A Fishy Story

[BmillsSkier]

This news story popped up on a sports talk show I was streaming last week and warranted a passing laugh from me. As it has evolved it's become more and more bizzare and makes me wonder how much shit like this happens.

Background:

2 pro anglers enter multiple Lake Erie walleye tournaments winning way more than they lost, pocketing more than $200,000 in boats and cash last year alone. At a tour stop last week the tournament director thought something was wrong with the fish at their weigh-in. He asks for a knife, cuts them open and finds multiple lead weights and fish fillets stuffed inside their stomachs to keep them from clanging around.

One guy flees and just sits in his truck as the mob rails at his partner's face. The video is highly entertaining.

I guess they've been suspected of this in the past and even failed a post-win polygraph test at one tournament (which is apparently common practice; what
is this Matlock?)

Now it appears these two pro anglers have had their boat seized in Pennsylvania and face multiple charges.

I'm not a fisherman so someone please fill me in on what level of a scandal this may be.

https://www.cleveland.com/court-just...t-charges.html

[I've seen black diamonds!]

I think it's sort of like cheating at golf crossed with using welfare funds to build a volleyball stadium for your daughter.

[Timberridge]

I think it would be more fun to make them enter their next tournament and give them a 16' row boat, a pair of $19.99 Zebco Star Wars fishing poles, and a container of trout worms and have them towed out to the middle of Lake Erie and dropped off. I'd like to see what they come back with.

[Mazderati]

One article I saw mentioned total tournament winnings in the millions.

[hatchgreenchile]

Competitive walleye fishing is an interesting scene. I know several people who are really into it, my brother and dad are some of them. We get out on Lake Erie in the summer for fun, it's a riot. The fish fry + Labatt combo is also hard to beat.

After tournaments, polygraphs with the state troopers are common. No texts/calls in tourney are also common. There is big money on the table, but truck, boats, motors and all the accessories aren't cheap. It's hard to make money doing it.

These guys got greedy. Experienced anglers can estimate the weight from the length of the fish. Between the sinkers and filets, they tried to add ~2 lbs each!

[Percy Rideout]

Competitive walleye fishing is an interesting scene. I know several people who are really into it, my brother and dad are some of them. We get out on Lake Erie in the summer for fun, it's a riot. The fish fry + Labatt combo is also hard to beat.

After tournaments, polygraphs with the state troopers are common. No texts/calls in tourney are also common. There is big money on the table, but truck, boats, motors and all the accessories aren't cheap. It's hard to make money doing it.

These guys got greedy. Experienced anglers can estimate the weight from the length of the fish. Between the sinkers and filets, they tried to add ~2 lbs each!

fish fry + labatt combo. This guy knows what's up.

[BmillsSkier]

I think it would be more fun to make them enter their next tournament and give them a 16' row boat, a pair of $19.99 Zebco Star Wars fishing poles, and a container of trout worms and have them towed out to the middle of Lake Erie and dropped off. I'd like to see what they come back with.

16’ rowboat in the middle of Erie in October makes my ass pucker. Zebco or not.

One article I saw mentioned total tournament winnings in the millions.

I saw that too. I think the boat they won from last year’s Fall Brawl tournament (even I knew what that was) six figures alone before they got a big payout on top of that.

Competitive walleye fishing is an interesting scene. I know several people who are really into it, my brother and dad are some of them. We get out on Lake Erie in the summer for fun, it's a riot. The fish fry + Labatt combo is also hard to beat.

After tournaments, polygraphs with the state troopers are common. No texts/calls in tourney are also common. There is big money on the table, but truck, boats, motors and all the accessories aren't cheap. It's hard to make money doing it.

These guys got greedy. Experienced anglers can estimate the weight from the length of the fish. Between the sinkers and filets, they tried to add ~2 lbs each!

Walleye (or Lake Erie perch) fish fry + Labatt; you bottle that and you got something sweeter than YooHoo.

2lbs a fish?! Those weights looked huge and they just kept coming. Crazy no one threw a punch at them. The no texts/calls thing is new to me too.

They all got their f-bomb one liners in though like it was a WWE match, which was highly entertaining.

[XXX-er]

I read something that said the funny thing was they would have won without cheating

[BmillsSkier]

I read something that said the funny thing was they would have won without cheating

That would be hilarious.

I'm just pissed they ruined that tasty fish. Who wants their Walleye fried up with lead in it?

[plugboots]

Weird, right? I thought in the bass fishing tournaments they kept them alive. Why do they have to kill the walleyes?

[BmillsSkier]

Weird, right? I thought in the bass fishing tournaments they kept them alive. Why do they have to kill the walleyes?

I'll defer to Hatchgreenchile on that one, I too always thought that you yanked the fish out of the live well right before weigh in and then toss em back if you're not going to eat em.

[XXX-er]

Do the fish really survive after all the trauma of sitting in a live well ?

https://www.keepfishwet.org/#helping...h-they-release

I would get shuttle customers showing me what they caught yesturday on the I phone

buddy has it out of the water aiming it like an AR15 which is not considered good form in a catch & release fishery

[PB]

The chances of survival rapidly decline the moment you take them out of the water, unless you take extraordinary precautions. The stress of just handling them, even with pre-moistened hands is significant. It may take a while but, it's best to carry out all manipulations while keeping the fish in water (restraint is still moderately stressful).

Unless we're talking' poopfish, of course.

[XXX-er]

Yup ^^ I duno anything about Walleye but you have won against a steelhead when its lying there in the water motion less in front of you,

if you need a pict leave it in the water get in the pict by bending down to get in the frame

then let it go so someone else can catch it

[Hopeless Sinner]

Weird, right? I thought in the bass fishing tournaments they kept them alive. Why do they have to kill the walleyes?

Perhaps walleye which are typically taken from greater depths (than bass, for instance) have a very high mortality rate and therefore they are "kill" txs. The optics of dozens of released dead fish floating around the tx site after weigh-in is never going to be acceptable so even if hundreds of others swim off to fight another day that would never fly. All fisherman have a duty to keep and use fish they reduce to possession whether it's a tx or not. But I would guess arrangements are made to donate the fish to local charities for distribution to the needy.



Polygraphs have been standard for big money tx's for a long time.

[ötzi]

Maybe they eat the fish or donate them to someone who will. Nobody would want the bass from a bass tournamnet

[I Skied Bandini Mountain]

Walleye are actually edible as opposed to LMB?

[teleee]

Walleye are actually edible as opposed to LMB?

Not only edible - they are fricking delicious.


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[I Skied Bandini Mountain]

Fucking A right!

[skaredshtles]

Competitive walleye fishing

[skaredshtles]

Not only edible - they are fricking delicious.

Walleye makes a killer fish-n-chips.

[warthog]

Having fished for perch out of the Walnut Creek marina, and Presque-Isle Marina, I find this very amusing.
I can only imagine the chatter over at Poor Richard's Bait and Tackle.

[BmillsSkier]

Can we all at least agree that walleye and perch are fucking delicious?

[XXX-er]

i might have had Perch but not Walleye so no, but I've had a lot of salmon and some trout

I know a woman who owned a lodge back in the day long enough ago to have had steelhead

and she tells me its good

[Hopeless Sinner]

Maybe they eat the fish or donate them to someone who will. Nobody would want the bass from a bass tournamnet

Why? Bass taste very good, imho. We always made sure any dead fish from our bass txs were eaten and not allowed to be wasted. Corn meal battered deep fried bass w hush puppies!!!


The only thing that would stop me from eating them is if there was a livewell additive used to enhance the fishes survival or they're sourced from an industrial sewer like the Snake River, but not eating any other species either.