otisco 9-19 and 20 with Deaf Fisherman

[justtracytrolling]

Had fellow LOU member and commercial fisherman Deaf Fisherman aboard this weekend looking for a big tiger. We picked up a nice mid 30's fish immediately to break the ice on a tdd9 down 25 over 60 out from the causeway. We then trolled deep structure and open lake for 4hours dropping a eye and couple bass till we finally moved a real nice fish midlake down 30, but i screwed up and long story short the big one got away...we spent the afternoon trolling shallow short lines looking for some crazy hits on probably smaller fish. Mark worked a couple bigger baits to no avail so i added a tdd9 in the prop wash with just 4 feet of a 6 foot leader in the water. 5 minutes later i was working a weedline and thought i heard something and spun a round in time to see a low 30s tiger airborne at eye level just 10 feet behind the boat with mark standing there with 2 rods in his hands! The look on his face was priceless! I should mention Mark cant hear or speak. After a boatside release mark tells me via dry erase board that the tiger tracked the bait then dove under and shot straight up and smashed the lure. Fish ended up jumping several times. We lost 1 more in the exact same manner before going back out deep for a bigger fish. Only managed a catfish deep before the rain hit. Wind was tough and lake was rough. Day 2 we fished 100% deep offshore just looking for 1 big bite. Ended up breaking hooks on a decent fish, landed a 6 lb eye and an awesome run of 4 lb smb. Hopefully Mark can add the pics i took and a bit to the story! I have to say Mark did an outstanding job paying attention and learned fast. Think for a second about taking someone new out and you cant communicate in the heat of the moment...he could nearly read my mind and was real pleasure to fish with. Bluefin tuna on the grill tonight for me! Thanks Mark!

[BSmaster]

I like reports where you feel like you are right there while you are reading them.  Sounds like it was a good time.  Too bad you don't have time to edit film you could mount a gopro on that rocket launcher you have.  I bet that would be  entertaining.  I'll wait for the pics. 

[EsoxOnly]

Sounds like you guys had a great weekend and saw an awesome show!  We hooked into a 15 lb carp while bouncing the bottom off of bare ass beach with a TDD11 flash perch.  I though I had hooked the tiger of my life!!  Still a great fight and super exciting until the I saw it was a carp when it got near the boat. It did actually put a few runs on with head shaking and surfacing 100 ft from the boat.  Also stumbled onto a 6 lb walleye in front of the causeway in 50 ft of water. It was a delicious dinner later that night breaded and fried. My first time filleting a walleye and eating it.  Cant wait for some more now!  Thanks for the report Justin. It must have been tough breaking the communication barrier so kudos to you for being willing to tackle that and share your knowledge.

[justtracytrolling]

Kudos to Mark! My grandmother, god rest her soul, would say someone is always worse off than you so count your blessings. He certainly is a glass half full guy who doesn't allow his limitations to limit him.

[MeatHunter737]

Great read!! Felt like I was in the boat

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[Sk8man]

Congratulations to you both on what appears to be a great day of fishing. I think Mark proves that so called "limitations" really aren't that.. they are opportunities for learning for all of us. Effective communication takes various forms and when the sincere desire is there to communicate at both ends of the process it works remarkably well it is mainly a matter of finding the method that works best. Thumbs up to both of you.            

[shorething]

Nice job!

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[Ivan]

Nice! Great story.

I happened to catch that you had those two fish with just the leader in the water. Im surprised nobody commented. It 's not a very widely used technique. Most guys would consider 10 to 20' short line trolling. We do it quite a bit in the spring in OH for prespawn fish in 2-6 fow. Leader right against the tip of the rod. We run side rods like that too. Quite a few guys over there do it. You are probably already doing this, but i usually like to run a lighter drag than normal on that short of a line. Helps if they can pull line kind of easy and not jump. I once caught one over 30 some fow with no line out. They are crazy fish.

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[Xxx]

Congrats to the both of you. Sounds like a good Time and some fish were caught!!!!

[315angler]

Great story, sounds fun!

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