How generations of fishing heritage shaped the perfectionist behind Fish City Woodworks' rocking seahorses

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When Henry Clay Brunson picks up a piece of wood, he carries with him the weight of Destin's fishing legacy—a heritage written in boat hulls, bait shops, and the lives of men who helped coin the phrase "World's Luckiest Fishing Village."

His uncle, Reddin "Salty" Brunson, was the captain who convinced Florida Governor Leroy Collins to take that famous 20-minute fishing trip in 1955, the one that landed a 29-pound king mackerel and gave Destin its legendary nickname. His father, Zack Brunson Sr., owned Zack's Bait in Destin and was a pillar of the community—serving on the board of directors for the Destin Community Center and Fishing Rodeo, helping establish the New Destin Cemetery, and receiving the Ross Marler Award for community service.

But Clay's story begins even earlier, in a Destin that barely exists anymore.

A Village of 75 Houses

"Destin was extremely small," Clay recalls. "Probably no more than 75 to 100 houses. I'm probably overstating that—maybe 50."

It was a place where neighbors called your parents to report they'd seen you wandering through town, not because you were in trouble, but because everyone looked out for each other. Where kids played baseball and hide-and-seek in enormous yards until "absolute black dark," hoping to catch a piece of cornbread from Clay's mom before heading home.

In that small fishing village, Clay's father and uncles were deeply embedded in the industry. Young Clay would go to their dock, watch them unload and load their boats, and listen to the old fishermen talk. He learned to love fishing before he was ever old enough to do it himself.

"When I was old enough to go fishing, at an early age, I was able to because of my family having a good name in it, and it afforded me a lot of experience that I wouldn't have got otherwise," he remembers. "I just never lost the love for being around the water and the boats."

The Six-Year-Old Boat Builder

Two of Clay's uncles were boat builders. He was always gifted with the talent to build and draw, and doing anything around water became his favorite thing.

The earliest evidence of this calling appeared when Clay was maybe six or seven years old. He wanted his own boat—wanted to be able to paddle out somewhere in his own vessel. Living across the road from the water, he started gathering any pieces of wood he could find in the yard. With an old, worn-out handsaw left behind by someone, he began sawing wood and tacking it together with whatever nails he could scrounge.

"None of them even looked like boats," he admits with a laugh. "But that's what I was doing at the age of six or seven, trying to build boats."

Learning from Uncle Cobby

One uncle in particular took Clay under his wing: J.E. Brunson, called "Cobby" after the famous baseball player Ty Cobb, a nickname he'd earned as a teenager for his baseball prowess. Cobby was a boat builder, and he spent time with Clay, showing him specifics that were probably over the young boy's head at the time.

"A little later on with my experiences on my own, I realized that what he taught me was there," Clay says. 

But most of Clay's education came from watching—standing on the outskirts of boat shops where they didn't want kids asking too many questions, observing what the builders did, then going home to copy it.

"I was drawn to it," he explains. "I had to kind of stay on the outskirts and just watch what they were doing and go copy it at my house."

The Boat Builder's Lesson: Nothing Is Close Enough

Working with boats teaches you something fundamental about craftsmanship: precision isn't optional.

"You can't approximate the joints," Clay explains. "Close enough doesn't work building boats. It's got to be perfect. They've got to be tight. All the joints and the cuts have to be perfect. You can't have willy nilly stuff."

In a house, you can get away with imperfections—caulk something, cover it with trim. But in a boat? "It's got to be cut right, or just, you know, do something else, because you've got to have attention to detail. And I got that from boats."

Over the years, Clay also worked for a couple of house carpenters who were perfectionists, even more so than he was at the time. He challenged himself to be better than what they expected.

"I was the hardest person to satisfy on any job," he says.

One of his proudest early accomplishments came at 17, when he built a 24-foot shrimp boat. It didn't look like a traditional shrimp boat—more like a giant skiff with a high-horsepower motor—but it turned out prettier and performed better than he'd imagined.

"I listened to the advice of some old, old boat builders and fish heads that knew what they were talking about, knowing that I couldn't take everybody's advice, just the best of them. And I was really satisfied with that boat."

The Woods That Survive Salt Water

Around water, you learn quickly which materials endure. Mahogany became Clay's number one choice—expensive and very durable around moisture and salt water. He used teak for trim work and the fancier bright work on boats. For frames and planking, he favored mahogany, juniper wood, and white cedar.

"Most boats back then, when I was building my stuff as a kid, almost every boat you would see was built out of oak or juniper," he recalls.

These weren't just preferences—they were lessons learned from the Gulf itself, from watching what survived and what rotted, what held tight and what gave way.

From Bait Shop to Woodshop

For years, Clay worked in his father's bait shop, processing hundreds of pounds of shrimp at a time, dumping them into giant vats and portioning them into small cups for fishermen.

Every once in a while, depending on where the shrimp came from, a tiny seahorse would tumble out with the catch.

One Christmas, with limited time and no gift yet for his wife, Clay spotted a dried seahorse in the bait shop window. He thought it would be cool to carve it into something, to transform that small creature from the Gulf into a Christmas present.

"It turned out I was really impressed with how well it turned out for such short time, and that gave me a fondness for creating something that I was around every day in the seafood industry, in the water industry."

That carved seahorse sparked something. Years later, when Clay's first grandson was born, he made a rocking seahorse for the baby. The response was overwhelming—everyone wanted to know where they could buy one.

Years to Perfection

But creating the rocking seahorses that Fish City Woodworks produces today wasn't a quick process. It evolved over years of persistent refinement.

The original shape and size of the seahorse. The handles a child would hold onto. The rockers that evolved from simple curves into detailed fish. The waves that support the seahorse just right. The school of fish underneath holding it all together.

"Nothing in this project came out of whim," Clay emphasizes. "Nothing was just, 'this will be good enough.' There was thought put into every minute of carving."

He went back to live seahorse photos, close-ups, wanting to replicate every curve, every dip, everything you can see in a real seahorse. He's seen so many things distorted by the artist's view—which is fine, he says, but not what he wanted.

"I wanted it to look exactly like a seahorse. If you looked at mine, I wanted the only thing different to be what you'd have to change for safety."

The only distortion? The spikes on the seahorse that he had to round down tremendously because they would be too sharp for a child. "But other than that, I wanted it to be just spot on to the real thing."

It's Not Labor When It's Love

After years of refinement, Clay can finally say the rocking seahorse is complete.

"I'm happy with the way we decided on what we did and what we came up with."

For Clay, woodworking isn't laborious work—it's a God-given talent that comes naturally. After a day's work, he can go start carving. He could do it tirelessly, comfortably.

The craft has taught him patience—how to handle a piece that breaks three-quarters of the way through, how to think about whether you can carve around it or fix it so the mishap isn't known. It's taught him persistence, to stay with the precision, to never rush anything, to never do less than his best work.

"I've just learned that the goals in mind can be accomplished if you just take your time, stay persistent, and demand the best out of yourself throughout the whole project."

A Legacy Carved in Wood

Today, every rocking seahorse that leaves Fish City Woodworks carries with it the precision of boat building, the authenticity of a fishing community, and the patience of a man who learned his craft by watching from the sidelines and copying it at home.

When you see one, you're looking at Destin's history carved into mahogany —at an uncle who coined "The Luckiest Fishing Village," a father who ran a bait shop and served his community, and a craftsman who spent his life perfecting the craft.

"At the end of the day, I want to be remembered for quality work," Clay says. "That I did what I said I would do."

In a time when "close enough" has become the standard, Clay Brunson still builds like he's making a boat—where every joint has to be perfect, every curve has to be true, and nothing is good enough until it's exactly right.

That's not just woodworking. That's heritage.

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