Cheating Rat Bastards

[Thermobrett]

Glad these guys were caught.

 

[zipper]

 

[zipper]

 

[Thermobrett]

Pisses people like me off who is from the Cleveland area and first mated for several charter captains growing up. They should have to pay back post year winnings for a certain amount of time. The article I saw said they were caught on a polygraph at a previous tournament.

 

[Julian]

I'm surprised they don't use a cheap wand metal detector on all the fish they weigh.....you can get one for $150!

 

[zipper]

Some faces to go with the charges.

The Sportsmen Party

Chase Cominsky and Jake Runyan Were busted with 8-pounds lead egg sinkers stuffed inside of their fish during the weigh in of the Lake Erie Walleye Tour. They were escorted away from the tournament...

www.facebook.com

Videos show fishermen erupting after would-be tournament champs were accused of cheating by stuffing their walleye with lead weights

Video showed the fish being cut open to reveal lead weights and even additional fish filets tucked inside, prompting angry shouts from the crowd.

www.insider.com

 

[Bluewater272]

Damn. Loved the murmuring in the crowd, pretty bold to double the weight of your fish.

 

[dgfreeze]

Saw this the other day... Majorly messed up. They'll be banned for life from fishing tournaments, and hopefully a slew of lawsuits come on the grounds of wrongful gains, etc. A few years ago (before I had kids) I was doing a lot of 3Gun competitions, and there was a guy named Kyle Sole who was caught cheating down in one of the Carolinas. Small scale compared to what these guys win at these fishing tournaments, but he'd "won" complete rifles, and all kinds of other gun stuff. His dad was a pretty big name in the sport, and would travel around the country, putting on whole matches. Not sure what the dad's status is now, but Kyle got a lifetime ban from all the organizations I'm aware of. These fishing tournaments are big bucks, and that's straight up theft. I'm for jail time.

 

[Thermobrett]

I’m glad the officiator had a good eye to see the competition had the same length of fish, but these tipped the scale more.

 

[2kwik4u]

What's that guy yell? "We got leeds in fish!"?!?!?! Then everyone gets all pissed off.

Make sure I understand here; There are a couple guys that put weights into fish as a way to cheat to victory. Fish caught are measured on weight, and highest weight wins? What kind of cash are these guys getting to put this on the line? Saw like $300k in winnings in another article. Is that right? What's the cost to run a "team" with a boat/truck/fuel/bait/gear for a season? Sponsorships cover any of that?

I'm a complete noob in terms of tournament fishing. I've only ever seen the group of fisherman coming IN while I'm headed out in the evenings after a tournament. I'm guessing it's a timed event?!?

 

[dgfreeze]

Yeah, tournaments vary, and I'm no expert, but primary points seem to generally be timed event, various payouts, but weight seems to always be the central focus. Some tournaments take the weight of your top several fish, some go by accumulated weight of all fish over a certain weight, so on and so forth. I'm not sure about the top events, but $100k seems to be about normal for decent sized regional events(?). Sponsors do sometimes provide the boats and gear for their anglers to use, but how far down that rabbit hole the free stuff (truck, fuel, bait, etc) goes, I don't know.

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

They’re lucky they didn’t get their asses beat.

I had a pretty successful amateur off road racing career that spanned over three decades, saw several guys get banned for life from all AMA racing due to course cutting which is what they should have gotten.

These clowns are now banned from all fishing events and now all will know their names. Looks like they will be paying all their own bills going forward.

 

[2kwik4u]

They’re lucky they didn’t get their asses beat.

I had a pretty successful amateur off road racing career that spanned over three decades, saw several guys get banned for life from all AMA racing due to course cutting which is what they should have gotten.

These clowns are now banned from all fishing events and now all will know their names. Looks like they will be paying all their own bills going forward.

Oh don't get me wrong, cheaters have no place being anywhere near sporting events. Sucks all the fun right out of them.

I was just trying to figure out what kind of cash/clout/etc was wrapped up in these events. Seems like relatively small potatoes to risk your reputation on.

 

[Thermobrett]

Usually these are smaller local events, not the PWT (professional walleye trail). I’m sure it’s a couple thousand bucks per tournament if you win. The LEWT (Lake Erie walleye trail) has the purse payouts posted. I see several sponsors on shirts, Ranger Boats, Cisco Fishing Systems, etc. I used to fish in some Jr. B.A.S.S tournaments from Cleveland to Ashtabula and had some sponsors. Keep in mind, I was in my early teens so no money payouts for top finishes and my sponsors only covered entry fees and food/lodging. To me, having a sponsor was a big deal, especially as a kid. I had Marine Max sponsor me and also gave us free dockage for our charter boat, Dicks Sporting Goods gave me some killer discounts, and Quantum Rods and Reels helped me out as well. Of course, our family minivan was a rolling billboard. Having your name tarnished in the fishing and boating industry to me would mentally and emotionally kill me.

the kicker is, one of the guys in the scandal is a police sargent.

 

[dgfreeze]

Usually these are smaller local events, not the PWT (professional walleye trail). I’m sure it’s a couple thousand bucks per tournament if you win. The LEWT (Lake Erie walleye trail) has the purse payouts posted. I see several sponsors on shirts, Ranger Boats, Cisco Fishing Systems, etc. I used to fish in some Jr. B.A.S.S tournaments from Cleveland to Ashtabula and had some sponsors. Keep in mind, I was in my early teens so no money payouts for top finishes and my sponsors only covered entry fees and food/lodging. To me, having a sponsor was a big deal, especially as a kid. I had Marine Max sponsor me and also gave us free dockage for our charter boat, Dicks Sporting Goods gave me some killer discounts, and Quantum Rods and Reels helped me out as well. Of course, our family minivan was a rolling billboard. Having your name tarnished in the fishing and boating industry to me would mentally and emotionally kill me.

the kicker is, one of the guys in the scandal is a police sargent.

Agree with all. Correct me if I’m wrong here, but these smaller events matter because it’s how they get invited to the bigger events, right? So it’s not just a matter of the payout at each event, but winning these smaller events is how they get a shot at the big time stuff? Also, my understanding is that fishing has a pretty competitive lineup of talent, which means a bad showing at a tournament or two can quickly bump you down the ladder? All this just means that “ensuring” you’re invited to the major events significantly raises your chances of a payday, as even the pros have good and bad days, it’s not completely dependent on skill. Fish still have to bite their lures.

Hard to believe a police Sargent would have the audacity to do something like that. Wouldn’t be surprised if he gets fired. Heck, I’d be surprised if he doesn’t get fired.

 

[Thermobrett]

Agree with all. Correct me if I’m wrong here, but these smaller events matter because it’s how they get invited to the bigger events, right? So it’s not just a matter of the payout at each event, but winning these smaller events is how they get a shot at the big time stuff? Also, my understanding is that fishing has a pretty competitive lineup of talent, which means a bad showing at a tournament or two can quickly bump you down the ladder? All this just means that “ensuring” you’re invited to the major events significantly raises your chances of a payday, as even the pros have good and bad days, it’s not completely dependent on skill. Fish still have to bite their lures.

Hard to believe a police Sargent would have the audacity to do something like that. Wouldn’t be surprised if he gets fired. Heck, I’d be surprised if he doesn’t get fired.

You’re absolutely right. Little fish needs to work his way up the ranks to become a big fish. This usually happens by an elimination style tournament series. Typically it goes club to state, state to region and then an amateur invitational to join a Pro Am circuit, none is cheap as you need to travel and have all of the fees, plus pre fish the waters your not familiar with. I don’t feel any sympathy for these guys and actually commend the other anglers for not having a pitchfork mob to go after these guys. I would rather come in with a small bag of fish, say I gave it my all during the tournament and hats off to the winning group. Because of stupidity like this, all the honest anglers are now going to be under a microscope, and it wouldn’t surprise me if some local sponsors and start pulling out.

In high school, I believe boating and fishing probably saved my life. While my friends were out partying and getting in trouble, I was enrolled in a maritime consortium for being a first mate on charter boats and getting paid for what I love to do. There was not better feeling than having marina full of charter captains asking me to be on their boat and some upping the pay to persuade me to come with them.

Teach a kid to fish at an early age, it’s something they will remember their entire life. People come and go, but memories will last forever.

 

[GTBRMC]

Teach a kid to fish at an early age, it’s something they will remember their entire life. People come and go, but memories will last forever.

Not a huge fishing guy, but this one really grinds my gears. As you suggest, there is something magical about fishing - memories with your dad or grandma or whatever - and this sort of behavior in fishing feels like more of a violation than other types of sports cheating.

 

[biffdotorg]

The real story behind this, is they needed a particular weight to seal the deal on first place (multi-day event). I think they needed around 20lb, and they had 36lb. But they added 8lb's of lead and fish fillets to do it. So they would have won without cheating. Who knows if they had done it the prior days as well.

The purse for this event is one thing, but at this level of competition, their sponsorships are worth much more. And this is the main reason you only hear the foul and filth being yelled by the others, and not any fists thrown. The other fisherman will not risk their sponsorships by whipping their butts. But I am sure the thoughts were crossing all their minds.

Stuffing lead has been done in all levels of fishing touneys for years. So yes, metal detection is one, but most of these metals will not be found that way. Everyone of these pros can guess the weight of a healthy walleye within ounces by length and sight. So when this batch came in, it just took a good rub of the belly to tell they were stuffed. (thus the fish fillets as well as lead were stuffed in there to help hide the lead)

 

[Julian]

most of these metals will not be found that way

Sorry, but lead is easy to detect with a handheld metal detector. They do such a good job there is even an article suggesting ERs use them to detect metal ingested by kids vs using xrays. They are easy to train on too, so you don't need any special skills.

Handheld Metal Detector Screening for Metallic Foreign Body Ingestion in Children

Coins are the most common ingested metallic foreign bodies among children. The goal of this protocol is to assess the accuracy and feasibility of using a handheld metal detector to detect ingested metallic foreign bodies in children. We propose that by ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

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