Headlines about allegations of cheating in international professional chess have recently spread across the world. Now sport fishing is also being shaken by the complaints. As the American media writes, there was a scandal at a competition in Cleveland over the weekend: when weighing the heaviest catches, the weights were found in the fish.
According to the “New York Times”, the director of the “Lake Erie Walleye Trail” competition discovered the attempted deception: Jason Fischer became suspicious after the alleged winning fish were significantly heavier than he would have assumed as a fisherman. Experient. Fischer inspected a zander and felt a hard object in his stomach. “It’s not like fish eat rocks,” he was quoted as saying.
He cut the fish and discovered the trick. “We have weights on the fish!” he proclaimed, holding a lead ball the size of a hen’s egg. Competitors Chase Cominsky and Jake Runyan, who had featured the manipulated fish in the competition, were expelled with great indignation. Had the bullets not been located, Runyan and Cominsky would have taken first place, taking a prize of around $30,000.
The director of a fishing tournament in Cleveland became suspicious when the five fish he estimated at about 20 pounds in total weighed almost 34 pounds. He opened them, and the next few moments shook the competitive world of fishing: “We have fish weights!” https://t.co/qooCKvarfm
— The New York Times (@nytimes) October 2, 2022
Possible recovery
The scandal also cast a shadow over his previous victories. They took first place, along with cash prizes, in each of the previous three Lake Erie Walleye Trail events this year. Expert Ross Robertson told the paper that competitive fishing tackles are becoming more common and different methods are being used. “You have to remember that ounces can mean tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in some of these tournaments,” he said. Putting weights on fish is a primitive and “sloppy” form of cheating.
Fischer referred the matter to local authorities. It remains to be seen whether the prize money can be recovered.