Fishing Contest Hooked, Lined, and Sinkered by Cheating!

Fishing Contest Rocked by Cheating Charges After Weights Found in Winning Catches

Two competitors stuffed walleye with lead balls in a scheme that was caught after the tournament director and attendees grew suspicious.

By Vimal Patel
Oct. 2, 2022

Jason Fischer became suspicious when the five fish he estimated to be about four pounds each — or 20 pounds total — weighed in at nearly 34 pounds. Attendees at a fishing tournament in Cleveland on Friday also had doubts. “No way,” one man said.

Mr. Fischer, the director of the tournament, known as the Lake Erie Walleye Trail, inspected one of the walleye and felt a hard object in its stomach that seemed unnatural. “It’s not like they’re eating rocks,” he said.

He grabbed a knife and sliced open the fish as Jacob Runyan, one member of the two-person team that presented it for weighing, looked on. The next moments rocked the competitive fishing world.

“We got weights in fish!” Mr. Fischer shouted, holding up an egg-sized lead ball he plucked from the fish in a dramatic moment captured on videos posted online.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/02/us/fishing-tournament-cheating-scandal-lake-erie.html

Caught hook, line and sinker! Moment LEAD WEIGHTS are found in professional fishing duo’s catch and they are stripped of tournament title and $5,000 prize – as furious crowd berates them

Chase Cominsky and Jake Runyon were stripped of their winning title after a tournament official discovered lead weights inside the fish they caught
The anglers had been competing in the Lake Erie Walleye Trail Championship
Suspicions were raised at the weigh-in when their fish weighed almost double their closest competitor
In the world of competitive fishing, by adding the weights to the fish, Cominsky and Runyon’s total poundage increased and put them on top of the leaderboard
When the weights were discovered, the duo was disqualified from the event
The waiting crowd were furious once the officials announced they had cheated
Prior to the scandal, Cominsky and Runyon were leading the season standings for the professional fishing team of the year
Cominsky and Runyon have been embroiled in controversy in the past
At last year’s Fall Brawl fishing tournament, the duo was disqualified following their win after one of them failed a polygraph test

By James Gordon For Dailymail.com

Published: 21:22 EDT, 1 October 2022