There is no escaping the fact that heating is everywhere. A quick glance at the news or a quick scrolling through your phone’s newsfeeds proves this.
Many of us can recall football scandals, basketball scandals, and even chess scandals from the past.
In recent years, walleye fishing has become much less popular.
Despite the fact that many people don’t realize walleye tournaments exist, this type of behavior has existed for much longer than anyone reading this has been alive.
In my first tournament, more than 20 years ago, some fellow participants accused me of cheating because they couldn’t believe a young, snot-nosed kid could have landed such a huge walleye bag.
Their confession was that they pooled their fish together and added ice to the fish’s bellies to make them heavier. Both violations were enough to get them kicked out individually.
It is ironic to admit oneself to cheating and then accuse another of cheating.
Unless waterboarding or forfeiture of your house becomes acceptable repercussions in fishing derby circles, cheating isn’t likely to end anytime soon.
What Went Down!
Last week, two Ohio walleye anglers, Jacob Runyan and Chase Cominsky, were busted cheating at the Lake Erie Walleye Trail event, making international news. They were caught because they placed at least 8 pounds of lead weights and partial fish fillets in the stomachs of fish that they weighed in.
It began more than a year earlier, when this team began dominating walleye tournaments like Tom Brady did on Friday nights at your local high school.
The wins kept piling up, and the competition became envious. Not only did they not believe the weight of the fish, but formal protests were filed and lie detectors required to back up my accomplishments. However, from seven days a week of handling walleyes, I had become quite accurate in gauging their weight without actually seeing them.
For an entire year, suspicion was rampant as videos, conversations, and pictures raised serious questions about what was going on. Despite the lack of definitive evidence, the tournament directors had to hand out expensive prizes and prize money to those accused of cheating. Finally, when one of the cheating anglers failed a lie detector test in a fall event but passed in another tournament, it proved to be the last straw – each derby had awarded a boat worth over $100K.
As we see in other sports, anglers can get on a “hot streak” from time to time, but this was one of epic proportions. Both these accused cheaters were not fishing larger national events, which pay significantly more money, adding to the doubt. During a streak of this magnitude, why would you fish for nickels when you can get dollar bills?
The mounting allegations and questionable circumstances caused tensions to rise amongst the anglers. To keep The Lake Erie Walleye Trail in check, the tournament director Jason Fischer took an unprecedented step: he put a cameraman in one of their boats prior to last week’s events. While the top boats were already receiving extra observation via cameras, this was an extra measure taken for third-party confirmation. Fischer disclosed this on The Bigwater Podcast.
This brings us back to last week in Cleveland, Ohio for the final event of the Lake Erie Walleye Trail season which would determine both the tour’s Championship and the coveted “Angler of the Year” title. There were well over $20K in cash prizes and side pots. The two-day tournament was shortened to a one-day shootout in less than favorable weather conditions as a result of hurricane weather conditions.
It was a tough day of fishing, so many anglers didn’t even have a 5-fish limit, so many hovered around dockside to see what the two alleged cheaters had to offer. At first glance, anglers did not think much of their fish because they were of average size for Lake Erie at this time. The real drama began once the scales showed 30-plus pounds.
When the tournament director asked the alleged cheater to stay next to the stage for pictures, the crowd booed and suspected him. Upon looking and ultimately grabbing the fish, Fischer knew something was amiss and that he needed to act. After pulling out a knife, lead weights, walleye fillet parts, and even scissors were found in the bellies. The jig was finally up and running.
Looking Ahead
In retrospect, given the circumstances and rules in place at the time, it is easy to look at these events from a 20,000-foot ceiling or with hindsight being 20/20, but the directors of these events could not have done much.
It is important to note that anglers still have personal rights, and many of the tactics or ideas suggested by the media would have violated those rights. The angler’s rights were mainly discussed on social media under the heading “who cares.” My guess is you would care if the roles were reversed.
Having a video of an angry mob beating down two anglers after duck decoy weights are cut out of a fish and roll into a parking lot might make a good movie or at least spark a lot of social media drama.
Multiple people have suggested utilizing a metal detector, however that’s not foolproof. What if they tried to bring something non-metallic? It would be like expecting aspirin to work for every type of sickness it’s helpful in many situations, yet not all.
Cheating has been approached in other ways too such as collecting fish with other anglers, concealing them in cages, fishing outside the designated area or using more rods than allowed.
And this is just to name a few examples.
The positive side of this black eye is that it brought a lot of attention to tournament fishing and as they say, “there is no such thing as bad PR.” Except for two anglers who used to fish the Lake Erie Walleye Trail, of course. Sadly, these two knuckleheads have ended their tournament fishing careers.
There will be more regulation of competitive walleye fishing in the future. With hundreds of thousands of dollars at stake, this isn’t your grandpa’s fishing world anymore, nor is it likely to be the last cheating scandal.
Sources: Themeateater
