Small in size but HUGE in value as a tabled food fish the Golden Croaker also gives credence to its excellence as a fighter. FUN is the key word here folks when explaining the annual fall fishing phenomenon of Galveston Bays Golden Croaker run.
A smaller member of the Drum family, croaker seldom reaches over a pound in weight but during its annual fall run adult golden croaker has been known to reach 19 inches in length and 4 pounds in weight. But normal angler catches during the fall run will be the ¾ to one pound fish with numbers replacing poundage.
Related to its much larger cousins the redfish and black drum, the golden croaker are often mistaken by other species such as yellow tail (sand perch) spots (a croaker like fish with a spot near its gill)-, and unfortunately the rat red (undersized redfish) and puppy drum (undersized black drum). All of these fish make grunting, or drumming sounds similar to the croaker. So itâs best that you really know their differences or you will be ticketed and fined by game fish officers. Croaker, yellow tail, and spots have no size or creel limits but redfish (21â to 28â slot) and black drum (15â to 30â slot) do and fines for keeping undersized or even oversized reds and drums can be severe.
Croaker are silvery colored in their early life but start turning bronze or golden hues during their adult stages. Their upper bodies are heavily marked with small speckles in wavy vertical lines. They have under-slung mouths with barbles and extra sharp gill-plates, which must be handled carefully or razor like cuts will be suffered by the anglers who handle them. The croaker can be separated from the spot by its lack of a spot behind the head and from the rat red that has a spot on its tail.
(Micropogonias undulates) the Croaker, an Atlantic species, can be found from New England all the way down the eastern coast into the Gulf of Mexico. Fished for all along the Texas coast in bays, cuts, and estuaries, the croaker can also be found offshore in waters as deep as 300 feet around offshore oil and gas rigs. But inshore anglers can have their fun during the fall when the croaker begin a massive migration from the bays to spawn in the deeper waters of the Gulf during winter
Getting its name from vibrating their air bladders to attract females during spawning season the croaking sounds of the males can even be heard above the surface of the water when huge schools mass under piers, boats, or docks. After spawning in the Gulf, tides and currents will carry the free-floating croaker eggs and larvae back to inshore bays estuaries and nursery grounds, where they quickly develop as bottom dwellers eating worms, crustaceans, mollusks, small fish, and insects growing to a one half/pound size within just one year. By their second year they begin taking on the bronze-like golden hues of adult croaker. As the bay waters begin to cool the adult croaker begin to swarm into massive schools to start their spawning migration back towards the Gulf.
One thing about the fall run of the golden croaker is that they are easy to rig up for and very easy to catch, and when the run is in full swing (usually mid-September) anglers can quickly fill their fish baskets with plenty of great eating fish. Just about anyone with a rod and reel, or just a plain old bamboo pole, can get in on the croaker action fishing for these fun-tastic critters.
My preference is for light tackle, such as a 6 ½ ft medium/light spinning rod and open face spinning reel spooled with 8 to 12 lb test monofilament lines. This will give you maximum excitement on the rod bending fights that these critters can provide, but a word of caution here folks, if you arenât in tune with light tackle angling go to heavier gear such as bass type tackle with bait casting reels. My spinning reels have gear flips (switches for anti-reverse to free spool) right behind the line spools, which makes it easier to âfree-spoolâ the reel for back reeling a hard fighting croaker. And believe me; this happens quite often as a 1 lb golden croaker can fight like a 5 lb redfish.
In low current to no current fishing areas use a slip-rig. Slide on a 1 oz egg or bell sinker (in medium to heavier currents use heavier weights) slip on a plastic bead and tie it off to a swivel. Tie on a 2 ft section of slightly lighter line (8 lb mainline- use 6 lb leader) to the swivel then tie on a #6 Aberdeen hook. The lighter leader line will allow break offs of the lighter line in case of bottom snags, saving you the loss of the more expense weights. The Aberdeen hook (wire-hook) will straighten out when being pulled from a snag but can be re-bent for fishing. The Aberdeen is also very sharp and will often cause the fish to hook itself when biting the bait. Prime bait is fresh dead shrimp cut into small 1 inch pieces
threaded over the barb of the hook. When huge schools of croaker begin moving through the passes and cuts they are in competition for the food and will often hit the bait really hard (no sissy nibblings here folks) just hard rod bending bites that can often rip your rod over and into the water within a blink of an eye. So keep your eye on your rod, in fact, when the run is on I strongly advise keeping your rod in your hands at all times.
Stronger rip tides require heavier rigs so tie on 2 to 3 oz dumbbell type weights with snelled leaders rigged with stainless long shank Mustad hooks tied on 8 to 10 inches above the weight. You can use a double rig here with another snelled hook tied on at least 8 inches above the first hook. The best tide for major croaker action are incoming tides with the croaker swimming against the currents. The hour before high tide is prime croaker time, which gives you a two hour prime croaker window of one hour before slack tide and one hour after tide change. Donât be misled if the croaker arenât running at the time that you are there because that situation can change dramatically when a school suddenly moves in. So be patient and keep your bait in the water.
Excellent eating, the golden croaker are often a preferred table fish by many anglers over the more promoted game fish species such as redfish and flounder (yes flounder) with golden croaker having very sweet and delicate flavors when deep fried or grilled and basted to a golden brown. I find the flavor of golden croaker superior to redfish.
My favorite golden croaker fishing spots are Rollover Pass (situated at Gilchrist TX, on the Bolivar Peninsula), Sea Wolf Park (located on Pelican Island in the Galveston Island shipping area), the Brazos County RV Park at San Luis Pass (situated on the Freeport side of the San Luis Pass bridge on the southern tip of Galveston Island), or Texas City Dike (located on the bayside of Texas City) Texas City Dike extends 8 miles out into the Galveston Bay system and offers drive-up fishing opportunities on both sides of the dike, with a fishing pier on its farthest point.
The croaker runs usually start in mid-August, but arenât really considered major runs until mid-September, when the adult Golden croaker begin showing up in huge numbers around passes, cuts, piers, ferry landings, and channel flats. Just look for concentrations of anglers along any of these areas during this time of year and I promise you will see a absolute frenzy of bending fishing rods with croaker after croaker filling their coolers in preparation for those family fish fries.
This is meat-fishing at its finest with adults and children of ALL AGES having TONS of FUN fishing for, and catching, an awful lot of fish in just a very short time …………….GO GETTUM!!!
This Ed Snyder/Outdoors report sponsored by; The Stump Restaurant & Club, The Bass Buster Inn, Fishing World.com, The LSRPA.By: Ed Snyder / Ed Snyder Outdoors
