We used the jet ski winch to haul it up for the picture!

WOW.

Are they good eating?

the big ones are loaded with worms

Sand worms or bad worms ?

Neither - he's not talking about the stomach; he means little worms (parasites of some sort) crawling in the meat. Heck of a fish, though.

I agree Black drum are some good eats. grilled with butter and limon is hard to beat. I have a hard time eating BD over 25lbs as the big ones are more prone to have worms. I’m not a fan of candling and picking worms out of meat im going to eat. Haven said that I believe it’s only a small amount of BD that has the worms. None the less nice fish... was that a Barnegat fish?

Fish was caught along IBSP on a spro/gulp combination.

Real Nice fish...but I'm with you Mark...I just can't bring myself around to picking worms out of my meal...Now using worms to catch my meal is totally different story!!!

How big? Was that caught in the bay?
Al

You are a very strong man being able to hold that fish out there like that.

Heh Heh - That powerful man is Rich Esche (Teacher's Pet). He caught the 61.5 lb black drum while fluking on the ocean side of Island Beach State Park on a spro/gulp combination.

If it isn't good to eat why keep it?

That was my question..Did he feed it to his cats?

Wow, if Black Drum live to around 55 years and top out at around 100 lbs, that fish could have possibly been 30-40 years old, pretty impressive.

Reckless BD is very good to eat but some people just don’t like the possibility of worms... It’s the same situation as Cod, they are also prone to worms and candling is a common practice with Cod. Personally I put BD above Cod as far as table fair.Just like cod smaller BD generally don’t have worms

Seems like a trophy photo to me.