Walleye fishing is serious business.

[crash_davis 23103]

This dude reported won over $300k from tourneys last year and got a new boat. Also was accused of cheating last year and threatened to sue the tourney which made the accusation of defamation of character. 

 

From reddit.

Zzzaxx

As a competitor in a very low stakes annual fishing tournament, the full length video is absolutely enthralling. The first 14 minutes or so are outwardly boring, because each team is coming up to weight their 5biggest fish and the weights are in the teens, low twenties. Then, with the leader at 23lbs. Or so, these mavericks roll in with 5 fish weighing over 33lbs. Outweighing the leader by an average of 2lbs per fish, which is pretty unbelievable in any circumstance.

The crowd is talking amongst themselves and there's a bit of disbelief, but no hullabaloo.

Then they take their winning fish, hold them up for photos and the rest of the teams to see and any experienced fisherman knows roughly the weight of any given fish and you can hear the cognitive dissonance in the crowd.

Then the 'winners' start to take their fish and leave when the judge/official calls them back over and chats with the guy in the video for a minute.

It looks like the official presses him a bit. Like gives him the chance to come clean or withdraw from the tournament. Maybe he's testing him.

You can tell by the body language that something is up and the crowd starts to murmur from a distance away.

The official grabs a knife from his assistant and a fish and drops it on the ground and slices it open. Digs his hands inside, then holds it up like a beating heart in the temple of doom and yells "WE HAVE WEIGHTS IN FISH!!!"

The crowd erupts and surges forward and this video begins.

I have had close relatives come to almost assaulting another close friend over a $20entry and bragging rights. These guys have swindled anywhere from $300k to millions of prizes including a brand new boat (that shit is expensive)

I wouldn't be surprised if these guys disappear one day and justice is never officially served. Don't piss off a bunch of guys with boats. They know where to hide the body.

 

[Captainant 27639]

Depending on where this happened it may be a felony, definitely is in Texas

 

[FartingMonk 3606]

One of my good buddies does fishing tournaments and it's serious fucking business.  It's a lot of prize money.  That's fraud is what they did.  

[Judge Roybeanbag 11819]

What was the poster’s name on the old site that tournament fished?  Can’t remember but yeah it’s serious business.  

[Parliament 14249]

The culture of fishing is weird.

[Blotto 23491]

maybe those walleyes are just into anal beads? 

[deadshank 24652]

1 minute ago, Blotto said:

maybe those walleyes are just into anal beads? 

 

[deadshank 24652]

The fish: took it hook, line and sinker. 

[Post Oak 20209]

Those aren't big girls but they definitely swallow

[FizzleFish 137]

19 minutes ago, Parliament said:

The culture of fishing is weird.

Weird? How?

[Hermanator 7032]

Cops got better things to than patrol a fishing dispute over money. 

Drive your coon asses down to the precinct and file a report. 

Edited October 1, 2022 by Hermanator

[Dewey 3286]

I don't know, I feel like walleye fishing is a big fucking deal. 

[FartingMonk 3606]

It's the prize money.  It's fucking insane.

[HiggyBaby 2529]

Are we sure the judges didn’t have walleye vision?

[jimmyjazz 45893]

5 hours ago, FizzleFish said:

Weird? How?

User name, check.

[Gengs1 2583]

I mean isn’t it kind of stupid not to check the top 3 participants to make sure they didn’t Cheat?
Seems dumb to me that it they don’t at least use a handheld metal detector or gut each fish after weighing 

[Captainant 27639]

6 hours ago, Blotto said:

maybe those walleyes are just into anal beads? 

Are you telling me those walleye are cheating at chess too??

[justhookit 4191]

7 hours ago, Judge Roybeanbag said:

What was the poster’s name on the old site that tournament fished?  Can’t remember but yeah it’s serious business.  

 

6 hours ago, Hermanator said:

Cops got better things to than patrol a fishing dispute over money. 

Drive your coon asses down to the precinct and file a report. 

 

1 hour ago, Gengs1 said:

I mean isn’t it kind of stupid not to check the top 3 participants to make sure they didn’t Cheat?
Seems dumb to me that it they don’t at least use a handheld metal detector or gut each fish after weighing 

This one in the scheme of things is fairly small. I don’t know what their entry fees are in a tournament like that but there are billfish tournaments where the ENTRY fee can approach 100,000 and the winning team can take home over 3 million. A few years back a team got DQ’ed from a 2.5 million dollar payout on the east coast. They didn’t exactly cheat it just turned out that a person on the boat didn’t have a valid fishing license. Now this dude was clearly cheating and I’m surprised wasn’t caught sooner. Polygraph tests are mandatory in billfish tournaments pretty much all over the world.

@fattyflattieyou probably heard what happened this summer with Billy the owner of Freeman boats. I’ve been tournament fishing a little over 10 years now and I think that’s maybe the 4th time I’ve ever heard of something going bad. The other 2 or 3 times were pretty technical rules DQ’s and not somebody stuffing weight into the cavity of the fish. Holy shit.

[jimmyjazz 45893]

"Cheat?  Hell no.  We just happened to catch 5 fish that were far more dense that our competition managed to catch."

I assume those guys are out of tournament fishing forever?

[MNLonghornFUKM 8817]

The culture of fishing is weird.

Lol it is. A parts salesman of ours is into these smaller tournaments all over. He fishes primarily out of devils lake. He tells us about how some cheaters get life time bans for doing some sneaky shit like tying weights to a trophy fish and dropping it to the bottom of a lake only to boat out and “hook” it during the tournament

[justhookit 4191]

7 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

"Cheat?  Hell no.  We just happened to catch 5 fish that were far more dense that our competition managed to catch."

I assume those guys are out of tournament fishing forever?

That would be my guess. There’s a well known Texas billfishing team that is banned for life from tournaments. I still don’t know exactly what they did but people don’t look too kindly towards cheating when there is that kind of money on the line.

[justhookit 4191]

8 minutes ago, MNLonghornFUKM said:

Lol it is. A parts salesman of ours is into these smaller tournaments all over. He fishes primarily out of devils lake. He tells us about how some cheaters get life time bans for doing some sneaky shit like tying weights to a trophy fish and dropping it to the bottom of a lake only to boat out and “hook” it during the tournament

That’s pretty easily solved though. Video the catch and bringing the fish into the boat. It’s going to be pretty obvious if a fish is attached to any other lines or weights.

[justhookit 4191]

Regardless, while I’ve fished a few kill tournaments I don’t like them. I much prefer catch and release tournaments where you get 3x points for a marlin (1.5x for a white marlin), and 1x points for a sailfish. It’s all on video. Even better, most of the tournaments I fish lately have a certified observer on board assigned randomly to a different boat every day. You don’t even have to take video (but we do just in case) and the observer calls the species and the catch or no catch. Simplifies things for everyone. Now I guess a team could bribe the observer but if they approached 99% of them that would get them banned for life. For the most part the higher end tourney teams are on the up and up and will DQ fish on their own if they feel like they did something wrong - like touching a line by accident.

[Cornpop 230]

7 hours ago, Parliament said:

The culture of fishing is weird.

The culture of tournament fishing is weird.  Don't lump in the rest of us that that fish for enjoyment, the outdoors and relaxation.

[justhookit 4191]

1 hour ago, Cornpop said:

The culture of tournament fishing is weird.  Don't lump in the rest of us that that fish for enjoyment, the outdoors and relaxation.

Can’t speak to freshwater tournaments but saltwater is a bunch of rich guys basically gambling. Say you’ve got 100 boats in a tournament. Maybe 20 have a decent shot of winning. The other 80 are just taking their shot at getting lucky. I don’t know that I would call it weird and it’s not a culture because it attracts all types. It’s definitely still for enjoyment and the outdoors. It’s not relaxing at all. It’s not for everyone for sure.

[Kennythetiger 9376]

7 hours ago, Cornpop said:

The culture of tournament fishing is weird.  Don't lump in the rest of us that that fish for enjoyment, the outdoors and relaxation.

Remember the story on here a year or two ago about the city councilman or mayor in a northern town that was discouraging ice fishing near his town?  His philosophy was, “That’s when the whores come in”.  We all made fun of him until, upon further research, it was in fact when the whores come in. 

[Judge Roybeanbag 11819]

5 hours ago, justhookit said:

Can’t speak to freshwater tournaments but saltwater is a bunch of rich guys basically gambling. Say you’ve got 100 boats in a tournament. Maybe 20 have a decent shot of winning. The other 80 are just taking their shot at getting lucky. I don’t know that I would call it weird and it’s not a culture because it attracts all types. It’s definitely still for enjoyment and the outdoors. It’s not relaxing at all. It’s not for everyone for sure.

The other poster I was referring to was a freshwater guy, lived in Arkansas or someplace and had a bunch of sponsors. 

[Buzzrock 14903]

Went to Twitter to see what’s up, got this

[Cornpop 230]

3 minutes ago, longhornmatt said:

DQ’d.  Those are also stuffed with artificial substances.

I volunteer to conduct an inspection 

[Nice Guy Eddie 13509]

Lying after fishing? Unbelievable.

Don’t many (all?) fishing tournaments have cheating and some of the people that are upset in these videos are mad that their cheating wasn’t enough. I referencing tournaments where all participants are on their own without an observer.

Dropping sinkers in the fish stomachs seems like kindergarten cheating. Only one step above a thumb on the scale.

I would think injecting some weighted substance throughout the fish would be ideal. Of course like any cheating, you can probably get by with a small amount but the brazen cheaters are sometimes caught.

[Buzzrock 14903]

I’m genuinely curious what happens to these guys. I’m not sure what crime was committed but I would expect a big civil suit and for them to lose.

[TwiceHorn 31440]

So, how did they get those rather large weights into the fish?

Also, did I hear correctly that there were "fish filets" in them, as well?

[DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt 12301]

12 minutes ago, Buzzrock said:

I’m genuinely curious what happens to these guys. I’m not sure what crime was committed but I would expect a big civil suit and for them to lose.

Your honor, can the prosecution prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, those fish didn’t eat those weights?

[Foosters 17843]

Amateurs.

Everyone knows you bring smaller fish, fill those with weights, and then insert smaller fish into stomach of the catch. They'll just assume your catch ate the smaller fish. Fishception if you will 

[Anastasis 23464]

18 hours ago, FizzleFish said:

Weird? How?

Edited October 2, 2022 by Anastasis

[Beau Vine 54208]

12 hours ago, justhookit said:

Regardless, while I’ve fished a few kill tournaments I don’t like them. I much prefer catch and release tournaments where you get 3x points for a marlin (1.5x for a white marlin), and 1x points for a sailfish. It’s all on video. Even better, most of the tournaments I fish lately have a certified observer on board assigned randomly to a different boat every day. You don’t even have to take video (but we do just in case) and the observer calls the species and the catch or no catch. Simplifies things for everyone. Now I guess a team could bribe the observer but if they approached 99% of them that would get them banned for life. For the most part the higher end tourney teams are on the up and up and will DQ fish on their own if they feel like they did something wrong - like touching a line by accident.

username checks out.

[Bateshorn 9927]

All I know is walleye is fucking delicious. 

[HornOnTheBayou 8919]

5 hours ago, Kennythetiger said:

Remember the story on here a year or two ago about the city councilman or mayor in a northern town that was discouraging ice fishing near his town?  His philosophy was, “That’s when the whores come in”.  We all made fun of him until, upon further research, it was in fact when the whores come in. 

[4th_and_18 687]

I’m genuinely curious what happens to these guys. I’m not sure what crime was committed but I would expect a big civil suit and for them to lose.

They could be prosecuted under sport fixing laws which is aimed at gambling and fixed/throwing games. “If two or more people agree to intentionally affect the outcome of a sporting event for the purpose of financial gain” or some combo of other fancy words.

[DaysOff 7947]

If only fishing was a sport.

[Deej 76756]

7 hours ago, Bateshorn said:

All I know is walleye is fucking delicious. 

If you don't mind lead poisoning. 

[squib 1120]

I fish multiple bass tournaments annually and have for 35 years. Been fortunate enough to be polygraphed many times.  Lots of money on the line and contestants have to be able to trust one another. Can’t keep an eye on everyone. Unfortunately, these things happen. Just recently a kid here in Texas was caught cheating in a high school tournament. There were plenty of folks threatening to whoop his ass. There was a metro-plex bad ass a few years ago that was pretty consistently in the money. He was quick to always thank Jesus. Then they found some lead weights in his fish. Hasn’t been heard from since but I believe they charged him with fraud. 

[atomheartbevo 89630]

10 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Dropping sinkers in the fish stomachs seems like kindergarten cheating. Only one step above a thumb on the scale.

Go into any shop with metal detecting gear, or hop on Amazon and can you can get one of these for $25 - waterproof and can detect any metals in the fish with a simple 2-3 second swipe of the fish

 

[Neonmoon 38129]

Um…here’s a cheap way to stop the cheating…why don’t they just cut open every fish at every tournament?

[TexasHooch 5122]

https://heavy.com/news/chase-cominsky-jacob-runyan-lake-erie-walleye-fishing-cheating/

Quote

The fishing tournament’s director, Fischer told The Sharon Herald, walleye typically caught in Lake Erie in late September weight 4 to 5 pounds. When the fish caught by Cominsky and Runyan weighed in at 7.9 pounds, Fischer told the newspaper, “I thought ‘ no way.'”

Fischer said he squeezed the fish and felt something hard inside, the newspaper reported. He then cut open the fish and found two 12-ounce metal balls inside, he told The Herald. Fischer said Cominsky and Runyan had been leading the Lake Erie Walleye Tour all season and needed to finish 10th or better to win the title.

Fischer, a police sergeant in Ohio, told The New York Times, “Everything was turned over to law enforcement.” The Ohio Department of Natural Resources and the Cuyahoga County prosecutor’s office are investigating, The Times reported.

Quote

 

Cominsky and Runyan were disqualified from The Fall Brawl fishing tournament in 2021 after one of the anglers failed a polygraph test, The Toledo Blade reported. That disqualification cost them a $100,000 prize. The newspaper reported that both men passed polygraph exams after later events. A Facebook post shows they won a cash prize and a boat at the Walleye Slam in 2021.

Cleveland.com wrote, “It didn’t take much to fire up the weigh-in crowd, many who had suspected Cominsky and Runyan had been cheating regularly to consistently win expensive fishing boats in the Fall Brawl and Walleye Slam fishing derbies in 2021, and tens of thousands of dollars in walleye tournaments. The two had slipped the heavy 12-ounce egg sinkers in their walleye, and padded them with filleted walleye flesh so that the sinkers wouldn’t bump each other and make noise.”

 

 

[Parliament 14249]

They're from Ohio.  Great.

[Nice Guy Eddie 13509]

I thought polygraphs have often been proven to be inaccurate. And I assume the training of the polygraph specialist has a great deal to do with the accuracy.

I would be hesitant to join in any activity that requires a polygraph. If you claim I’m lying when I’m not, I’m going to be furious if you say I’m lying and question my integrity.

 

[atomheartbevo 89630]

19 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

I thought polygraphs have often been proven to be inaccurate. And I assume the training of the polygraph specialist has a great deal to do with the accuracy.

I would be hesitant to join in any activity that requires a polygraph. If you claim I’m lying when I’m not, I’m going to be furious if you say I’m lying and question my integrity.

When you’re doing the polygraph, stare at the officials and tell them you are going to make them disappear in the lake and nobody will find them all because they are questioning your integrity, and when the polygraph reader says “he’s telling the truth” see how fast they back off.

 

[GreenspointTexas 9598]

11 hours ago, Foosters said:

Amateurs.

Everyone knows you bring smaller fish, fill those with weights, and then insert smaller fish into stomach of the catch. They'll just assume your catch ate the smaller fish. Fishception if you will 

This is one of the funniest comments in this sites history

[Deej 76756]

1 hour ago, Parliament said:

They're from Ohio.  Great.

WhatThe Buck will be along shortly to tell us they were framed.