Nice! I have to plan a trip next spring in D-Bay. Maybe I will try and put together a larger charter if there is enough interest.

How do they taste? Think I had one run off on me a while ago but never caught one

I have never caught one or tasted one. I have heard they are good.

Sweet, never caught one but would be interested in going

We will be doing a trip on Sunday in LEI area, had my first one last year and they taste great. Grilled with lemon and butter is hard to beat. Pain in the AS# to clean but well worth it. I would rank it in the top 5 of my favorite fish. I would not take one over 25-30lbs they start getting really wormy and I’m not into that.

A little know fact about drum fish!!!
A 65lber will generally produce only 8 lbs of meat.

count me in if you schedule a charter next spring Joe, Was planning on draggin my boat down to d-bay with a few friends this month but that fell through.

Guys if you want to get in on the drum fishing in delaware bay, send me a PM. I have a friend that has his 30' Grady White in Fortescue.

Hope no one gets too offended, but I still don't understand why you see pics of these guys keeping monster drum when everyone knows they're full of worms. Let them live to be caught another day. Just my opinion.

I did not know that before reading this post, so i probly would have kept it too. But now i know better

Hook,

Not all of the drum are full of worms. In my experience,most of the drum I have caught have had no worms. I think out of the 30+ drum I have caught or helped clean, only 2-3 had worms. Those that had worms usually had them localized and not throughout the meat. So it was possible to just remove that small section of meat.

I personally release most of the ones I catch but it is mainly due to how much of a pain they are to clean. But they are very good to eat.

I had no idea they had worms either as I have never caught one He was weighing it in for the Fisherman Dream Boat Challange. He caught it last night around 7pm. I would love to go drum fishing if you get something together Joe.

Several years ago we caught 4 in the 65-90 lb range just outside BI..Toughest fish I have ever cleaned. We literally used a sawzall to cut through the skin. Only one had a localized area of worms..I too would rate it in the top 5 fish I have ever eaten, and so did the other folks who ate it. Rich

Im good friends with John and NONE of that fish is going to waste. I was about to post that he had another bigger one today and was on his way to Lacey but I see the pic is already up. Not all have worms and like cwitch said its localized in most and easily cleaned out. Cod have worms too and I put as many legal fish in my cooler as I can every trip. John is friends with alot of old school Italians that take the drum and cook, boil, bake, whatever, every part including the head! He gets all sorts of food goodies in return and eats it himself also. Some of "these" guys you talk about spend 5 days a week on the water earning fish like that. I have to agree that when I see 15 drum lined up after a charter for a picture I think its overkill but thats not the case here. Today he was alone and fought the bigger fish in the other picture for 40 minutes before getting it in the boat himself. I say good job and enjoy. Just my opinion..

Tonights fish was 10lbs bigger! Congrats John!

BobL do you have his email? I was gonna give him a call but didn't want to bother him.

Email sent. Check your PM's. Bob

had reports some of the guys clamming in Barnegat Bay have caught a few

for that matter as well, i dont get why people keep stripers over 40lbs, sure a 50lb fish is a trophy but dont people know that you can have a replica made of a fish with a couple simple measurements, its not going to taste as good as a smaller fish anyway, replicas last longer look better and are worth every penny, if you dont know who makes a good replica or dont believe they look better check this guy out, raymond grander, catchandreleasefishreproductions.com, he's unbelievable and many more like him out there. a skin mount will eventually turn into trash, besides take a picture, tired of lookin at dead fish pics they arent very interesting...

NICE!!!

I went back out with John last night and we had ten more nice ones for 3 of us. 8 released, I kept one 40ish pound fish and my uncle kept one about the same. This bigger one posed for a quick picture and then went back swimming. Im 6'5 for some scale. Nice to find fish like this in Great Bay and not have to make the run down to Cape May.

Wow this bite was 7 years ago already? Those were some big brutes, hope we get another shot some day

There were a bunch of big ole worm bags in Raritan Bay last year.

There was very few last spring in the back bays. It would be nice to get a couple weeks on them along with some bass