Video is very NSFW

Serious Controversy in Pro fishing tournament as multiple-time winners caught stuffing lead weights and other fish filets in their fish to have the heaviest catch to win hundreds of thousands in prizes. pic.twitter.com/Sxqeo2XC0K

— Billy (@Billyhottakes) October 1, 2022

That is nutz.

That's a bunch of pissed off rednecks!

Send them to prison. I read last year they won boats and other cash prizes worth hundreds of thousands.

Never heard of stuffing fish with fillets. That's actually pretty smart, as it would be tough to detect. Maybe he wouldn't have gotten caught if he didn't get greedy with the giant lead weights.

The dude absolutely needs to be prosecuted, and I fully expect that he will. He better hope he gets sent to an inner-city jail where they aren't fishermen. He might last longer there than with some rednecks in the cell.

Fishing is serious bidness. What a crappy thing to do.

cheating in fishing tournaments is a felony in Texas

I had no idea. Wow!

Is it weird that someone is just now thinking to do this or does their "sport" have some serious validity issues?

It's serious theft.

Big deer and big fish have a tendency to bring out the worst in people.

Every 2nd through 4th place finisher to him has grounds for major civil cases in addition to the state & possible federal charges this dude faces. Teach your kids that integrity matters.

I don't know much about the sport but I was under the impression they made the winners take lie detector tests. If that's correct, did these guys beat the lie detector?

Because those things aren't real

How do you stuff a fish with filets? Like literally shoved meat down it's throat?

I retired from TPWD Inland Fisheries. In the mid-70's my crew was working a bass tournament on Sam Rayburn Reservoir. This was before the huge organized tournaments and before Catch & Release was a thing. You know, it was Catch & Kill back then. Anyway, the winning string looked very suspicious---like they had been in a freezer but were now "thawed" out. We were there just to observe but the tournament director ask us to take a look. We cut open a couple of the large females on the winning string and the ovaries, laden with eggs, were still partially frozen. Yikes!!!! That was a bad scene. We just showed the evidence and left.

Obi Wan Ginobili said:

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Is it weird that someone is just now thinking to do this or does their "sport" have some serious validity issues?

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This is an issue. There's also issues with cheater boxes. People will build boxes with a string attached and sink them then catch fish throughout the week and put them in there and take them out on tournament day.

Hell, some of the world records are even in question because a guy that has multiple is accused of foul hooking them off of beds. There was a big article on him a while back and it was an interesting read.

Wodanaz said:

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Big deer and big fish have a tendency to bring out the worst in people.

Every 2nd through 4th place finisher to him has grounds for major civil cases in addition to the state & possible federal charges this dude faces. Teach your kids that integrity matters.

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The tournament prior they won $306,000 as a team.

— Dallas Spencer (@dallasspencer97) October 1, 2022

This isn't abt big deer or fish. These dudes are going to end up with felonies and likely jail time once this is sorted out.

ATX_AG_08 said:

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Wodanaz said:

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Big deer and big fish have a tendency to bring out the worst in people.

Every 2nd through 4th place finisher to him has grounds for major civil cases in addition to the state & possible federal charges this dude faces. Teach your kids that integrity matters.

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The tournament prior they won $306,000 as a team.

— Dallas Spencer (@dallasspencer97) October 1, 2022

This isn't abt big deer or fish. These dudes are going to end up with felonies and likely jail time once this is sorted out.

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As they should.

ATX_AG_08 said:

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Wodanaz said:

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Big deer and big fish have a tendency to bring out the worst in people.

Every 2nd through 4th place finisher to him has grounds for major civil cases in addition to the state & possible federal charges this dude faces. Teach your kids that integrity matters.

---

The tournament prior they won $306,000 as a team.

— Dallas Spencer (@dallasspencer97) October 1, 2022

This isn't abt big deer or fish. These dudes are going to end up with felonies and likely jail time once this is sorted out.

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They are dealing with the same issues in elite chess.

The problem is you can get them on this one act, but there is no way to prove they cheated in previous tournaments. They will never be allowed to compete again without suspicion.

Gangsters talk, the mafia talks, fishermen will talk. Someone will roll I imagine.

How do you cheat in elite chess?

Vibrating butt plugs. Seriously.

Buck Compton said:

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How do you cheat in elite chess?

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Covid drove many tournaments to online, which is much easier.

But in the "over the board" tournaments that are in person it's more difficult.

However, consider that elite level chess is decided by 1-2 key moments that is all they need. So you aren't cheating each move, only the major turning points.

Signals from the crowd have been used in the past. Getting a chess computer or phone past security is another.

I admit I'm a hunter not a fisherman and may not know how these fishing tourneys work but I thought it was SOP for winners to have to take and pass polygraphs, and had been for like 30 years. How in the world do you get away with shoving lead weights and fish filets down the gullet?

OnlyForNow said:

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It's serious theft.

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I seriously couldn't live with myself! I'd like to spit some Beechnut in that dude's eye! I Hate thieves!

Mathguy64 said:

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I admit I'm a hunter not a fisherman and may not know how these fishing tourneys work but I thought it was SOP for winners to have to take and pass polygraphs, and had been for like 30 years. How in the world do you get away with shoving lead weights and fish filets down the gullet?

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Why do people believe in lie detectors? Their science is questionable, which is why they are inadmissible in court.

Even if they do work, they work by measuring your baseline during answers the operator knows the honest answer to against that during your response to unknown questions. So if you can "raise" your baseline (ie a tack in your shoe or some other method) or if you honestly believe your lie or if you have no qualms/worries about the lie, then the operator won't know you're lying.

Steeltoe05 said:

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I don't know much about the sport but I was under the impression they made the winners take lie detector tests. If that's correct, did these guys beat the lie detector?

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An Aggie classmate, and later Denton PD, and Texas Highway Patrolman, had a side gig of giving lie detector tests at fishing tournaments. This was probably 15-20 years ago. He claimed pretty good success, but I agree with those who don't trust the tests.

Innocent people get nervous and fail, sociopaths pass with flying colors, because they feel no guilt.

That aside, he was always one of the most insightful and astute judges of human nature I ever knew, so maybe he was the key, not the machine.

In the amateur tournaments I fish, hourly winners are automatically polygraphed. My fishing partner had the heaviest bass for an hour on Toledo Bend back in May and was polygraphed.

There were some guys that were arrested on Fork a few years for trimming the tail on a bass to get it under the window in the McDonalds tournament. Supposed to be a felony to cheat in a tournament. Somebody with Google skills can probably look it up.

Why was he just standing there for so long with that stupid look on his face?

Cheater boxes as you called it were used in some small local tournaments years ago.
In all the major bass tournaments that deal with lots of dollars their is usually a warden and or biologist present to examine fish. It is pretty easy to tell if a fish has been in a basket or box for multiple days vs a live well for a few hours.

Because it was at that moment, he knew he ****ed up.

Just need drones to follow the boats around recording.

It was one man at the Sealy McDonalds Big Bass Classic. They had prizes for below slot and above. The guy trimmed the tail to make it fall below the slot. Warden caught it and the guy confessed.

I have had to attend and work literally several hundred bass tournaments in my career in the marine industry. Some small local tournaments or trails and lots of mega dollar ones. They always do polygraphs and I never witnessed nor have ever heard of a fisherman being falsely accused due to a single polygraph results. However in that same time frame I can count on my two hands guys that did not pass it and ended up confessing of cheating in some way.
The tournament in this thread was a local Ohio Walleye Trail Tourney.