By Gary Turner
Stacy Fleming and I booked a couple of quick trips to go fishing with our friend and guide, Dewayne Proffit. When I say quick trips, it means we get off work, drive over to Summerton, South Carolina, crash at the hotel for a few hours, meet Dewayne at the dock around 6:00 a.m., fish all day, and get the fish cleaned with Ms. Yoi while we grab a bite at either the Goat Island Restaurant or the Lake House. Once dinner is done, we pick up the fish and start homeward. We usually get back home around midnight, tired, a little sunburned, and smiling. Why do we do such things? Because we love fishing on Santee, and we have to save our extended times off work for West Palm, Florida!
So, the first trip we hit the weather right. We arrived at the dock, loaded up, and headed out to find hungry fish! We caught a cooler full, with several over 20 pounds and lots of fish under 20. An added bonus was two bald eagles, which we saw several times. We also saw a few large gators, one over 10 feet. It was a great day on the water. We told Dewayne about some of our West Palm trips, and he said he wanted to go with us sometime.
Fast-forward a couple of weeks. Stacy and I are driving toward Santee, and Dewayne calls and says, “Where are you?” I say, “Well, we are about an hour out of Athens.” He says, “Y’all need to be here now! I’m out by myself, and I’m loading up. I just released a 40 pound flathead!” I’m like, “Well shoot, we are rolling!” He says, “The weather is changing tonight, and y’all should have been here today.” That’s always the way it is. You should have been here yesterday! I told him we would see him in the morning.
We met at the dock at 6:00 a.m. as usual. The wind was pretty still as we headed out. We got to the first spot and set up. Lucky for us, the fish were still biting and we caught some nice blues! One was a little over 30 pounds! We caught several 10 to 20 pounders. Then the wind turned. Sometimes the wind turns them on and sometimes it turns them off. We decided to set up some drifts. Here is where things got interesting.
We were marking large schools of fish, some large fish and lots of small. We are using 7/0 circles meant to catch bigger fish. All of a sudden, the baits are getting hit over and over. We started holding the rods and trying to hook the guys. The big fish have all quit biting and now it’s amateur hour. All the fish are 12-16” blues with the occasional large bullhead mixed in. We are still marking the large fish, but none of them are biting. Those who have fished a lot know exactly how it goes. We started talking about trips again and decided the three of us should get down to West Palm soon. We are headed down there this week, so stay tuned!
Hopefully my next article will be about all of the fish we caught on some of my upcoming trips, so remember, if you have an empty seat on your boat that needs filling, shoot me an email and maybe I will come fishing with you!
If you want more information about fishing, you can reach Gary Turner at gary@purgeright.com.