Deaf Anglers Gather For Fishing, Fellowship And A Raucous Good Time!

Allen Bonslett
April 15, 2008

As I rolled into the marina at Martinez on Saturday March 22, the crowd loomed in the dark parking lot. As I exited my Yukon and was greeted by waves and nods, the crowd greeted one another like old friends at a school reunion. I was there to enjoy the "1st Annual Deaf Sturgeon Challenge", an event organized by Stockton farmer and deaf angler Gian Marcucci, and Kevin Yost of Lucky Strike Sportfishing.

He had contacted me a month earlier asking if I had any interest in donating a couple subscriptions to this event. "Love to," I replied to Gian’s request, "In fact I've got some extra sturgeon rods and I'll get together some big goody packages full of tackle. Emails during the following weeks indicated that John's event to be shaping up nicely.

Finally Saturday morning arrived and it was a sell out. Gian had Jim Smith and the Happy Hooker, Kevin Yost and the Lucky Strike, John Badger and the Barbarian, Bob Monckton of Reel-Leentless Sportfishing and Steve Talmadge with Flash Sportfishing taking out over 50 anglers.

There was a meeting on the Happy Hooker to go over rules and the all-important drawing of the slot size and then we would be underway. The numbers were carefully hidden in Easter Eggs in honor of the holiday season, and as the randomly drawn egg was opened, it reveals a target size of 62 inches. Whoa! It was going to take a handsome fish to win the prize money!

Gian, Brice and I hopped in the Yukon to meet Kevin back up in Pittsburg where he keeps the Lucky Strike moored, and met him along with brothers Larry and Zack Kohler. Erik Kamlow rounded out our crew for the day.

In all this excitement, someone forgot to tell the sturgeon we wanted to meet them. As the anglers kept each other apprised of the happenings on each boat, both information and 'disinformation' flowed back and forth. "Someone on the Barbarian has an oversize,” the text read on the Sidekick, only to be followed up by, "an oversize flounder!"

Laughter filled the air! This was the entire day in a nutshell, a slow bite did nothing to deter the attitudes of all involved. All day long the chatter flew!

In the middle of the day we got a serious text that a nice fish had just been landed on Jim Smith's Happy Hooker. Gian gots the message indicating that it was a 61 incher. As it turned out this ended up being the only keeper fish caught for the day, but it was a doozy. Lindsay Feuer of Roseville, a lovely lady who is just about 61 inches tall herself, took the grand prize consisting of future fishing trips, tackle and a $1,000! Way to go Lindsay!

The day wrapped up a with a wonderful picnic at the park at the Martinez Marina, the happy anglers took home rods, tackle, subscriptions all the while enjoying pizza and BBQ. Gian had a big pile of ducks all seasoned and cooked them smoker style for us. Man…were they were good! I snagged a couple to take home and enjoy them on Easter Sunday.

At the end of the day, Kevin Yost leaned over to me and asked "Allen, are they the quietest crowd you’ve ever seen?" I said "Kevin, I don't know. They seem pretty vocal to me, I think you just listen with different ears."

The deaf community of Northern California is an active and vibrant group of exciting people. I was honored to be invited and share the day with them. Witnessing the genuine excitement and pleasure they brought to the day made this a special day for me too. Congratulations Gian, you laid the ground work for a great day!

Many thanks to all of the event sponsors, Lucky Strike Sportfishing, Happy Hooker Sportfishing, Reel-Lentless Sportfishing, Barbarian Sportfishing, Flash Sportfishing, The Fish Sniffer, Seeker Rods, Jolly's B&T, River B&T, Anglerboys.com and USA Fishing.