Puppy Drum Fishing: Winter Rivers, Bait, and Tides

Puppy drum fishing is a winter river game. Eating-size black drum, roughly 14 to 24 inches, slide into the deep holes of Florida's spring-fed coastal rivers when the Gulf of Mexico drops into the 50s. Fish the channel edge where a rocky point meets deep water, on an outgoing tide, with select shrimp threaded on a 1/8 ounce jig head. Then reel down to the weight before you set.

That consensus answer is mostly right. What it leaves out is why, and the why decides whether you fill a cooler or anchor on dead water. I was aboard on the Homosassa River in a hard winter when fifth-generation Nature Coast guide Capt. William Toney and Capt. Chad Bryson filmed the drum bite, and the details below come off that boat. Our big drum and Florida Bay flats shoots round out the black drum fishing videos library.

What Is a Puppy Drum, and What Size Is Best to Eat?

A puppy drum is a small black drum, the eating-size fish of roughly 14 to 24 inches that winters in coastal rivers and bays. They are the same species as the 40 and 50 pound drum offshore. Smaller fish carry clean white fillets; drum over about 30 inches carry worms through the meat.

Capt. William Toney's line on the big ones is blunt: past 30 inches, you are better off filleting the worms and eating them. Toney and Capt. Madison MacDonald said the same over a 30 pound drum on the Nature Coast: anyone who cleans one that size is having spaghetti with their fish. The name itself is east coast slang; Toney notes it is St. Johns River anglers who call them puppy drum.

The eating window is also the legal window. When we filmed with Toney, Florida's black drum rule was a 14 to 24 inch slot, five fish per angler, with one fish over 24 inches allowed. Limits change, so confirm the current rule at myfwc.com before you put a fish on ice.

How Do You Tell a Black Drum From a Sheepshead?

Both carry dark vertical bars and share the same river holes, so juveniles get confused constantly. A black drum has chin barbels, a sloped head, and a mouth that turns down toward the bottom. A sheepshead has a set of teeth that look human, and dorsal spines sharp enough to send someone to the hospital.

Toney and Bryson caught both on the same shrimp off the same rocky edge, so Toney reads the bite, not the stripes. A sheepshead plucks, spits, and sucks the shrimp back in, the motion it uses to strip a barnacle from its shell. A drum picks the bait up and pulls away slow and steady. If you feel tapping, you are feeding sheepshead, and Toney's own sheepshead fishing on the Florida Gulf Coast video covers that bite in full. Stripes fade as drum grow, too; by the time a black drum reaches 30 pounds, the bars are gone entirely.

Where Do Puppy Drum Hold in Winter on the Nature Coast?

In winter, black drum move up the spring-fed rivers between Tampa and Tallahassee and hold in the deeper holes along the channel edge. The Homosassa, Crystal, Chassahowitzka, Withlacoochee, and Steinhatchee all fish the same way. Look where the channel swings close to the bank, especially off a rocky point.

These are natural limestone channels with little dredging, so you can read them without electronics. Toney's shortcut is the channel marker closest to the bank; a rocky point running out toward it marks where the bottom drops into the channel. On our stretch, the shoreline fell to 2 or 3 feet, then dumped to 8 to 12 feet on the edge. Where current falls into the hole and boils back up, the drum lie just off the drop, facing up current.

Then work the river from its head toward the west until you find the comfort zone. Toney says a north-south line drawn across the Nature Coast would hit the same temperature and depth zone in nearly every river. Two days before our shoot, his bite was half a mile farther upriver; after a couple of warmer nights, the fish had slid down to stay in the same water temperature. They follow temperature, not spots. Toney's own article on winter black drum on the Nature Coast covers the deep, hard-shell holes he targets.

Once you find them, stay tight. In cold water, drum school so closely that 5 to 10 feet separates a hot spot from a dead one, which is why the angler in the back of the boat sometimes catches every fish. Fish the sunny bank first. After a freeze a few weeks before we filmed, the dead snook, ladyfish, and mullet on the Homosassa were lined up along the sun-struck bank, where they had gone to stay warm.

Outgoing or Incoming Tide in a Spring-Fed River?

Fish the outgoing tide in a spring-fed river in winter. The headwaters of the Homosassa hold a constant 70 to 72 degrees while the Gulf of Mexico sits in the low 50s. A falling tide drags that warm spring water down the river into the deep holes, and the drum feed there.

Why the Incoming Tide Advice Fails Here

Most tide advice stops at moving water, and much of what is written about winter drum favors the incoming. In these rivers a strong incoming pushes cold Gulf of Mexico water upriver, and Toney has watched it shut a bite down fast; the fish retreat upriver or lie up. The outgoing does not warm the river evenly, either. Warm water pools in eddies and deep pockets, and that is where a school stacks up.

Toney also prefers a new moon to a full one: the same volume of water, with a gentler push. Our best bite came around 2 PM on a hard outgoing tide, quarter moon, 61 degree water. Write those numbers down; a year later, the same conditions often produce the same fish. For the broader principles, our breakdown of how tides affect saltwater fishing covers the mechanics.

Fishing Puppy Drum Around Winter Cold Fronts

The best winter black drum bite comes the day or two before a cold front, and the day the front arrives is usually good too. After it passes, the bluebird sky and high pressure make for the slowest fishing of the cycle. That holds on open water. Spring-fed rivers soften it, because the springs keep the water temperature steady.

Toney's ideal forecast is highs of 60 to 70 with lows around 45, close to our shoot day: a 45 degree morning, a high near 60, sun on a sheltered cove. His best months run November through March, stretching into early May depending on temperature. River drum are rare for him in summer.

On a bluebird day after a front, fish out in the Gulf of Mexico go lethargic, and Toney's advice for that water is to bag it and go play golf. Up the spring rivers, steady water keeps fish feeding. When a front locks down open water, the river is where you go.

What's the Best Bait and Rig for Puppy Drum?

Shrimp is the best bait for puppy drum: fresh select shrimp, 2.5 to 4 inches, threaded on a 1/8 ounce jig head or fished on a knocker rig. Fiddler crabs and sections of blue crab work too. Drum feed by scent and by the barbels on their chin, so fresh bait that sits on the bottom wins.

Rigging Shrimp on a Jig Head

Pinch off the tail, run the hook along the base of the spine to about halfway, then press the jig head up inside the shrimp's head like seating a soft plastic. The weight sits forward, so it casts farther, and since shrimp swim backward, a bait bumped tail-first along the bottom looks alive. On a big shrimp, twist the head off, toss it over, and seat the jig head in its place.

Jig head color mattered on our shoot. Bryson caught fish on red while Toney threw chartreuse, until Toney switched and started catching. On charters, he starts every angler on a different color and lets the fish vote. His rig:

• Jig head: 1/8 ounce, short shank, tied with a loop knot for a little extra action
• Leader: 20 pound Seaguar fluorocarbon, 18 to 26 inches long, joined to the main line with a surgeon's knot and no swivel
• Main line and tackle: 10 pound PowerPro on a Shimano 3000 spinning reel and a 7'6" G. Loomis inshore rod
• Knocker rig alternative: a 1/8 to 1/4 ounce sliding sinker on a 2/0 hook with barbs on the shank to hold the shrimp

The long leader lets you retie after a limestone snag without rebuilding the connection. When you hang up, leave it five or six minutes with slack; a passing fish or the current often pulls it free. Toney never chums for drum, because chum brings hardhead catfish first. The full rigging sequence, knots included, is in the Black Puppy Drum Fishing with William Toney video.

Anchoring and Bait Placement

Set two anchors, stern first, then swing the bow toward the drop and slip the bow anchor. On one anchor, wind and tide spin the boat and drag every bait off the edge. Anchor 30 to 40 feet up-tide of the spot, just off the channel where traffic won't run you over, and never idle over the hole.

Then picture the river drained. The fish sit on the slope below the shelf, waiting for crabs and shrimp to tumble off. Land the bait midway down that hill and let it roll. Too shallow and pinfish strip it; too far out on the flat bottom, you feed hardhead catfish.

Do You Set the Hook on a Black Drum?

With a J-hook or jig head, yes, but only after you feel weight. With a circle hook, no. Black drum do not strike. They pick up the bait, crunch it, and swim off slowly, so a fast hookset pulls the bait away. Let the fish load the rod first.

How Three Captains Handle the Bite

Toney fishes river drum with a slight belly in the line, since a tight line on that bottom just snags. He watches for the pickup, reels down to the weight, then sets. The bite is a pickup and a slow, steady pull, heavier than a mangrove snapper peck and lighter than a redfish's bam. Bryson, on the same anchor, crawled his shrimp across the oysters and rock, went slack on the pickup, then cranked down. The movement adds sight to scent, and Toney credited that crawl with putting fish in the boat.

On big Nature Coast drum, Capt. Madison MacDonald fishes a 5/0 circle hook and never sets it. The drum crunches the crab, and only when it swims off does he reel, letting the hook roll into the corner of the mouth. Toney, on the rod for that shoot and not used to circle hooks, said the hard part was not swinging. Often the bite is one thump, then slack. If you came up on redfish, unlearn the redfish hookset before you fish for drum.

Three Black Drum Fisheries, Three Rulebooks

Every rule above is built for winter river puppy drum. On a Nature Coast bank or a Florida Bay flat, half of them flip. ITS has filmed all three.

Madison's drum stage out on the buoy line waiting for the tide, full and not feeding. When the incoming starts, they push onto the bank to tail, and those fish eat. In dark water, live crabs drew refusals until he cracked one in half for scent, and the bite came within seconds. A tailing fish that vanishes has usually just tipped vertical; most anglers blow through and leave it.

In Florida Bay, Capt. Ruben Lee's drum barely move with the tide, rarely push a wake, and see almost nothing off to the side, so the pitch has to land near the nose. If a drum crushes half the shrimp and drops it, he circles back hunting for the scent, and a second pitch to the same spot usually gets him.

Puppy Drum Fishing FAQ

Where Puppy Drum Fit in a Winter Game Plan

A puppy drum will never draw the crowd a snook does. But on a 45 degree morning, with the Gulf of Mexico cold and the flats empty, the Nature Coast spring rivers hold fish that bite, pull hard toward the bottom, and eat as well as anything inshore. The anglers who catch them consistently read three things at once: water temperature, the tide that moves it, and the spot on the slope where the bait settles. Get all three right and the deja vu Toney talks about repeats year after year.

When the water warms and the big drum come up on the banks, the rulebook changes, and Capt. Madison MacDonald's Sight Casting Big Black Drum on the Nature Coast shows how it changes.

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