Our Story
Drum Spots was created in 2015 and is based out of Pensacola, FL. You can find us on Instagram.
After years of fishing the Emerald Coast for red drum, I discovered unique spot patterns that would appear on the fish. The patterns, to name a few, were hearts, smiley faces, numbers, and letters. This led me to create the Instagram page that would profile these unique catches and, hopefully, inspire other anglers to also notice and embrace these spot formations, exclusive to all other kinds of fish. This led to an extensive, enthusiastic response and many rewarding correspondences from Texas to Virginia, and even to Hong Kong! Yes, you can catch red drum in the wild in Hong Kong! Click here for the story. The page was also created to bring together anglers to compete in a multi-state red drum spot tournament. To view the past tournaments, click the links for Drum Spots Tournament #1, Drum Spots Tournament #2, and Drum Spots Tournament #3. Future tournaments will raise money to benefit catch and release efforts and conservation causes. Contact us at service@drumspots.com if you are interested to be a sponsor in an upcoming tournament.
Drum Spots also promotes catch and release through the weekly Instagram feature "Caught Twice Tuesday". Click the following link to view stories of catch and release that led to the same red drum being caught multiple times by the same angler or by different anglers: Caught Twice.
The power of catch and release is also told through the incredible story of “The Mayor of Tampa Bay”. Over a time span of one year and seven months, the Drum Spots community submitted pictures that documented the same red drum being caught thirteen times by thirteen different anglers. Click here for the story.
After five years of the page being created, all twenty-six characters in the English alphabet, and the ten single-digit numbers (0 through 9) have been found on red drum by the Drum Spots community! This is only the second time that the entire English alphabet and numbers 0 – 9 have been found on an animal. The first time this was discovered was on the wings of butterflies. It took 15 years and traveling to over 20 countries for Kjell (“shell”) Sandved and Barbara Bedette to complete the Butterfly Alphabet. Click here for the Drum Spots Alphabet Story. Click here for the Butterfly Alphabet story. It’s amazing and very interesting that this has occurred on two different animals that both utilize false eyes to fool predators.
A variety of unique spots and spot patterns have been discovered by the Drum Spots community: red drum can have zero spots (buck naked channel bass) to having 500+ spots (leopard red). The heart spot is the most commonly found unique spot followed by the smiley face spot. Other unique spots that reoccur are Mickey Mouse, question marks, Pac-Man, lucky number 13, letters and numbers, and emoji faces. A number of other unique spots have been discovered, and new ones will continue to be discovered. Click the following links to view these unique spots.
Buck Naked Channel Bass Drum Spots
We hope to inspire people to fish and be more engaged in the outdoors while being good stewards of their natural resources.
Each year, a portion of profits from merchandise sales is donated to catch and release efforts and conservation causes.
Get tight!
