Tom D

Congratulations guys some very good stories in there.

Dogs running loose everywhere! Second morning we lost 4 sausage biscuits to a black lab. Hope he enjoyed our breakfast

Man that is too funny Dean what's the chances of you and Zack and myself all having a problem with the same deaf guy. To say this guy had a problem with courtesy is an understatement. The shoulder shrug is what got me to.It was as obvious as a F you. When I returned the shrug right back to him I swear rockets went off in this guys head. I knew he must have had practice at the whole cursing routine before because he was really pretty good at it for a deaf guy. When Brian and I were in the airport leaving we noticed a T-shirt at the gift shop that read Keep Austin Weird we laughed to ourselves. Now don't get me wrong I love Austin and my time there was one of my most enjoyable memories but Austin truly has it own flavor. Between the joggers and the dogs and the people on the corners of the streets with the most random signs and the muscle bound workout nuts. I think they really do work on keeping Austin weird. I seriously can't wait to get back there again.

My funny story took place at the ATC last year. It was day one of the tournament and we had drawn gazebo a good peg, and were looking forward to a good day. As the tourney started we were into the fish but as the day progressed the boat traffic started to get bad. It was not long into the day before one of the boats leading a rowing team decided to come by next to shore and ran off with all three of my lines. What a time consuming mess that is! Well I untangled, retied and got my lines back out and it seamed like no time at all I caught boat number two, man I wish we would have brought back leads. At this point I figured I had better take a proactive approach if I didn't want to spend the entire day retying. A short time later I see a bass boat coming down the shoreline right toward my lines. I walked fifty yards down shore to ask the guy if he would please watch out for my lines. when I got over to the guy I give a call out hi buddy and get no response from the guy in the boat. I say a little louder excuse me buddy again no response. this time I wave to him and say excuse me and he looks over and sees me waving. At this point he points to his ears and waves his head no and I figure out that he is deaf. With a little awkward communication between us I explain about my lines being just ahead and he pull off shore a bit and I waved a thank you to him. Now the only problem was I guess I didn't explain about Brian being right in front of me because as soon as he passed my lines he pulled back on shore and promptly ran over all three of Brian's lines. So here we are with the guy now in front of us and all three of Brian's spools steadily being emptied yelling to a guy who could not hear us. I still don't know what made him look back but thankfully he did and realized what was happening. He stopped his boat and walked back and lifted his motor. Luckily Brian's lines came free. Once again I waved a thank you and the guy went about fishing a small bay on the other side of Brian. Now Brian set about untangling his lines, retying and after some time got all his lines back out. In the time it had taken Brian to get set again the guy in the boat had finished in the small bay and was now heading back out. This time when he was almost directly on top of where Brian had just cast his lines he decided to put down his casting rod and start jigging directly under the boat. Problem was his boat was now right on top of Brian's lines. Again I caught his attention and set about awkwardly trying to explain what was happening and he was right on top of where the boy had just recast. Well I guess this guy was beginning to enjoy our company just about as much as we were enjoying his because he looked at me with this pissed off look, shrugged his shoulders and threw his hands in the air. I think this is universal sign language for what the F. This is when I throw my hands in the air and return the same sign language back to him. Well all I can say is this guy blew his cork. He threw his rod down and started again with the universal sign language both middle fingers waving in the air. Then I guess he had had enough of the sign language because he started cursing us out in deaf mute language. Thing is he was pretty good at it because I understood almost everything he said. First with fingers waving he said fungoo then we got a fooyoo and I think we were even called moofafers. Well while all this is going on one of Brian's alarms start screaming off. I told Brian this idiot is in your lines again. Brian being about as pissed off as he could be walks over to his rod and said dad I don't think it's him my line is headed away from the boat. He picks up the rod and said no dad this is a fish and it feels really good. His rod bent deeply from the run of a big fish and all of a sudden the deaf guy stops yelling and starts watching. Well after a good hard fight Brian brings the beast to net. It was our first thirty pounder of the tournament. Funny I forgot all about the guy in the boat and never looked back to see what he did. Oh well we were to busy at that point to care. Here is Brian's cussed out by a deaf mute fish