The Fish That Makes A Noise

Outdoor writer Keith Sutton, one of the grizzled old outdoor veterans from down in Arkansas who really does what he writes about, sent me a story for the Lightnin’ Ridge outdoor magazine about the drum, a fish that no one is proud to catch, putting it in the same class as carp or gar. And he points out that there is no reason the fish should be looked upon in a bad light, as it has a very white meat, and is good to eat, without any bones at all when filleted properly.

He is right about that. There is no reason that drum should not be looked upon as a desirable game fish, it is a native fish that fights like a tiger, and will readily hit jigs and crank baits. They stay in deeper water, and feed on the bottom. They aren’t a topwater type of fish. Sutton writes about summer nights on waters in Arkansas, hearing the strange drumming sound coming from the water, beneath the boat, which gives the fish its name.

I ask him if that didn’t come from those large “pearls” which are found inside the fish’s throat. Sutton points out those round, white, shiny (when polished) bones, are actually called “otoliths” and are found in most all of our fish, except in other fish they are tiny, sometimes no bigger than a grain of rice. And they are part of the ear structure inside fish. We don’t often think of fish having ears, but technically they do.

“The otoliths from a large drum may be marble-sized,” writes Sutton. “Old timers called them ‘lucky bones,’ and Native Americans actually used them for trade like ‘wampum’. Scientists can take a cross section of an otolith from any fish and look at the rings in it (just like rings on a tree) to age the fish.”

“The sound they make has nothing to do with those otooliths,” he continues, “It comes from the male freshwater drum, croaking away as part of its mating ritual. A unique set of muscles contract around the fish’s swim bladder, causing the air-filled organ to boom like a balloon rubbed with the fingertips. Fisheries scientists speculate that female drum, ready to spawn, swim toward the males they hear calling from a distance.”

“In the south, drum are also called ‘gaspergou’, a name which obviously comes from Cajun fishermen, meaning ‘to break’ and ‘shellfish’. Drum eat lots of snails and mussels, which may be why that name originated. Some of the gaspergou’s common names, besides drum,—are thunderpumper, croaker and bubbler—all derived from this exercise of voice. James Gowanloch commented in Fish and Fishing in Louisiana, ‘The members of this family are peculiarly able to produce quite vigorous sounds, so vigorous indeed that a school of Drums, swimming past an anchored boat, can awaken a sound sleeper.’ On Lake Winnebago, Wisconsin, the noise produced by big drum in June resembles ‘a motorcycle gang racing in the distance,’ said one fisheries biologist there.”

Sutton’s full story on freshwater drum can be read in the August-September issue of the Lightnin’ Ridge Outdoor Journal. He is quite a writer, one of the best in the whole country. He has a BS degree in wildlife management, and spent 19 years working in the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission’s Information and Education Division, and still lives down not far from the Arkansas River west of Little Rock. During those years in the AG&FC, he worked with Jim Spencer, another outdoor writer with a degree in wildlife management who now is retired and lives out in the woods near the lower White river where the southeastern Ozarks is absolutely beautiful. You couldn’t work with Jim Spencer all those years and not learn a lot about the field of outdoor writing, and Sutton certainly knows what he is doing. He has several books out, one on crappie fishing and one on catfishing that would be of particular interest to readers of this column. You can find out about those and other books on his website, www.catfishsutton.com, or by writing to him at 15601 Mountain Drive, Alexander, Arkansas, 72002.

If we can arrange another outdoorsman’s swap meet in the late summer or early fall like we did last year, I would like to arrange for Sutton and Spencer and another old-time Ozarks outdoor writer, Monte Burch, to all be there to meet with our readers and sign their books. The three of them put together more knowledge on the outdoors and hunting and fishing than any three writers I know in the Midwest, maybe the whole country. It would be quite an event.

But I am not through talking about the drum, which is a fish found in most Ozark waters to some extent, and it seems their populations are growing. The fish may be looked upon by some as undesirable, just because they have their mouths on the bottom, like the carp. But again, they are a native fish, and did you realize these fish can grow to weights in excess of fifty pounds? Bass, walleye and crappie can’t come close to that. I have heard that drum may have once grown to weights of nearly 200 pounds, according to bones found in archaeological sites.

It isn’t unusual at all to see them up to ten pounds in our streams and lakes, and when you catch one that large, you have a fight on your hands. They stay deep and last long, and you had better have your drag set right when you hook a large one on light tackle. My uncle and I were fishing for early spring walleye on the Sac River years ago with a jig and minnow when I hooked a 15-pound drum. I was convinced it was a giant walleye until I finally saw it after a 15-minute struggle.

I sat back and looked at that drum so disappointed until my uncle reminded me that few people complain about hooking and landing a 15-pound fish. I got to thinking about it, and he was right. I took the fish home and filleted it, and grilled those large chunks of white meat and they were delicious. But one thing you will notice about a drum is that they do not have nearly as much meat on the body as you would think. A ten- pound walleye does give you a great deal more meat than a ten-pound drum. Sutton’s article made me realize that while a drum never will make me as happy as a fat crappie or a hefty walleye, no fisherman should ever look at one as a trash fish.

The August-September issue of our Lightnin’ Ridge Outdoor Journal will be ready in about a week, and it has some great stories besides Keith’s. Jim Spencer wrote a hilarious account of some of his past frogging trips, and we reprinted a humorous old article from back in the 1930’s about a city slicker hiring a fishing guide. You can read about dove-hunting, teal hunting, a fishing trip on the Gasconade river in late summer, and an account of the last passenger pigeon, Martha, which died in the Cincinnati zoo in September of 1914, almost 96 years ago. Colonel Calhoun Hedgerow wrote with much disdain and contempt about one of my favorite pastimes… noodling catfish. It may be his last column, as there ain’t a noodler in the country he can whip, or outrun!

You can order your copy from us at LROJ, Box 22, Bolivar, Mo. 65613, for only 5 dollars, including the postage. You can see the cover soon on my website, www.larrydablemontoutdoors.blogspot.com E-mail me at lightninridge@windstream.net.