Freshwater drum feed heavily on snails, other mollusks, and crayfish. Although the drum can be caught with bait or lures and fights hard, it is not important as a game fish because of its low quality flesh. In most areas it is considered a rough fish, in the same class as carp, with only a minor value in the commercial fishery. Distribution of freshwater drum in NY state. Dark dots represent where actual samples of freshwater drum were taken.
White dots represent historic distributions.
A 410 KB image of the freshwater drum is also available for download .