Gary Clouse’s Day1 first-place bag of 25 pounds, 12 ounces came in short order. Clouse explained it on “Bassmaster LIVE” this morning. In the 99-boat takeoff order, he left Palatka at 10:25 a.m. after the fog delay. Then, after a two-plus-hour run, “I put the trolling motor down at 12:40,” Clouse said. “At 1:40, I was done. I caught seven or eight, but I basically had five five-pounders. It was the most unbelievable hour of fishing maybe in my life, but definitely in tournament fishing.”
After Clouse boated his first keeper today, he tied another hook on what was planned to be a Texas rig, and Clouse had to laugh at himself, saying, “I’m all shook up. I forgot to put a sinker on. I guess if we didn’t get excited we shouldn’t be doing this game.”
The long run again today has left Clouse in an area all to himself and with much more time to fish it.