Atlantic Croaker

Atlantic croaker are most often mixed up with spot and small black drum, since all three share the same coastal water and the same coppery, silvery-gray body. Look at the mouth first. Croaker have a small, distinctly downturned mouth set under a blunt snout, built for feeding on the bottom, along with several tiny barbels or fringe along the chin edge that spot and black drum do not have. Spot are shorter-bodied with a single dark shoulder spot behind the gill and no chin barbels, and their mouth is smaller and less obviously underslung. Black drum share the chin barbels but grow far larger, have a deeper, humped body, and show faint vertical bars when young rather than the wavy, broken lines that run along a croaker's back and sides.

Croaker also have a rougher feel to their scales than spot, and their dorsal fin has a noticeable notch between the spiny front section and the soft rear section. Coloration runs silvery to brassy with a pattern of dark, squiggly lines that gives the back a marbled look, fading to white on the belly. If you catch one and squeeze it gently near the gills, it will make a distinct croaking or drumming sound, which is where the name comes from and is a quick way to confirm you have a croaker and not a spot.

Croaker live in bays, sounds, and coastal rivers over mud and sandy bottom. They tolerate a wide range of salinity, so you find them well up into brackish water as well as right off the beach in the surf.

Look for them around inlets, piers, channel edges, and grass flat drop-offs. They school tight to the bottom, so once you find one you usually find several more in the same spot.

Bottom feeders through and through. Croaker eat worms, small crabs, shrimp, and other small crustaceans, plus the occasional small fish. They locate food by smell and taste more than sight, feeling around the bottom with sensory barbels near the mouth.

A simple bottom rig with a small hook, a light sinker, and a piece of bloodworm or shrimp is all you need. Fish it right on the bottom near piers, bridges, or inlet edges. Croaker have small mouths, so keep hooks small, a size 4 to 1 works well, and cut your bait into small pieces rather than using a whole shrimp.

They school up thick, so once you get a bite, drop right back into the same spot. A double-hook bottom rig lets you catch two at a time when they are running. Summer evenings on a lit pier are hard to beat.