It's crazy that there are several competitions that are like this. We hunted a pheasant tail contest a couple years ago. Two man teams, and you measured four birds I believe. The limit is three, so my brother and I were very selective of what we shot. I think we ended up fifth, but then we hear all these people saying they hunted with a group of 8-15 people and measured their best four. Was disheartening for sure. It did make us feel better with how well we did on a little piece of land, with an old dog, and only two guns.
To me these contests are a thing of pride and sportsmanship. I have met many friends fishing tournaments, and love it. We won a fishing tourney a few years back. We made a long run, caught our nine fish (tourney was catch nine, weigh six) by 12:00. Slowly made a run back. Called in, loaded around 1:00, drained livewell, went up and waited for them to set up scale, weighed our fish, and put the fish back in the livewell with ice on them to donate to a charity that was coming to clean fish. When the people taking the fish to clean showed up, we brought our fish over to them to donate. Some others had weighed by then and saw the fish were pale from being on ice. The following week we hear rumors that the winners were cheating because there is no way someone had beat the field by 3+ pounds. If we were going to cheat, why in the hell would have we quit fishing at 12:00? What about all the guys that show up with their nine fish right at check in time? They all caught their last fish right at the end of the day? Some of these things make me mad, but I guess if they are that desprate to win, they must feel the need to do this. Demo derbys, hunting/fishing contests, big buck contests, poker tournaments, ect.. all have cheaters. We as competitors just need to be policing ourselves, and turn people in if you see something that isn't legit. I like the idea of polygraphs, but in the smaller tournaments, I would guess it is cost prohibitive. I hope for these people that karma is a bitch.
