Most of us think that fish move silently through the water. Well, that isn’t the case with croakers and their relatives. During World War II a school of croakers made so much noise that it was depth charged by a destroyer.

The Atlantic croaker (Micropogonias undulatus) is a member of the sciaenidae family along with red and black drums, spotted sea trout and spot to name a few.

The Atlantic croaker can be found along our eastern coasts from Cape Cod, Mass. to Campeche Bank, Mexico. It’s one of the most abundant inshore fish species in the southeastern Atlantic and northern Gulf of Mexico.

In recent years it has become less plentiful in the Gulf and isn’t as widely distributed as it once was and the spot seems to have filled some of its niche. The world record croaker was caught from the northern Gulf of Mexico and measured 26.4 inches in length. The oldest croaker ever recorded was eight years old.

We tend to think of croakers as an inshore fish but they can be found far offshore where the larger ones seem to stay. Due to different temperature conditions, northern populations of croaker spawn earlier in the season, reach maturity later in life, are larger in size and live longer than southern populations.

Croakers are a luminescent fish and appear slightly pink when you first pull them out of water. A croaker’s tail is slightly pointed. It has faint stripes across its back and very small chin barbels. The number of eggs per female croaker range from 100,800 to 1,742,000 for a fish between seven and 15 inches long.

The size and age at maturity depends on location with spawning taking place offshore in the fall and winter months.

Croakers are opportunistic bottom feeders, eating a variety of invertebrates and fish small enough to get their mouth around.

Croakers are eaten by many of the predatory species in the bays and offshore to include flounders, spotted sea trout and Spanish mackerel.

Recreational anglers catch typically catch croakers from four to 12 inches long from the inshore waters. Fish this size are usually considered too smaller to bother cleaning but if you give them a try you’ll find the meat sweet and flavorful.

You can take them with just about any type of cut bait or small plastic grubs on a lead headed jig. Croakers and hardhead catfish seem to like the same area of the bottom so if you’re catching catfish there are usually croakers around.

In the past the croaker found their way into commercial catches in a big way. Looking at the commercial catch by decades in the Gulf; 104.5 million pounds were landed; in the 1950s, 10.0 in the ‘60s, 94.6 in the ‘70s, 18.2 in the ‘80s and 2.2 million pounds in the 1990s.

The reason for this sharp decline was over fishing, which caused the stock to collapse. The croaker was used for pet food and fertilizer among other things and shipped overseas, where it was and still is prized as an excellent food fish.

Think Global – Act Local!

Dr. “Skip” Lazauski can be seen on the television show “Eco-Bites”, which airs on Mediacom’s channel 14 and Smartel’s channel 4. To reach Dr. Lazauski for questions and comments, send e-mail to IchiOrca@yahoo.com. For more information, see his Web site, drskiponline.com.