Fishing scandal

[JJ]

if the boat was won in a previous tournament (mentioned in video), then I hope it stays confiscated or goes back to the tournament sponsors.

      JJ

[Walnut Beast]

I don't think those guys are going to be hanging out at any bars where there is a fishing crowd 😂

[Jeff]

They can change their pronoun and enter the ladies division.

[YellowHammer]

I hope maybe it sets an example for other tournaments to be more vigilant.  Crooks will always be crooks, but good, well run tournaments should be able to weed them out.  I blame the tournament director as much as anybody, although he discovered the weights, it should never have gotten to that point.  

I read a book by Ray Scott many years ago, founder of BASS (I highly recommend it) and the modern bass tournaments as we know it.  Did you know he was an insurance salesman? The biggest obstacle he had to overcome in order to get quality bass fisherman to participate in big money "derbies" was the complete elimination and perception of cheating.

The first tournaments read like a who's who of professional fishermen everybody knows, such as Bill Dance, Roland Martin, Jimmy Houston, Tom Mann, Johnny Morris (Bass Pro Shops founder) and Forrest Wood (Ranger Boats) just to name a few.  All were great fisherman, and they would not participate unless a format was developed where cheating was impossible.  So Ray went to not allowing buddies to fish together, drawing different partners every day from a hat.  The lie detector test was instituted.  There were observer boats who wrote articles, etc.  They we also invitation only so suspected cheaters were not allowed to even enter.  

Anyway, my point is that cheating in tournaments is nothing new.  People have been stuffing lead weights and other fish from the very first tournaments.  Others snag fish, put them in pens, leave fish on stringers, or stake them out.  Now digital media lends itself to cheating, and recently a pro fisherman was banned for requesting information on a lake on Facebook after the shut off deadline was passed.  Some cheating examples are huge scandals, of the $100,000 Mike Hart fame, but many are not.  In his case, he attached lead weights to small treble hooks which would catch in the fishes throat and never make it to their stomach, so it the fish were cut open, no weights would be detected.    

A good tournament should be run to prevent this or it will continue to not only blacken the eye of tournament fisherman, but the institution of tournament themselves.  Since I have seen and heard my share of it, I can only hope it makes other tournaments more vigilant.

By the way, does anybody know how Junior Samples, of Hee Haw fame, got his start?  One of the biggest bass fishing lies of all time.  It made him famous.    

[Southside]

Could probably eliminate the cheating component by having the likes of Vicki Stark competing in those tournaments.  Might not be much fishing that happens either, but the cheating would stop.   :D

[SawyerTed]

Or Katherine Salome....

Might lead to other forms of cheating.  :D