Casino Fiasco

[Davey Crockett]

This kind of reminds me of the tournament at Tschida put on by a bar in which the buddies of the owner usually took the top prizes. I don't think the powers in charge of the Casino tourney intentionally try to cheat the fisherman, but they have no idea what they're doing.



Yup that is my take on this too, One wise person for a tournament director is all that is needed to turn this ship back around.

 

[ndskeeter]

This kind of reminds me of the tournament at Tschida put on by a bar in which the buddies of the owner usually took the top prizes. I don't think the powers in charge of the Casino tourney intentionally try to cheat the fisherman, but they have no idea what they're doing.



Yup that is my take on this too, One wise person for a tournament director is all that is needed to turn this ship back around.

I think moving the weigh in from the top of the boat ramp would help too. Put a weigh shack up closer to the cleaning station at the top of the hill so it eliminates the congestion at the top of the ramp.

 

[Tim Sandstrom]

That's why the AIM tournaments are attractive. Can't cheat and the fish return to the water right away

Idk. If there is a will, there is a way. I think AIM opens a pretty good opportunity to cheat. Don't get me wrong. I really appreciate the format to fish stress free but if a douche bag wants to cheat all he has to do is take a picture of his fish, wait an hour or so and then take another picture of it.

They say walleyes have distinct color. I am sure they do but ha, that would be a lot of analytical power and I don't think that is happening when reviewing photos. It's just nose touching, tail touching and if any glare. Oh and glare or if had belly to belly. Seen a couple hero shots that had board not facing right way so must have flipped the board around before taking the hero shot for one reason or another ;-)

In general the best way to handle cheating is keep your NDGF limit and weigh best 5. Nine times out of ten if you could cull after getting 10 fish in well they had a chance to win or do well in the first place.

- - - Updated - - -

I think moving the weigh in from the top of the boat ramp would help too. Put a weigh shack up closer to the cleaning station at the top of the hill so it eliminates the congestion at the top of the ramp.

Has been suggested by me for years. I said if they keep it at 200 teams and water levels allow use all ramps. With weigh in at central location could have loaded boats coming from two directions and turn after turn go through scale.

That said, just getting courtesy dock out of way can unload a minimum 4 boats at cement ramp if people know how to back down. Loading probably three. But also have metal ramp to north. Even with two flights (spread minimum of hour) you could fly through boats. With three or four flights, piece of cake.

Need boat numbers on side of boat color coded for flights. Need boat out on water at take off to make sure they can spot check flight crooks.

These are things I have suggested for years. Last year was perfect. It really was except I guess the boundary issue.

 

[3Roosters]

Idk. If there is a will, there is a way. I think AIM opens a pretty good opportunity to cheat. Don't get me wrong. I really appreciate the format to fish stress free but if a douche bag wants to cheat all he has to do is take a picture of his fish, wait an hour or so and then take another picture of it.

They say walleyes have distinct color. I am sure they do but ha, that would be a lot of analytical power and I don't think that is happening when reviewing photos. It's just nose touching, tail touching and if any glare. Oh and glare or if had belly to belly. Seen a couple hero shots that had board not facing right way so must have flipped the board around before taking the hero shot for one reason or another ;-)

In general the best way to handle cheating is keep your NDGF limit and weigh best 5. Nine times out of ten if you could cull after getting 10 fish in well they had a chance to win or do well in the first place.

Just a guess on my part, but I don't think the state would issue the same number of fishing tourney permits each year if all tourneys did this...keeping limits.

 

[Tim Sandstrom]

Just a guess on my part, but I don't think the state would issue the same number of fishing tourney permits each year if all tourneys did this...keeping limits.

Why? Take the 200 boats. I bet a vast majority of the co-anglers have their own boats, friends and family. If there wasn't a tournament one boat now becomes two boats on the water and each has probably a minimum of two people. That means instead of 10 fish dying during the tournament, 20 fish actually died because the recreational fishermen in two separate boats kept a limit.

So really, a tournament actually kills less fish than recreational fishermen.

 

[JA12]

Having fished this tournament for the first time, the issues with the flights and boundaries are much easier to swallow than 2 scales with different weights. No matter what happens you still have to catch your fish but when someone gets an extra 20"+ fish its a entirely different ball game. The only right thing to do would have been to have a 1 day tournament, which would have hurt as we finished 3rd with legit weight but it is not fair to those who finished in the money that shouldn't have.

 

[WSWAT]

If the game and fish department was so concerned about how many fish are kept during tournaments why is it when they do test netting they fill there boats with thousands of walleyes they killed only too just dump them over the side and to be wasted.

 

[rock5052]

Well i fished the Cup for about 10 Years now when you have the boundaries as big as they are now and only 1 or 2 patrol boats people are going to do things . First of all what is the chance you would be caught if you wanted to cheat. In the rules meeting the first guy had it right how to off load the boats by going the long way down not cutting in at the weigh station. Only off loading 2 boats at time on that ramp is going to take a long time and then nobody was unhooking boats which took more time. With 200 teams you should of had at least 3 flights 30 minutes apart if not 4 flights. There should never be 2 scales at a tournament. By having more flights would of been better to off load teams and weigh teams at the end. I waited to take off day 1 in second flight tell 745am which i may have missed heard was suppose to be 7:30am well i came back early because i didn't want to be DQ and right before i came in i put in a 5 pound fish and found out i could of stayed another 15 minutes maybe i catch another bigger or not. Well we weigh on the south scale at 15.04. I hate what happened with the north scale but how can you penalize the teams that had great weights with out the 3 plus pounds. In my opinion they did the right thing and didn't change anything but, this should be a big eye opener for them if they care. They also should of held a meeting announcing what happened and apologized to all teams. I know a lot money changed hands that should have not changed hands any tournament 1 pound can be 10 places now over 3.5 pounds awarded to some teams is huge . You could of been in 50 place and 3.5 pounds could of moved you up all of 30 places. Another thing you know something was wrong with the north scales because when i looked day 2 it was closed. Well the bottom line is they need more help running the tournament it is a fun tournament i been in the money a few times and i know for a fact in other years people have fished out of boundaries and nothing has happened or changed IF you are DQ for something other then being late you should not be able to fish the tournament again. Someone needs to take control and make it a great tournament with no questions. Anyways i still had a good time catching fish and ended out of the money as we only could catch 26.11 in 2 days. Which the year i took 2nd would of put us in 1st by more then 4 lbs.

 

[guywhofishes]

soon drones will be able to follow each and every team and record all the action for the duration of the event - the cheaters will have to up their game then

 

[RustyTackleBox]

well im team 17 and i was NOT paid... so i hope i am getting that check and my teammate was with me so i know he didnt get paid either...

 

[300sktr]

I was the one that came up to front the tournament director Sunday night about weight and name issues. They had us posted for 30.85 lbs when in fact we had 31.74 lbs on weigh slips (used south scale both days). I handed them my weigh slips to show them they had screwed up and he doubted that I could add right. Went into marina office to try and get things sorted out. All they did was rewrite payout schedule to give us our right weight but didnt correct other team that had our weight. About that time other teams started coming into say their weights didnt match their names. Said they would hold payouts at casino for an hour till they sorted things out. Dont know whether anybody got paid Sunday night or not. We went in about 8:45 and said they still didnt have things sorted out. Said they would send out checks. Hope everyone gets their checks. Whole tournament was screwed up from rules meeting to final payout fiasco. Definitely will never ever fish this event again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[RustyTackleBox]

oh ya... i wont be fishing this BS tourny again... even though we caught tons of fish and big fish it was probably the most fun I've had fishing in my life but they fucked it up hard

 

[johnr]

Wow, how awful.

Someone should be losing a job over this, and sending out apologies to every person involved.

 

[dkbigsky]

Most of the teams in the first flight weighed in on the north Scale. I saw a few teams with 23 or 24 lbs for the first day with 5 fish total and next to it was big fish weight of 4 lbs. Bad math. The scale was not off because of the tare of the box, it was calibrated wrong. The more weight you had the more it was off. Most likely a button pusher early in the day.
Was there a payout sheet I never did see one. Did they give back the entire 40K someone said first place was only 6k that didnt make sense to me.
I wish they would have thrown the first day out. it wouldn't have helped us, but it would have been fair.
I had fun, the people running it were not out to screw anyone. Someone just made a mistake.

 

[shorthairsrus]

Idk. If there is a will, there is a way. I think AIM opens a pretty good opportunity to cheat. Don't get me wrong. I really appreciate the format to fish stress free but if a douche bag wants to cheat all he has to do is take a picture of his fish, wait an hour or so and then take another picture of it.


Realistically -- especially in lakes with same classes -- how do they keep em from cheating on this?

 

[Captain Ahab]

I haven't done well in the 3-4 tournaments I have tried. Granted I have a curse to overcome, but part of that curse is maybe I need to cheat?

 

[guywhofishes]

We need drones bad before Ahab fixes to undo the curse.

 

[Vollmer]

Idk. If there is a will, there is a way. I think AIM opens a pretty good opportunity to cheat. Don't get me wrong. I really appreciate the format to fish stress free but if a douche bag wants to cheat all he has to do is take a picture of his fish, wait an hour or so and then take another picture of it.


Realistically -- especially in lakes with same classes -- how do they keep em from cheating on this?

They make sure that you take 2 pictures from the same side of fish. One on ruler, one in hero shot. I think, upon close observation, you could tell if something is fishy. <--- see what I did there?

 

[shorthairsrus]

I have caught some - what I called stocked fish -- 20" that the next one was the exact same when you laid them together. They came out of the same hatch. Color size length width.

 

[Vollmer]

I have caught some - what I called stocked fish -- 20" that the next one was the exact same when you laid them together. They came out of the same hatch. Color size length width.

Caught once, banned for life? I don't know. All the tournaments should ban together and ban caught cheaters from all tournaments.