Freshwater Drum

Habitat Distribution

• Freshwater Dr.um typically inhabit medium to large rivers and lakes at depths of 40-60 feet.

Key Locations

• In North Carolina, productive locations include the French Broad River system, Kerr Reservoir, Lake Gaston, Roanoke Rapids Lake, and the Roanoke River downstream from dams.
• In North Carolina, they have a limited native presence in the western Mountain river basins, historically known from only a handful of records in the lower French Broad River near the Tennessee state line, Big Laurel Creek, and Spring Creek in Madison County below Redmon Dam.
• They were also illegally introduced into John H.
• Kerr Reservoir (Roanoke basin) sometime in the 1980s-1990s, with populations now expanding into Lake Gaston, Roanoke Rapids Lake, and downstream into the Roanoke River system.
• In 2020, they expanded into the Dan River at Milton in Caswell County.

Specific Spots

• Target deeper areas of rivers and lakes (up to 60 feet deep), deep river channels, near deep rock outcroppings, slow-moving pools next to fast water, particularly curl backs of slow-moving water close to faster-moving channels or rock outcroppings, slow-moving pools, backwater, circling eddies, and still water near fast-moving channels.