Top : Clay in Live Oak Plantation GA .
Left : Clay ’ s record bass 9.2 lbs . in his first tournament on the Santee Cooper with Capt . Marc Deschenes of VIP Adventures .
You could see the facial expressions of awe in that we just landed two fish while the boat was still moving from coming off plane , the trolling motor had not even been deployed and fish were flopping around on the deck already . I put the Power Poles down , took some pics , and then explained that it ’ s fighting time now , so get ready .
As they climbed above the casting platform , I had to remind Clay that there would be no back flips today and as he agreed more fish moved in . Clay hooked one on the right and Sean hooked one on the left , it was another double within minutes of each other . This scenario continued to play out over the next 60 minutes , the reds were everywhere , it almost seemed as if we were under attack .
As time moved on they continued to land red after red and released every one of them to be caught another day . After a while Sean decided it was time to take a break and focus on recouping from his late night in the quarter , so with only Clay with rod in hand , I eased the boat into a small grassy pinch point where days earlier there was a school of 10 or more reds just waiting as bait fish and crabs were forced into the buffet funnel . As we got closer I could hear Clay counting out loud , “ 1,3,7,10 , Holy cow there are like 20 reds sitting right in front of us .” I Power Poled down again and told him to let it rip and within seconds he was battling a red , as soon it was landed I handed him another pole already rigged and fish on again . Within a matter of minutes there were three fish landed and flopping on the deck , all while Sean was napping in the rear of the boat . I am pretty sure had we not been catching and releasing everything that day , he could have landed a fish on every rod in the boat in that one spot and probably within 5 minutes he would have had all eight rods hooked to a fish flopping on the deck , but it was more important to stop casting , get some pictures , and then release the fish while they were still healthy and not stressed . With every fish that was released it seemed the actioned got better and better throughout the morning until it was time to go in . When Clay looked down from his high rise platform and said , “ Captain , I ’ ve caught a lot of redfish in my day , but I have never caught this many reds in one day ,” at that point I knew it was a day neither of us would likely ever forget .
Continued on pg . 39