I have gotten the net ready for the big walleye I was fighting only to realize it was a drum when I got it up to the surface. I have never eaten one. I have tried to use them a few times as cutbait for catfish, and they are terrible. I figure if a catfish won't even eat a drum... well, that's a sign.

I ate a drum a couple of weeks ago, very nice. Awfully skinny though.
My question is on another subject. Would it be possible to stock yellow pearch in one of the cooler lakes in Kansas? I used to catch them as a kid in Ohio. They are a lot of fun and very tasty. It may just be to warm here. Thank you.

This may not answer your question, but we catch an occasional yellow perch over at Wabaunsee. I have no idea how big the population is because we only catch a couple each year when we're crappie fishing. In fact, I actually caught 2 on back-to-back casts this spring, but they were only 5" long. If you were actually targeting them, I'm sure you could find some there.

Originally Posted by chmee213

I ate a drum a couple of weeks ago, very nice. Awfully skinny though.
My question is on another subject. Would it be possible to stock yellow pearch in one of the cooler lakes in Kansas? I used to catch them as a kid in Ohio. They are a lot of fun and very tasty. It may just be to warm here. Thank you.

Chmee213,

I have seen yellow perch in a couple of Kansas lakes. Gardner City Lake has a population of yellow perch that has been present for many years but most of the fish are small. Council Grove City Lake also has yellow perch. An occasional larger yellow perch is sometimes caught at these two lakes but the yellow perch do not contribute greatly to the sportfishery. Yellow perch are an introduced species in Kansas and were stocked prior to 1885. Yellow perch can sometimes overpopulate an impoundment and cause declines in other more popular fish populations which is a concern of fisheries managers. Yellow perch stocking in Kansas has been discussed but negatives outweighed the positives and future stockings have not been pursued.

Craig,
Are the blue cats you are stocking into eldorado reproducing? I'm very excited about having a place to fish for them in a few years when they get much much bigger. Do you feel at some point it's going to have a nice fishable population?
Thanks,
Travis