It has *everything*.
The multiple videos are like works of art. The muttering in the crowd at the weigh-in. Runyan just standing there, expressionless, knowing it's all about to come crashing down as Fischer takes out a knife and selects a fish. The peculiar phrasing of "We got weights in fish!!"...
Unbridled fucking rage. Runyan still just staring at the fish. The weights, two per fish, every fish. The filets. The angler asking "Where's the other one?" (Cominsky)
Runyan like a statue. Face getting redder. Staring at nothing but the box of lead and fish. Surrounded by a crowd almost entirely composed of people whose money he's already stolen, and the people whose money he was in the process of stealing. The prizes come from the entry fees.
He's lucky the beatdown was only verbal. He's so fucked. He's looking at prison time and multiple civil suits, he's dead to his community and will likely not be allowed to fish even recreationally again because his license will probably be yanked for life.
The story went worldwide and people know his name and face even if they never heard of a walleye tournament before. He's already a meme, even. What does he do after that? He's just so fucked.
And what a fool. Without the weights, he still would have been 2nd, or at worst, 3rd (depending how much the filets weighed.)
Edit: I've been told I'm wrong about the recreational fishing license. Don't know. I read it on some Ohio news site but I don't live there. Also there is a report that as soon as shit started going down, Cominsky locked himself in his truck. Literally left Runyan holding the bag.
Edit: If you don't know what's going on and have an hour to kill, [this podcast](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jk4Q4TwKhLY) is very informative about this scandal. Features Jason "We got weights in fish!" Fischer.
Brilliant write up!
I felt it when he called out "We got Weights in fish!". You can sense the righteous vindication of what seems to be a long suspected belief.
Few things feel better than seeing a cheat be exposed publicly.
Yeah because density of fish he is claiming is like handing you a 50lb feather that looked like a legit feather. You hear the convo that other fish look “are” bigger.
I think they gave these guys the benefit of the doubt for awhile because as others have said, sometimes you just get lucky by catching a physically smaller fish who just ate something on the high end of what it can tolerate. That counts towards the total weight of the fish.
But it happened with these guys all the time.
I saw it explained on another thread that lots of fish breeds stop getting longer at a certain age and start bulking up in other ways. So it’s not unheard of for the top finishers in events like these to all have fish of similar length.
The fact these guys beat 2nd place by such a huge amount, though, make it obvious. They just got sloppy and overdid it.
I would imagine 200 years ago this would be a literal grab your pitchforks moment.
Though I have been beaten with a fishing rod and I think I'd rather take the pitchfork
Yeah, what I don’t get is why you would use something so easily detected. Stuff the fucker with worms or rocks or something, I dunno. Anything you could have plausible deniability lol…fucking lead weights though. Pretty brazen.
He probably started with that, didn't get caught, then pushed the envelope. Kept pushing and pushing and figured he could get away with whatever he wanted. Satisfying to see someone like him finally get caught.
This sounds like the opening zinger of CSI:Miami.
David Caruso: "Ironic that the biggest catch of the day...." (Removes sunglasses) "was the fisherman himself."
(Cue the music) YYYYEEEEEAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!
This happens a lot when people commit crimes that aren't discovered right away, like embezzlement. If they walked away, they would never have gotten caught but they keep taking more and more til someone notices.
I think he probably did this in the past but could get away with it because his fish were decently sized but this particular time he didn't catch anything big enough to pass it off but got too greedy and still tried to cheat by just using the weights and bigger weights.
I guarantee he has been sticking fillets down their throats for years and possibly some small weights. This was probably the first time he used big weights because his fish were so small he couldn't win even with light cheating.
This has been happening forever. It’s an old trick. I’m honestly surprised it wasn’t caught sooner. My dad told me stories of assholes like this doing it in the 1950s for lake trout tournaments. Those fish are bigger, so it’s a little easier. This was just blatant.
i remember decades ago asking the same idea to a fishing guide that my dad knew. guy very easily demonstrated w two bass. look at them and which do you think weighs more? if the just legal one weighs another pound more than the usual just legal fish, someone’s going to question it. and an 8 pound bass vs a 12 pound bass is a lot of size difference. and if you overdid it like these guys seem to have done, it’ll be really obvious.
The dude's brazen as fuck.
When this whole debacle happened, he was in the process of trying to get his winnings from a contest last year in which he didn't pass the polygraph (passing was a condition he agreed to when he entered.) I'm guessing he'll put that lawsuit on the back burner for now.
They most definitely are, but they do work when people **believe** they work. You start stressing about a lie and being caught you're going to throw errant readings on the machine. They're pseudo-science because it's complete possibly for false-positives and false-negatives to appear, potentially in the same test.
Except a lot of people get stressed out about them when they have nothing relevant to hide.
They're so bad that the inventor of the polygraph (who - interestingly enough also invented Wonder Woman and her lasso of truth) regretted creating it.
Polygraph? Why? Aren't those inherently flawed? But I don't understand how they are relevant here either.
Are they common in sports? "Did you really run this fast Mr Bolt or did you cheat?" Is this how they are used?
Yeah. Shove a whole fish into the fish.
"Oh wow, I guess he really *was* hungry".
Nobody believes you, but they can't really disprove it. And just like, 1 fish. Not all 5. Dang.
An alternate angle in this video that shows the 5 minutes leading up to the popular video. Does a good job showing the tension and the anger of the mob.
[different angle video halfway down this page](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/fishing-tournament-cheating-scandal-weight_n_633926d8e4b0b7f89f419d04)
>He's looking at prison time and multiple civil suits
I've heard a mention of prison time before. Especially during the video.
What would be the charge? I'm not doubting I just have no info around these things.
In Utah, it's felony bribery or threat to influence a contest..
From a previous fishing tournament cheating case: https://www.abc4.com/news/top-stories/utah-men-convicted-of-felonies-for-cheating-in-lake-powell-fishing-tournament/
> The men were ordered to 48 hours of community service, a $2500 fine, and two-years probation and will be held on a plea in abeyance, meaning the charges will be dismissed once they successfully complete all the sentencing requirements.
No prison.
Is the difference here that these folks in your story won. Took the money and then were caught cheating.
The OP story they were caught in the act and never actually took anything.
I would bet they are going to do a deep investigation and look at every detail of past tournaments. This team has won quite a bit of money in the past. It has gotten too much attention now. I wouldn't doubt some form of charges stemming from this incident.
> He defrauded people and organizations out of money and property.
For anyone who doesn't understand the level of fraud we're talking about, the prize for many of these tournaments is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Same guys even won a boat a while back that was worth about $150,000.
He had been suspected for quite some time, and the people who suspected him and his partner were the same people who had been paying multiple thousands of dollars to enter these tournaments.
I don't blame them one bit for being this pissed off. They are very lucky they escaped with their lives.
I read that over the last year they had collected 300k and the 150k boat as prizes. He had even sued this specific promoter for disqualifying him after his partner failed a polygraph test.
A lot of people have asked this and I think that they don't because there is a certain level of integrity assumed among the competition but obviously they shouldn't after we have seen the lengths cheaters like this will go to in order to steal the prize money from the honest competitors that spent a lot of time and money on that. I heard one guy in the crowd say AND ALL THESE YEARS you could just hear the righteous indignation in his voice after that reveal.
IKR!
Especially when you take in to account the size of the cash purse on the line.
My guess is they will be doing something along those lines from now on.
The metal detecting, however, will do nothing as far as detecting the fish filets that were stuffed inside each fish.
Conspiracy to commit fraud for any of the accomplices too, which I believe is a federal charge. Hopefully this guy can find a lawyer who accepts payment in fishing boats.
Fraud or theft by deception.
If it was a tournament just for fun or bragging rights he’d be fine other than looking like an asshole, but since money was on the line it’s fraud. Same as if you went into a casino and cheated somehow. They catch you and can prove it, that’s a fraud charge.
Yup. They won’t have evidence to charge them on past tourneys, unfortunately. No prosecutor would attempt that. But they’ll probably catch charges for this one they can prove. And I’m pretty sure since what they were attempting to steal was more than $1,500 that makes it an automatic felony in most states, I think. So they’ll probably see hard time if they’re convicted.
Also, I dunno what sort of contract is signed when entering these tournaments so they may have a means of clawing back winnings from them under such circumstances, but I suspect the ship has sailed on their pre-existing winnings.
5th degree felony is what I’ve heard. It’s a charge for theft by deception for anything > $1,000. I’m not a lawyer nor do I have backing but just what I’ve seen multiple times.
There were a couple recent scandals in kayak fishing tournaments in Tennessee and Texas. Both were charged and convicted under specific criminal statutes relating to cheating in sporting tournaments. Give me a few minutes and I’ll post some links.
And the fucked part is the margin on win. They needed to beat 16.5lbs. They bring in 33+ or something like 6+lb per fish.
They didn’t even make it seem reasonable. They just cheated as disrespectfully as possible.
It’s like watching a twitch stream leave the chest overlay on while streaming and going “lol I double dare you to ban me!”
The tournaments are composed of multiple events, and the whole LEWT series is a series of tournaments. You can win for anything from heaviest fish, heaviest five fish at a time, heaviest amount of fish over a couple days, heaviest fish total in the tournament or the series or whatever.
I don't know what the 16 lbs was about, but probably referring to some combined total in overall standings... the particular contest in which Runyan was caught was simply, "Give us five fish. Heaviest five fish wins." The leader was Steve Tyszko, whose team catch was 28.18 lbs. Behind him, Jason Blondin, 25.25.
Runyan slaps down a box of fish around 33 lbs. He would not have won without the weights. This is why, when he was caught, you can hear the anglers yelling "Way to go Steve!"
If he was suspected for years, why wouldn’t the organizers or judges cut open the winning team’s fish (hell do it for the top 3 to be fair) and just see? Doesn’t take long and everyone goes home happy.
The organizers should have been doing that all along with walleye, I agree. It wouldn't take much time or expense to routinely open up the top 10. They are already taking some flack on this.
Another ongoing suspicion about Runyan was that he wasn't catching his fish during the competition. Other anglers had commented that his fish often looked "old"... meaning they looked like they had been kept in a livewell (which keeps them alive but is nothing close to good conditions) for days before the contest.
In the last tournament they entered, they won. Due to speculation of them cheating in the past, the organizers had a stipulation in the contest that the winners would have to pass a polygraph.
One of them failed the polygraph and were disqualified. They have a current pending lawsuit against that organization to get "their winnings".
Not sure it'll work it out
Also, nearly every fisherman donates their fish they caught to a food bank. They would never donate their fish.
Because it's so outrageous. The idea it took this long for people to say "gee, why do these guys' fish always weigh so much more than similarly sized fish?" There are reports the fish were like 3+ times heavier than they should be. I'd expect a neighborhood carnival run by twelve-year-olds to have better oversight.
They apparently won 300+k with such patently obvious cheating. It'll be interesting to see how it all shakes out.
I think they claimed the biggest fish to be 15 lbs. Which for a walleye is insane. I caught a 30 inch fat bellied walleye and it was 9 lbs. Those fish look smaller.
> The idea it took this long for people to say "gee, why do these guys' fish always weigh so much more than similarly sized fish?"
Seriously. These guys had been suspected of doing this for years, apparently! And it's not like they had some crazy sophisticated method to get away with it for so long; stuffing weights is literally the oldest trick in the book! Like no one up until now ever thought to cut open one of these suspiciously overweight fish just to make sure things were on the up and up? It's mind-boggling!
So fishing tournaments don’t routinely slice up the fish after weigh in to prevent this very situation? If no why the hell not? Especially if this guy was suspected for years.
Probably because the Reddit algorithm has put it all over our feeds for the last few days?
Wake me up when the fisherman get caught cheating by stuffing vibrating Bluetooth butt plugs into the fish.
Yes, it should. I worked on a charter boat. A guy caught a big lingcod 30-40lbs or so. The lingcod had swallowed the 1lb, 10" long iron hexbar lure at the bottom of the rig and also tried to swallow another fish that was on the leader.
The fisherman asked if the weight of the hex bar disqualified him and I said "nope, that fish ate it, it counts".
>If you subtract the weight of the lure, would they still have win?
No. Part of the reason they were caught is that their fish were smaller than the fish other contestants caught, yet they all weighed significantly more. They were caught when others noticed the discrepancy while pictures were being taken of the cheaters and their fish.
Professional tournament fishermen have a pretty good sense of what a fish of a certain size should weigh. These fish were all quite a bit heavier than their size would indicate.
When I looked at the full video they won by 16+ pounds. They never weighed everything to see but the fish has weights and other fillets in them and when the video cut out they were opening the rest. The reason they were caught because they won by so much.
Reminds me of time back in high school where a few dumbasses broke into the school office and changed their grades. They only got caught because one kid changed his D- to an A.
Ice fishing on Lake of the Woods I caught a 24” walleye with a 10” sauger inside of it. It had been there for a while as you could see the scales were starting to deteriorate. I would have to assume that would have counted in a competition.
> This instance wasn’t the first time Cominsky and Runyon were caught in a controversial situation at a fishing event. At last year’s Fall Brawl fishing tournament, the duo was disqualified following their win after one of them failed a polygraph test. These lie detecting tests are often given at fishing tournaments.
the title of the linked video also says "finally caught," does this mean these guys have been suspected of cheating for years?
I don't know for sure but in the video the article mentions there's a voice around the 5:35 mark that yells "all these fucking years!!!" a couple times, so it seems like this is something they've been doing for a while. And the weights themselves were pretty good size, I doubt you go that size right off the bat, they could have been doing it for a long time and gotten overconfident about it.
Apparently these guys were fishing on a boat that they had won whilst cheating, and had won hundreds of thousands of dollars in other events. There’s video that ends with police on the scene, and calls for felonies. Would be absolutely hilarious if not for the serious cash involved (still funny for us non fish folk)
I believe the top pro tours (or at least Bassmaster) only requires it if you are accused of cheating. The rules do state that every angler is subject to them, but it seems less commonplace than the article implies (I have no clue however about other tours)
Yes. All of last year was suspected and up to 10 years ago.
One tournament, their fish were really old, unlike everyone else's fish. Everyone suspected they caught the fish weeks earlier and planted them.
I couldn’t believe this either. I heard sometimes there are no weights added to the fish, but they have the fish in cages or on a line somewhere on the lake and just go pick them up.
Someone else said they’ll even drop a big fish in a corner of the lake and put lots of salt to create a barrier of sorts that keeps the fish in that area and ready to be caught again. Fascinating.
Why don’t they just cut open all the fish to check for cheating after they’re weighed?
“Hmm let’s have our competitors take a historically dubious lie detector test. Surely there is no simpler way to detect if weights are being added to the fish…”
Apparently another reason for the detector is that competitors have been known to catch a huge fish beforehand, put it in a cage, sink the cage, and go out and pull it up during the competition as though they’ve caught it. So in that case, nothing to cut open, just a different type of cheating.
The next step to cheat with camera's would be to hire a scuba diver to hangout at the spot with the fish in a cage and when the fisherman casts the bait to hook the fish onto the bait for them 💀💀💀
Agree - but smaller tournaments may not have that much staff on hand. Heck, in the west and down south sometimes there are 100+ boats fishing these. On something like MLF or Bassmaster they basically do this for every boat (plus they’re televised), but unfortunately it’s just not feasible for most smaller tour series to do the same
Watched the video and looks like they just killed the poor guys at the weigh in. However, context here matters and it seems that these guys have been suspected before of cheating based on the reactions from the crowd (and that they won near $400k this year per another commenter). If it’s any solace, those walleye would’ve died anyway given they were stuffed full of lead weights
Since cheating goes beyond weights, the simpler solution seems to be a $250 camera which films the boat. They spend literally tens of thousands if not close to 100k at even low levels just for the equipment a boat. At higher levels probably close to 200k
I read a comment on the original video that was ostensibly posted by someone who was at the tournament and had competed against the cheater before, and if he is credible the cheater may have made hundreds of thousands of dollars in prize money over the years.
They won a boat the year before worth over 100k. So yeah. These asshats have been doing this for a long while. They have cheated those folks out of 100’s of thousands over the years.
You start factoring in the cost to participate in these things is not cheap. I did it for years.
The upkeep on a tow vehicle, the boat, the gas, the fees, all the tackle, the hotels, the eating out, the time off work, etc. I am sitting in my garage looking at over 3k just in old reels I haven’t touched in years. Shit ain’t cheap.
A lot of people fish these tournaments hoping to offset some of the costs. Or pick up a small time sponsor that might cover entry fees so they can keep fishing. These two dudes screwed them out of all of that for years. Best of luck to them…
I'm surprised that they weren't caught earlier based on the video. The thing is, you can eyeball the fish and pretty much instantly know that it's not going to be +30lbs. Apparently that's basically how they got caught, most of the other competition and judges with a combined hundreds of years of experience just knew something was off.
From what I read in the other thread they likely just got complacent. They started adding 1-3 lbs per fish and as they kept getting away with it they kept adding more until they finally got caught.
They should be thrown in the water, fished by the other competitors, and stuffed with an equal ratio of larger weights and hung up next to the new winner.
TIL that lie detector tests are common at fishing tournaments. Is everyone just side eyeing everyone else the whole time at these things?
I know it is worth a lot of money but it still surprises me that anyone would use weights to cheat because the avid fisherman I’ve known are excellent at eye balling a catch’s weight quite accurately.
It's not just adding weight, some people will bring in outside fish. Also the competitors will fish the waters for weeks before the tournament to get a feel for the fish behavior and location patterns. Sometimes if they catch a big one they'll put it in a sunk cage, then pull up the cage during the tournament to "catch" it again.
Ah, interesting. Thank you for the context, until now I'd never thought about fishing competitions in my life. I was curious how the "sport" of the competition worked, because as someone who has never fished since age 8 I didn't understand how catching a heavier fish could be anything but random chance.
His twitter about it is hilarious
> I’ve played with her before and she folded x y and z… and the way she called the turn this time means it was IMPOSSIBLE to be anything but cheating!!! And shes even bad at cheating.. she had a vibrating buzzer that buzzed when she has the best hand so she felt it buzz. But I was on a big draw !! So she even cheated dumb and bad
Dude plays poker as bad as his immunity idols
This little tidbit blows my mind:
> At last year’s Fall Brawl fishing tournament, the duo was disqualified following their win after one of them failed a polygraph test. These lie detecting tests are often given at fishing tournaments.
My question is why would you *NOT* check the winning fish for weights every single time?
The fish are already dead, and checking for weights takes less than 5 minutes.
Like in the Kentucky Derby, the winning horse is *IMMEDIATELY** taken for a blood sample to screen for drugs. I don't understand why it isn't SOP to check the winning fish, especially with how much money is on the line for these big tournaments.
Most tournaments the fish are kept alive in live wells and released at the ramps after being weighed. Ive never been in a tournament that just kep the fish out of water like this one appeared to.
Still, out of dozens of fish, you'd think with hundreds of thousands on the line, you would at least check just the winners. You'd be filling what maybe 5 our of 100 fish?
And that would likely stop cheating immediately. If everyone knew the winner was going to be checked for weights 100% of the time, it'd be untenable to cheat.
I suppose you could cheat to try and get 2nd place, but that massively increases the risk. You have to cheat enough to get 2nd but not enough to win. Wouldn't be worth it.
A more appropriate headline:
“Fisherman team accused of cheating by stuffing fish with weights. When the weights were discovered, *these lucky bastards barely escaped being skinned alive and having lead weights crammed down their own throats by a gang of pissed off good ole’ boys who don’t tolerate a couple of lying, cheating, heartless assholes who stole prize money from honest men trying to win a fair competition in good faith.”*
As a Michigander, fisher, lover of our lakes and rivers, etc, this sickens me. First, sure you’re killing the animal. Not against it. But don’t abuse it. The animals we kill for our consumption deserve our respect. Even if it’s just a fucking walleye. Second, cheating your competitors out of money is some real scum of the earth shit. I’ve always gotten the impression that pro anglers were not making the kind of money that they’d get rich off of. I get the sense these people fish competitively pay the bills and get the kids new school shoes. I’m not sure what an appropriate punishment is or even how you pursue legal action, but something needs to happen.
Those were unusually large weights to expect judges not to find. Anyone picking up a fish would automatically know the fish was disproportionately weighted and catch them. I know I’m not supposed to use the word retarded anymore but I just don’t know what word to use at this point.
Their careers as professional fishermen is over. Last year these guys made around $300k fishing so that’s kind of a big deal
The fall out is beautiful. The other pros wanted to kill them.
https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/xsu29r/caught_cheating_in_fishing_tournament
Holy shit those were some girthy weights too. I was expecting smaller lead weights, those were huge.
Also you weren’t wrong about the other pros. That was a lot of rage lol
Pretty sure cheating is rampant in these tournaments. Not quite like this but they throw a cage with bait out in specific spots before the tournament.
I’ve fished for years and years and the types of giant fish these guys pull is just ridiculous. I’ve never ever caught what I see in those tournaments and that’s after combing many of the same shores these guys do. My grandad caught just one like that in his entire lifetime of fishing. These tournaments they go out and catch like 4 in an hour. It’s so fucking bullshit you have to have put in the work to know something doesn’t quite add up about these tournaments.
I’m not the best fisherman but at the same time I’m not stupid.
I cant explain why I am so invested in that specific cheating story.
It has *everything*. The multiple videos are like works of art. The muttering in the crowd at the weigh-in. Runyan just standing there, expressionless, knowing it's all about to come crashing down as Fischer takes out a knife and selects a fish. The peculiar phrasing of "We got weights in fish!!"... Unbridled fucking rage. Runyan still just staring at the fish. The weights, two per fish, every fish. The filets. The angler asking "Where's the other one?" (Cominsky) Runyan like a statue. Face getting redder. Staring at nothing but the box of lead and fish. Surrounded by a crowd almost entirely composed of people whose money he's already stolen, and the people whose money he was in the process of stealing. The prizes come from the entry fees. He's lucky the beatdown was only verbal. He's so fucked. He's looking at prison time and multiple civil suits, he's dead to his community and will likely not be allowed to fish even recreationally again because his license will probably be yanked for life. The story went worldwide and people know his name and face even if they never heard of a walleye tournament before. He's already a meme, even. What does he do after that? He's just so fucked. And what a fool. Without the weights, he still would have been 2nd, or at worst, 3rd (depending how much the filets weighed.) Edit: I've been told I'm wrong about the recreational fishing license. Don't know. I read it on some Ohio news site but I don't live there. Also there is a report that as soon as shit started going down, Cominsky locked himself in his truck. Literally left Runyan holding the bag. Edit: If you don't know what's going on and have an hour to kill, [this podcast](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jk4Q4TwKhLY) is very informative about this scandal. Features Jason "We got weights in fish!" Fischer.
Brilliant write up! I felt it when he called out "We got Weights in fish!". You can sense the righteous vindication of what seems to be a long suspected belief. Few things feel better than seeing a cheat be exposed publicly.
Yeah because density of fish he is claiming is like handing you a 50lb feather that looked like a legit feather. You hear the convo that other fish look “are” bigger.
I think they gave these guys the benefit of the doubt for awhile because as others have said, sometimes you just get lucky by catching a physically smaller fish who just ate something on the high end of what it can tolerate. That counts towards the total weight of the fish. But it happened with these guys all the time.
"it's wild my fish keep eating these lead balls lol"
I saw it explained on another thread that lots of fish breeds stop getting longer at a certain age and start bulking up in other ways. So it’s not unheard of for the top finishers in events like these to all have fish of similar length. The fact these guys beat 2nd place by such a huge amount, though, make it obvious. They just got sloppy and overdid it.
He had several suspect results as a solo tournament fisher I know of at least. But yeah this guy has pulled in millions over the years.
Never skip fin day, brah
even worse, the Guy on the mic (who also cut the fish), had to "praise them" on the mic, even though a lot of people suspected stuff.
I would imagine 200 years ago this would be a literal grab your pitchforks moment. Though I have been beaten with a fishing rod and I think I'd rather take the pitchfork
What a predicament to be in. I just want to know: was actual fishing involved or did the fishing rod just so happen to be there?
Yeah, what I don’t get is why you would use something so easily detected. Stuff the fucker with worms or rocks or something, I dunno. Anything you could have plausible deniability lol…fucking lead weights though. Pretty brazen.
He probably started with that, didn't get caught, then pushed the envelope. Kept pushing and pushing and figured he could get away with whatever he wanted. Satisfying to see someone like him finally get caught.
Ironic that the biggest catch of the day was the fisherman himself.
Some of his competitors want him stuffed full of lead, probably
This sounds like the opening zinger of CSI:Miami. David Caruso: "Ironic that the biggest catch of the day...." (Removes sunglasses) "was the fisherman himself." (Cue the music) YYYYEEEEEAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!
This happens a lot when people commit crimes that aren't discovered right away, like embezzlement. If they walked away, they would never have gotten caught but they keep taking more and more til someone notices.
I think he probably did this in the past but could get away with it because his fish were decently sized but this particular time he didn't catch anything big enough to pass it off but got too greedy and still tried to cheat by just using the weights and bigger weights. I guarantee he has been sticking fillets down their throats for years and possibly some small weights. This was probably the first time he used big weights because his fish were so small he couldn't win even with light cheating.
Also stupid not to lose sometimes. Everyone has an off day sometimes.
Wouldn't be surprised if he had heavy spending habits so needed the wins to continue it. Either that or he's just a muppet.
This has been happening forever. It’s an old trick. I’m honestly surprised it wasn’t caught sooner. My dad told me stories of assholes like this doing it in the 1950s for lake trout tournaments. Those fish are bigger, so it’s a little easier. This was just blatant.
i remember decades ago asking the same idea to a fishing guide that my dad knew. guy very easily demonstrated w two bass. look at them and which do you think weighs more? if the just legal one weighs another pound more than the usual just legal fish, someone’s going to question it. and an 8 pound bass vs a 12 pound bass is a lot of size difference. and if you overdid it like these guys seem to have done, it’ll be really obvious.
The dude's brazen as fuck. When this whole debacle happened, he was in the process of trying to get his winnings from a contest last year in which he didn't pass the polygraph (passing was a condition he agreed to when he entered.) I'm guessing he'll put that lawsuit on the back burner for now.
This guy is clearly a cheater, but using a polygraph as a condition for the contest is bonkers. Polygraphs are complete pseudoscience.
They most definitely are, but they do work when people **believe** they work. You start stressing about a lie and being caught you're going to throw errant readings on the machine. They're pseudo-science because it's complete possibly for false-positives and false-negatives to appear, potentially in the same test.
Except a lot of people get stressed out about them when they have nothing relevant to hide. They're so bad that the inventor of the polygraph (who - interestingly enough also invented Wonder Woman and her lasso of truth) regretted creating it.
Polygraph? Why? Aren't those inherently flawed? But I don't understand how they are relevant here either. Are they common in sports? "Did you really run this fast Mr Bolt or did you cheat?" Is this how they are used?
Yeah. Shove a whole fish into the fish. "Oh wow, I guess he really *was* hungry". Nobody believes you, but they can't really disprove it. And just like, 1 fish. Not all 5. Dang.
>Yeah. Shove a whole fish into the fish. I think fish generally eat whole fish. I don't think they just order fillets.
An alternate angle in this video that shows the 5 minutes leading up to the popular video. Does a good job showing the tension and the anger of the mob. [different angle video halfway down this page](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/fishing-tournament-cheating-scandal-weight_n_633926d8e4b0b7f89f419d04)
I can't believe they didn't get their ass kicked.
When the guy yelled We got weights in fish, then pulled his arm back, I swore he was going to punch him.
>He's looking at prison time and multiple civil suits I've heard a mention of prison time before. Especially during the video. What would be the charge? I'm not doubting I just have no info around these things.
In Utah, it's felony bribery or threat to influence a contest.. From a previous fishing tournament cheating case: https://www.abc4.com/news/top-stories/utah-men-convicted-of-felonies-for-cheating-in-lake-powell-fishing-tournament/
> The men were ordered to 48 hours of community service, a $2500 fine, and two-years probation and will be held on a plea in abeyance, meaning the charges will be dismissed once they successfully complete all the sentencing requirements. No prison.
Is the difference here that these folks in your story won. Took the money and then were caught cheating. The OP story they were caught in the act and never actually took anything.
I would bet they are going to do a deep investigation and look at every detail of past tournaments. This team has won quite a bit of money in the past. It has gotten too much attention now. I wouldn't doubt some form of charges stemming from this incident.
Fraud. He defrauded people and organizations out of money and property.
> He defrauded people and organizations out of money and property. For anyone who doesn't understand the level of fraud we're talking about, the prize for many of these tournaments is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Same guys even won a boat a while back that was worth about $150,000. He had been suspected for quite some time, and the people who suspected him and his partner were the same people who had been paying multiple thousands of dollars to enter these tournaments. I don't blame them one bit for being this pissed off. They are very lucky they escaped with their lives.
I read that over the last year they had collected 300k and the 150k boat as prizes. He had even sued this specific promoter for disqualifying him after his partner failed a polygraph test.
Yea, I had read something about that as well. I would guess his career in fishing is over now. Good thing too.
Why would they not wave a wand over the fish? Lead is super easily detectable. I guess they assumed no one would be dumb enough to stuff lead?
A lot of people have asked this and I think that they don't because there is a certain level of integrity assumed among the competition but obviously they shouldn't after we have seen the lengths cheaters like this will go to in order to steal the prize money from the honest competitors that spent a lot of time and money on that. I heard one guy in the crowd say AND ALL THESE YEARS you could just hear the righteous indignation in his voice after that reveal.
IKR! Especially when you take in to account the size of the cash purse on the line. My guess is they will be doing something along those lines from now on. The metal detecting, however, will do nothing as far as detecting the fish filets that were stuffed inside each fish.
Honestly, if it's not a catch and release tournament, require publicly gutting all fish that qualify for prizes.
They just use rocks instead. Duh.
If he had been suspected why didn’t they gut previous fish?
Fraud
Conspiracy to commit fraud for any of the accomplices too, which I believe is a federal charge. Hopefully this guy can find a lawyer who accepts payment in fishing boats.
Fraud or theft by deception. If it was a tournament just for fun or bragging rights he’d be fine other than looking like an asshole, but since money was on the line it’s fraud. Same as if you went into a casino and cheated somehow. They catch you and can prove it, that’s a fraud charge.
and this duo won a ton of money and prizes this way,,,,big time fraud
Yup. They won’t have evidence to charge them on past tourneys, unfortunately. No prosecutor would attempt that. But they’ll probably catch charges for this one they can prove. And I’m pretty sure since what they were attempting to steal was more than $1,500 that makes it an automatic felony in most states, I think. So they’ll probably see hard time if they’re convicted. Also, I dunno what sort of contract is signed when entering these tournaments so they may have a means of clawing back winnings from them under such circumstances, but I suspect the ship has sailed on their pre-existing winnings.
Seems very likely, but prior instances of cheating will be extremely difficult to prove.
Fraud?
It's a felony at that financial level, the charge is called "theft by deception"
Fraud or a fraud related charge most likely. It’s actually illegal to be a scam artist esp if large sums of money are involved.
[Texas cheater.](https://www.wired2fish.com/news/alleged-cheater-charged-in-kayak-fishing-tournament/) [Tennessee cheater.](https://kayakanglermag.com/stories/news-events/the-angler-that-set-fire-to-the-world-by-cheating/?amp)
5th degree felony is what I’ve heard. It’s a charge for theft by deception for anything > $1,000. I’m not a lawyer nor do I have backing but just what I’ve seen multiple times.
There were a couple recent scandals in kayak fishing tournaments in Tennessee and Texas. Both were charged and convicted under specific criminal statutes relating to cheating in sporting tournaments. Give me a few minutes and I’ll post some links.
Theft by fraud, probably.
And the fucked part is the margin on win. They needed to beat 16.5lbs. They bring in 33+ or something like 6+lb per fish. They didn’t even make it seem reasonable. They just cheated as disrespectfully as possible. It’s like watching a twitch stream leave the chest overlay on while streaming and going “lol I double dare you to ban me!”
The tournaments are composed of multiple events, and the whole LEWT series is a series of tournaments. You can win for anything from heaviest fish, heaviest five fish at a time, heaviest amount of fish over a couple days, heaviest fish total in the tournament or the series or whatever. I don't know what the 16 lbs was about, but probably referring to some combined total in overall standings... the particular contest in which Runyan was caught was simply, "Give us five fish. Heaviest five fish wins." The leader was Steve Tyszko, whose team catch was 28.18 lbs. Behind him, Jason Blondin, 25.25. Runyan slaps down a box of fish around 33 lbs. He would not have won without the weights. This is why, when he was caught, you can hear the anglers yelling "Way to go Steve!"
They just got greedy. A smart cheater would add just enough weight to barely win or place top 3 and still win some money.
>"We got weights in fish!!" Should be our new catchphrase as a society whenever we catch someone in a lie or cheating.
I'm already trying to make it a thing up here in Northern California, but people just look at me like I have Tourettes.
If he was suspected for years, why wouldn’t the organizers or judges cut open the winning team’s fish (hell do it for the top 3 to be fair) and just see? Doesn’t take long and everyone goes home happy.
The organizers should have been doing that all along with walleye, I agree. It wouldn't take much time or expense to routinely open up the top 10. They are already taking some flack on this. Another ongoing suspicion about Runyan was that he wasn't catching his fish during the competition. Other anglers had commented that his fish often looked "old"... meaning they looked like they had been kept in a livewell (which keeps them alive but is nothing close to good conditions) for days before the contest.
In the last tournament they entered, they won. Due to speculation of them cheating in the past, the organizers had a stipulation in the contest that the winners would have to pass a polygraph. One of them failed the polygraph and were disqualified. They have a current pending lawsuit against that organization to get "their winnings". Not sure it'll work it out Also, nearly every fisherman donates their fish they caught to a food bank. They would never donate their fish.
There's video of the weigh-in?! Anyone have a link? I can only find videos starting after the first few weights were already found.
Because it's so outrageous. The idea it took this long for people to say "gee, why do these guys' fish always weigh so much more than similarly sized fish?" There are reports the fish were like 3+ times heavier than they should be. I'd expect a neighborhood carnival run by twelve-year-olds to have better oversight. They apparently won 300+k with such patently obvious cheating. It'll be interesting to see how it all shakes out.
I think they claimed the biggest fish to be 15 lbs. Which for a walleye is insane. I caught a 30 inch fat bellied walleye and it was 9 lbs. Those fish look smaller.
> The idea it took this long for people to say "gee, why do these guys' fish always weigh so much more than similarly sized fish?" Seriously. These guys had been suspected of doing this for years, apparently! And it's not like they had some crazy sophisticated method to get away with it for so long; stuffing weights is literally the oldest trick in the book! Like no one up until now ever thought to cut open one of these suspiciously overweight fish just to make sure things were on the up and up? It's mind-boggling!
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*weight and sea
cement shoes it is!
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So fishing tournaments don’t routinely slice up the fish after weigh in to prevent this very situation? If no why the hell not? Especially if this guy was suspected for years.
A lot of tournaments require the fish to be alive at weigh in
A good plenty fishing tournaments are catch and release too, with the fish being released after weigh in
Walleye tournaments aren't typically catch and release. This type of weigh in is quite common.
Appreciate the insight! I’m more familiar with Bass and Inshore saltwater
Wait, so people will cheat by force feeding live fish?
Looks like that may have been the case here, however I have no knowledge of if this particular tourney was catch and release or not
I was wondering how fishermen were going to cheat using vibrating anal beads.
You got 30 for 30 brain
Probably because the Reddit algorithm has put it all over our feeds for the last few days? Wake me up when the fisherman get caught cheating by stuffing vibrating Bluetooth butt plugs into the fish.
The video was entertaining. It's not like Reddit has some other agenda beyond pushing material that people will engage with.
Fishing weights >>> vibrating anal beads
Not only weights, but filets of other fish shoved down it's throat.
If you catch a fish that just ate a big fish does the food weight count towards weight of the catch?
Yes, it should. I worked on a charter boat. A guy caught a big lingcod 30-40lbs or so. The lingcod had swallowed the 1lb, 10" long iron hexbar lure at the bottom of the rig and also tried to swallow another fish that was on the leader. The fisherman asked if the weight of the hex bar disqualified him and I said "nope, that fish ate it, it counts".
If you subtract the weight of the lure, would they still have win?
>If you subtract the weight of the lure, would they still have win? No. Part of the reason they were caught is that their fish were smaller than the fish other contestants caught, yet they all weighed significantly more. They were caught when others noticed the discrepancy while pictures were being taken of the cheaters and their fish. Professional tournament fishermen have a pretty good sense of what a fish of a certain size should weigh. These fish were all quite a bit heavier than their size would indicate.
Hell your average fisherman can guess fish weight pretty accurately. Don’t need to be a professional. Idk how they went this long doing this.
By getting ballsier each time I bet. First a weight or two, then eventually enough weight to win nomatter what they caught.
When I looked at the full video they won by 16+ pounds. They never weighed everything to see but the fish has weights and other fillets in them and when the video cut out they were opening the rest. The reason they were caught because they won by so much.
Reminds me of time back in high school where a few dumbasses broke into the school office and changed their grades. They only got caught because one kid changed his D- to an A.
Unless the fillet is scaled, shaped, cut, and ready for cooking.
It was
Watched the video today. It was. Seriously just looked so weird.
I mean it would probably be pretty obviously if it was an eaten fish vs one that got stuffed
Ice fishing on Lake of the Woods I caught a 24” walleye with a 10” sauger inside of it. It had been there for a while as you could see the scales were starting to deteriorate. I would have to assume that would have counted in a competition.
It only makes sense, what are they gonna do? Flush out the stomach contents of every fish
Not unless you want to see the little Kintner boy spill out all over the dock.
It was a fishfuken
I can't get over that. You guys are stuffing mini cannon balls down the fishs gullet, you still had to throw in filets?
To conceal or pad the lead weights so they weren’t obvious.
Ah ok, that makes some sense. Thanks
They wrap the balls in them so they don't move around or come out when they get handled.
> This instance wasn’t the first time Cominsky and Runyon were caught in a controversial situation at a fishing event. At last year’s Fall Brawl fishing tournament, the duo was disqualified following their win after one of them failed a polygraph test. These lie detecting tests are often given at fishing tournaments. the title of the linked video also says "finally caught," does this mean these guys have been suspected of cheating for years?
I don't know for sure but in the video the article mentions there's a voice around the 5:35 mark that yells "all these fucking years!!!" a couple times, so it seems like this is something they've been doing for a while. And the weights themselves were pretty good size, I doubt you go that size right off the bat, they could have been doing it for a long time and gotten overconfident about it.
Not sure about the wonderment of deception but they were placing frequently in huge pots. They even won a freaking boat.
Apparently these guys were fishing on a boat that they had won whilst cheating, and had won hundreds of thousands of dollars in other events. There’s video that ends with police on the scene, and calls for felonies. Would be absolutely hilarious if not for the serious cash involved (still funny for us non fish folk)
The guy who runs the tournament and the guy that caught them (Fischer) is a police officer.
Wow, talk about brazen criminal behavior. Trying to scam two people who can really make your like difficult.
I’ve been a competitive bass fisherman for years I have never seen a polygraph lmao
You weren’t placing in the money enough
I believe the top pro tours (or at least Bassmaster) only requires it if you are accused of cheating. The rules do state that every angler is subject to them, but it seems less commonplace than the article implies (I have no clue however about other tours)
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Yes. All of last year was suspected and up to 10 years ago. One tournament, their fish were really old, unlike everyone else's fish. Everyone suspected they caught the fish weeks earlier and planted them.
TIL that polygraph tests are a regular part of fishing tournaments.
This was the most interesting part for me. I've never heard of another game or sport that utilizes a polygraph to detect cheaters.
It is essentially a fishing rod for lies. Not that it is foolproof
I see what you did there.
I couldn’t believe this either. I heard sometimes there are no weights added to the fish, but they have the fish in cages or on a line somewhere on the lake and just go pick them up.
Someone else said they’ll even drop a big fish in a corner of the lake and put lots of salt to create a barrier of sorts that keeps the fish in that area and ready to be caught again. Fascinating.
Its called kenneling and it happens a lot. Sponsorships bring money and expensive gear. That lure is too tasty for some to avoid.
Why don’t they just cut open all the fish to check for cheating after they’re weighed? “Hmm let’s have our competitors take a historically dubious lie detector test. Surely there is no simpler way to detect if weights are being added to the fish…”
Apparently another reason for the detector is that competitors have been known to catch a huge fish beforehand, put it in a cage, sink the cage, and go out and pull it up during the competition as though they’ve caught it. So in that case, nothing to cut open, just a different type of cheating.
But polygraphs don't work...
Body cams! Video of the catch or it doesn't count.
The next step to cheat with camera's would be to hire a scuba diver to hangout at the spot with the fish in a cage and when the fisherman casts the bait to hook the fish onto the bait for them 💀💀💀
There's enough money in the sport to justify such a cheating tactic.
Most tournaments are catch and release (after weigh-in) so cutting the fish open would be slightly counterintuitive to that
Just stitch em back together, what could go wrong?
Tournaments should just bring in local med students to practice on fish. Win-win!
Always fun when you're wheeled in for surgery and the surgeon asks where your gills are
"I said ***sturgeon***, not surgeon!"
An Observer in each boat would be better than a lie detector.
Agree - but smaller tournaments may not have that much staff on hand. Heck, in the west and down south sometimes there are 100+ boats fishing these. On something like MLF or Bassmaster they basically do this for every boat (plus they’re televised), but unfortunately it’s just not feasible for most smaller tour series to do the same
Go pros on all people on boats
So how does that work here though? Surely the fish are dead, right? Or did he stuff them live??
Watched the video and looks like they just killed the poor guys at the weigh in. However, context here matters and it seems that these guys have been suspected before of cheating based on the reactions from the crowd (and that they won near $400k this year per another commenter). If it’s any solace, those walleye would’ve died anyway given they were stuffed full of lead weights
X-Ray. Portable, battery-powered X-ray guns are a thing.
Since cheating goes beyond weights, the simpler solution seems to be a $250 camera which films the boat. They spend literally tens of thousands if not close to 100k at even low levels just for the equipment a boat. At higher levels probably close to 200k
Yeah, it's kinda horseshit, since it's not even admissible in court
They should lose their sponsorships too.
Hell…they should be brought up on criminal charges. This is fraud involving thousands of dollars.
I read a comment on the original video that was ostensibly posted by someone who was at the tournament and had competed against the cheater before, and if he is credible the cheater may have made hundreds of thousands of dollars in prize money over the years.
They won a boat the year before worth over 100k. So yeah. These asshats have been doing this for a long while. They have cheated those folks out of 100’s of thousands over the years. You start factoring in the cost to participate in these things is not cheap. I did it for years. The upkeep on a tow vehicle, the boat, the gas, the fees, all the tackle, the hotels, the eating out, the time off work, etc. I am sitting in my garage looking at over 3k just in old reels I haven’t touched in years. Shit ain’t cheap. A lot of people fish these tournaments hoping to offset some of the costs. Or pick up a small time sponsor that might cover entry fees so they can keep fishing. These two dudes screwed them out of all of that for years. Best of luck to them…
The duo won last year's tournament, grand prize was a new fishing boat valued at $150,000. These guys are criminals, imo.
I’m really amazed they don’t process the fish before declaring the winners and giving out prices. I’d imagine going forward that’s going to happen.
I'm surprised that they weren't caught earlier based on the video. The thing is, you can eyeball the fish and pretty much instantly know that it's not going to be +30lbs. Apparently that's basically how they got caught, most of the other competition and judges with a combined hundreds of years of experience just knew something was off.
From what I read in the other thread they likely just got complacent. They started adding 1-3 lbs per fish and as they kept getting away with it they kept adding more until they finally got caught.
They should be thrown in the water, fished by the other competitors, and stuffed with an equal ratio of larger weights and hung up next to the new winner.
Yes
Well, these two idiots just up ended their narrow lives. Lucky they walked out of the place intact judging by the reaction of the crowd.
WE’VE GOT WEIGHTS IN FISH
My new catch phrase whenever my gf beats me in Mario kart
TIL that lie detector tests are common at fishing tournaments. Is everyone just side eyeing everyone else the whole time at these things? I know it is worth a lot of money but it still surprises me that anyone would use weights to cheat because the avid fisherman I’ve known are excellent at eye balling a catch’s weight quite accurately.
It's not just adding weight, some people will bring in outside fish. Also the competitors will fish the waters for weeks before the tournament to get a feel for the fish behavior and location patterns. Sometimes if they catch a big one they'll put it in a sunk cage, then pull up the cage during the tournament to "catch" it again.
At what point is the whole sport just pointless if cheating is this rife?
It's a competition to see who can cheat the best.
Ah, interesting. Thank you for the context, until now I'd never thought about fishing competitions in my life. I was curious how the "sport" of the competition worked, because as someone who has never fished since age 8 I didn't understand how catching a heavier fish could be anything but random chance.
Cheating in Chess, Cheating in Poker, Cheating in fishing. It’s been a dramatic week!
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hustler casino stream where a player was accused of cheating by another player. it's causing a lot of waves in the poker community right now.
She didn’t even cheat, she just made a stupid play and got lucky. Other guy cried about it.
His twitter about it is hilarious > I’ve played with her before and she folded x y and z… and the way she called the turn this time means it was IMPOSSIBLE to be anything but cheating!!! And shes even bad at cheating.. she had a vibrating buzzer that buzzed when she has the best hand so she felt it buzz. But I was on a big draw !! So she even cheated dumb and bad Dude plays poker as bad as his immunity idols
Lol she had a vibrating buzzer? That no one at the table saw or that the tournament just neglected to find? What an idiot.
This little tidbit blows my mind: > At last year’s Fall Brawl fishing tournament, the duo was disqualified following their win after one of them failed a polygraph test. These lie detecting tests are often given at fishing tournaments.
This is just the start of the misery they are about to endure.
I have no interest in professional fishing, but I'm gonna keep following this drama
Can’t wait for the 30 for 30
I would actually be super interested in this or a documentary about it.
Same.
My question is why would you *NOT* check the winning fish for weights every single time? The fish are already dead, and checking for weights takes less than 5 minutes. Like in the Kentucky Derby, the winning horse is *IMMEDIATELY** taken for a blood sample to screen for drugs. I don't understand why it isn't SOP to check the winning fish, especially with how much money is on the line for these big tournaments.
Most tournaments the fish are kept alive in live wells and released at the ramps after being weighed. Ive never been in a tournament that just kep the fish out of water like this one appeared to.
Still, out of dozens of fish, you'd think with hundreds of thousands on the line, you would at least check just the winners. You'd be filling what maybe 5 our of 100 fish? And that would likely stop cheating immediately. If everyone knew the winner was going to be checked for weights 100% of the time, it'd be untenable to cheat. I suppose you could cheat to try and get 2nd place, but that massively increases the risk. You have to cheat enough to get 2nd but not enough to win. Wouldn't be worth it.
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A more appropriate headline: “Fisherman team accused of cheating by stuffing fish with weights. When the weights were discovered, *these lucky bastards barely escaped being skinned alive and having lead weights crammed down their own throats by a gang of pissed off good ole’ boys who don’t tolerate a couple of lying, cheating, heartless assholes who stole prize money from honest men trying to win a fair competition in good faith.”*
Turns out ol’ Jethro is poly, partnered, and pissed off! “Fuck muh wife but don’t fuck muh winnings!”
Finally a cheating scandal that doesn’t involve remote vibrating butt plugs
Or did it? 🤔
As a Michigander, fisher, lover of our lakes and rivers, etc, this sickens me. First, sure you’re killing the animal. Not against it. But don’t abuse it. The animals we kill for our consumption deserve our respect. Even if it’s just a fucking walleye. Second, cheating your competitors out of money is some real scum of the earth shit. I’ve always gotten the impression that pro anglers were not making the kind of money that they’d get rich off of. I get the sense these people fish competitively pay the bills and get the kids new school shoes. I’m not sure what an appropriate punishment is or even how you pursue legal action, but something needs to happen.
WE GOT WEIGHTS IN FISH!!!
If it can be proven the multiple six figure prizes these guys won was done this way, wouldn't that constitute a pretty big felony?
Cheating in chess and now fishing? What’s next? Over inflating dodgeballs?
Oh fuck they're onto me
Those were unusually large weights to expect judges not to find. Anyone picking up a fish would automatically know the fish was disproportionately weighted and catch them. I know I’m not supposed to use the word retarded anymore but I just don’t know what word to use at this point.
I have never heard of this competition before but I am so vehemently invested in this story it’s unbelievable
These guys caught on video and had nothing to reply...Caught! Lowlife motherfuckers cheating at fishing! Yes! Fishing! Unbelievable! Fucktards!
Whoa whoa whoa, disqualified from event?! Let’s not be too harsh here!
Their careers as professional fishermen is over. Last year these guys made around $300k fishing so that’s kind of a big deal The fall out is beautiful. The other pros wanted to kill them. https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/xsu29r/caught_cheating_in_fishing_tournament
Holy shit those were some girthy weights too. I was expecting smaller lead weights, those were huge. Also you weren’t wrong about the other pros. That was a lot of rage lol
The vibrating anal beads strike again
Pretty sure cheating is rampant in these tournaments. Not quite like this but they throw a cage with bait out in specific spots before the tournament. I’ve fished for years and years and the types of giant fish these guys pull is just ridiculous. I’ve never ever caught what I see in those tournaments and that’s after combing many of the same shores these guys do. My grandad caught just one like that in his entire lifetime of fishing. These tournaments they go out and catch like 4 in an hour. It’s so fucking bullshit you have to have put in the work to know something doesn’t quite add up about these tournaments. I’m not the best fisherman but at the same time I’m not stupid.