Black Drum
Black Drum (Pogonias cromis) is a saltwater species. The first thing to check: a row of short chin barbels under the lower jaw — red drum have none. The look-alike to rule out is Red Drum: red drum are copper-coloured with a black tail spot and no barbels.
Last updated
| Scientific name | Pogonias cromis |
|---|---|
| Also called | drum, puppy drum, oyster cracker |
| Water | Saltwater |
| Group | Drum |
| Temperature | Feeds from the high 50s into the 80s °F; the largest fish move in during spring at 60 to 70 °F. |
How to identify a Black Drum
- A row of short chin barbels under the lower jaw — red drum have none.
- Four or five broad dark vertical bars on young fish, fading to plain grey-bronze on large adults.
- A high-arched back and crushing pharyngeal teeth in the throat for shellfish.
If you would rather not work through a key on a wet deck, photograph the fish and let the app name it — you get the common and the scientific name back, and the record is filed before you release.
Fish it is mistaken for
| Species | How to tell them apart |
|---|---|
| Red Drum | Red drum are copper-coloured with a black tail spot and no barbels. |
| Sheepshead | Sheepshead have sharper, narrower bars, protruding incisor teeth at the front of the mouth, and no barbels. |
Side-by-side comparisons
Read the full entry for Red Drum and Sheepshead.
Where it lives
Atlantic and Gulf coasts from New England to Mexico. Holds around oyster bars, bridge pilings, channel edges and passes, with big spawning aggregations in spring.
Temperature
Feeds from the high 50s into the 80s °F; the largest fish move in during spring at 60 to 70 °F.
The conditions that matter
Black drum feed on shellfish by touch and sound rather than sight, so they keep feeding in dirty water and at night. Tide is still the driver: they work oyster and bridge structure hardest on moving water. Being a bottom feeder, they are less affected by barometric swings than most inshore species.
Global Fishing League records 18 weather and water readings against every catch automatically — tide stage, barometric pressure, water temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, chlorophyll, swell, current, moon phase and more, taken at your GPS position at the moment you log the fish. Over a season that turns a hunch about black drum into a pattern you can read.
See every reading recorded with a catch, or the guides to what each reading means.
Size limits, bag limits and seasons
Size limits, bag limits, slot limits and seasons are set by your state wildlife agency — and for many offshore and migratory species by federal regulators — and on many waters they differ from the statewide rule. They also change between seasons. Check the current regulations for the exact water you are fishing before you keep a fish — we do not republish limits here, because a number that is a season out of date is worse than no number.
What the app does do is make your side of it accurate: every catch carries a length measured from the photograph, a GPS position and a timestamp, exportable if you ever need to show your work for a tournament or a record claim. It is also what a Global Fishing League entry is built from — a record that verifies itself, without publishing where you caught the fish.