LEWT Tournament Winners BUSTED!

[SLE]

On the topic of tourney fishing as a carrier, good luck to those that do! I had my 13 year old son as my partner in a tournament very recently. Took him over and introduced him to one of the pro's that's been in the sport for several decades and is very well known. Asked him if he had any advise for a young aspiring fisherman and this is summary of what he said.

"Go to college and find a good career that you can fall back on and yet let you chase your dreams. The tournament life is tough, you have to be able and willing to drop $4-$5k per tournament, it takes a lot of time away from home and cash to play the game and be competitive. It's followed me through 2 divorces and yet I've been fortunate that it provided me the opportunity to work in the fishing industry most of my working years. prior to having industry opportunity I owned a company that our slow time was in the summer so it worked well with the tournament schedule. You have to be able to accept losing, and be humble, because you will lose far far more than you will ever win"

When we did our boat check-in the next morning prior to take off, he asked my son if he had picked a college yet with a wink, and then said, when your done with college, come talk to me, good luck today!

Pretty profound words of wisdom telling the real side of trying to make a living doing it.

This isn't to side track the disgusting nature of this cheating scandal. Obviously these two guys were reasonably good fisherman and were able to find quality fish in a tournament setting, and probably legitimately won some tournaments however greed and ego obviously took them to the next level and now they have a tarnished reputation that will follow them forever and cast doubt on all of their past successes legitimate or not.

 

[bigv]

If you enter a fishing tournament because you need the money, and not for the ability to be able to have a few days off to fish and to have some competition with buddies or fellow anglers passionate about fishing, then you should probably get a real job with a more steady income and less overhead.

I have to believe most tourney fisherman go in the hole when doing tournaments. With entry fees, gas, travel/hotel expenses etc. Then NOT placing...you lose lots of money. Unless sponsored?? I used to fish a few here and there. Placed in a couple and not so well in others. Lost money.

 

[remm]

Disagree, but respectfully.... every individual has the right to work where they want and how they want. If a fishing tournament is their source of income, that's their decision.... The American Dream.... cheating and dishonesty happens in every job but none of us should be able to tell another to "get a real job" if that's how they choose to live.

I hear ya, "real job" was wrong choice of words. I have no problem with tourneys, used to fish quite a few. Seems things have changed quite a bit in the past 10 years in regards to tourneys and the type of people that fish them; some changes for the better, but as this video clearly displays, a lot for the worse.

 

[lunkerslayer]

no body likes to be cheated on, the same feeling of being lied to. You are suspicious at this moment with others over these two guys already where the one member failed a lie detector test. Its a sport (paid profession) none the less and someone pays these people to fish for a living, talk at seminars or or tv shows, which means not only are they the fisherman losing out on money but so are the sponsors. The other times these guys won they never left their catch to be donated to a local food bank some suspect the reason for this is because these fish if cleaned would have been shown to be rotten from being dead for so long. NOBODY likes to feel cheated on or lied to it goes back to the BIBLE

 

[BRK]

All good @remm! I wouldn't say the wrong choice of words and I'll contradict even myself and say I would not want to fish tournaments for a living. Like most on here, I love to fish for me and my son enjoys it too. Grab some gopros and throw some youtube videos out there... seems like a more profitable business than tourney fishing if you know what you're doing and talking about!

 

[Davey Crockett]

This whole thing really took off. I thought it was going to break the internet.

It did for a while and just came back on . It must have thrown the overload breaker.

 

[Skeeter]

 

[3Roosters]

One needs only to look at all the ILLEGALS currently crossing into this country. If they know they can get away with it, they will.

 

[5575]

 

[Obi-Wan]

If you enter a fishing tournament because you need the money, and not for the ability to be able to have a few days off to fish and to have some competition with buddies or fellow anglers passionate about fishing, then you should probably get a real job with a more steady income and less overhead.

It does not matter if one needs the money or not this is out right THEFT by deception. These guys potentially stole over $300,000.00 in 2021 from others that most likely would have won those prizes and/or money. This is not a whole lot different than hooking up to the boat that another angle won in the tournament and taking.

 

[espringers]

i think you are taking remm's post to be in response to something else. ^^^

 

[FightingSioux]

What a black eye for the tourney fishing industry! From Tucker Carlson to Dan Patrick this story has been covered everywhere!

I bet these guys will be charged with fraud for this instance. Easy to prove this incident as they were caught on video. Proving the previous events would be tough but they will be punished one way or another!

 

[Traxion]

It’s not what you suspect, it’s what you can prove. They never had a check in hand for this tournament, so can they actually be charged with anything? My guess is their punishment will be that of public opinion and that is it. People keep talking about prior winnings and it means nothing unless you can prove they cheated.

 

[Skeeter]

 

[Davey Crockett]

Moving forward, One of the rules should be that ALL fish will be donated and bagged with team numbers and examined at the cleaning table before the official winners are announced. Still have the same weigh in as before, only announce the unofficial winners , pending verification. You would think the problem would take care of itself. Keep cameras rolling on fish bags from start to finish to keep cheaters from claiming sabotage. In the meantime keep razzing the hell out of these low lifers.

 

[FightingSioux]

It’s not what you suspect, it’s what you can prove. They never had a check in hand for this tournament, so can they actually be charged with anything? My guess is their punishment will be that of public opinion and that is it. People keep talking about prior winnings and it means nothing unless you can prove they cheated.

If you try to steal and you weren’t successful doesn’t mean you didn’t break the law…… fraud fits the crime well

 

[shorthairsrus]

ike brought up tony christianson in his podcast --- read about that guy google him ---- that guy had it going on and his camera man nor his fishing partner knew what the hell he was doing. FLW didnt either.

Next time your in Devils Lake with your backhoe - put a cut in a road in the middle of the night and leave a hole like christianson had on top of your dog kennel and you might just win the tourney.

Dat's flippin for ya

 

[Mort]

People keep talking about prior winnings and it means nothing unless you can prove they cheated.

So you honesty think that winning 2-3 BIG money tournaments in a row is all skill and nothing else? And they are the only ones that have skill and all other anglers are idiots, yes you can't prove it, but something off if you think about it.

 

[SLE]

So you honesty think that winning 2-3 BIG money tournaments in a row is all skill and nothing else? And they are the only ones that have skill and all other anglers are idiots, yes you can't prove it, but something off if you think about it.

There's not doubt there is a very, very good chance they cheated in past tournaments. That's how you get the balls to stuff 8+lbs of lead and other objects in 5 fish. They got darning and it became blatant. Had they only put 2 or 4 lbs in would've they been caught, who knows. I don't think anyone is questioning that they likely cheated before, the problem is there is zero way to prove it that would be admissible in court because there is no evidence and it is assumptive.

I watched a lot of this situation unfold and even the tournament director in an interview talked about an event a year or two ago that this same team won with the camera rolling in their boat for two days. The director said he was relieved because it kind of cleared them of the chatter and assumption that these two guys were cheats. These two guys aren't as slick as ol Tony and there's no way they were stuffing lbs of lead down fish with a camera watching them. As I mentioned before, they were obviously good fisherman and able to come to the scale consistently with fish that would be competitive even without cheating. The cheating was a way from them to basically garrentee their finish. I mean I rolled into the sale with 1 lousy 20" fish few weeks ago, got my ass handed to me. Pretty sure I wasn't getting away with 25lbs of lead in my one fish to take the tournament, lol. The issue now is nobody knows what tournaments they cheated and what tournaments they didn't cheat, so the ASSUMPTION is they cheated in all of them because they've tarnished their reputation with this scandal, and lost any trust without a shadow of doubt that they were not playing the game by the rules.

 

[johnr]

There's not doubt there is a very, very good chance they cheated in past tournaments. That's how you get the balls to stuff 8+lbs of lead and other objects in 5 fish. They got darning and it became blatant. Had they only put 2 or 4 lbs in would've they been caught, who knows. I don't think anyone is questioning that they likely cheated before, the problem is there is zero way to prove it that would be admissible in court because there is no evidence and it is assumptive.

I watched a lot of this situation unfold and even the tournament director in an interview talked about an event a year or two ago that this same team won with the camera rolling in their boat for two days. The director said he was relieved because it kind of cleared them of the chatter and assumption that these two guys were cheats. These two guys aren't as slick as ol Tony and there's no way they were stuffing lbs of lead down fish with a camera watching them. As I mentioned before, they were obviously good fisherman and able to come to the scale consistently with fish that would be competitive even without cheating. The cheating was a way from them to basically garrentee their finish. I mean I rolled into the sale with 1 lousy 20" fish few weeks ago, got my ass handed to me. Pretty sure I wasn't getting away with 25lbs of lead in my one fish to take the tournament, lol. The issue now is nobody knows what tournaments they cheated and what tournaments they didn't cheat, so the ASSUMPTION is they cheated in all of them because they've tarnished their reputation with this scandal, and lost any trust without a shadow of doubt that they were not playing the game by the rules.

It only takes one time to ruin your reputation.
It reminds me of the trusty bridge builder, who for 20 years was known around town and the entire state for that matter as the best bridge builder anywhere, as the story goes....