What I'm not understanding is how was he eligible to fish the event without a boat? I never knew that was allowed.

What an awesome deed and kind gesture!!


needed to hear something like this today, Thanks for sharing .....

Fred Tillman McMahon is the man who gave the boat away. A Very honorable man.

The rules on their website say that bank fishing is permissible.

It's to my understanding that, if that man did not win the boat, but the guy who did gave it to him. Then he doesn't have to pay sales tax on it. However the other guy would've payed it. Right? You don't pay for something given to you or it ceases to be a gift and is a wage (earning) which you would have to pay on

That is beyond impressive. What a man. I think he just added a few coins to his karma piggy bank. . .

Thanks for sharing how it happened, I did not realize it was down to the two of them in a drawing, that is beyond cool. Hat's off to Mr. McMahon for his generosity. Talk about paying it forward.

here's the deal.
Mr. McMahon didn't actually WIN the boat. He gave up his chance of winning, so that the bank fisherman would win.
After that, Bob Sealy revealed the next name drawn who would have had to step down and it was the bank fishermans name.
With that McMahon would have won the boat had it gone that far, but a winner was not declared by draw, and the bank fisherman was declared the winner.

I saw an elimination boat contest at the big bass splash on lake fork once where it came down to two people left just like this one did. One man offered the other one $3500 to step down and the other man took it because he said he needed the money. The winner actually bought the other guys chance to win for $3500 and automatically became the winner. When Bob Sealy drew the final name to see who would have actually won had the contest finished by draw, it was the man who took the money who would have won the boat.

I've won a boat in one of these tournaments before and a bad boy buggy. I was offered to take a cash amount to not take possession of the bad boy buggy by the dealer who supplied the prize, and was made offers to sell the boat by people not associated with the tournament. AS I understood it, I could have sold the boat and the paper work would have been done in the buyers name instead of mine. At that time Bob Sealy was the dealer who supplied the boat and did the paper work for it.

Tipping my hat to him. Kind of person I would enjoy fishing with.

Awesome...

I wonder who get's to pay the tax on it Someone's getting the MSRP of that boat tacked onto their income this year

Who ever signs for the boat, will pay the taxes. Any gift value over a certain amount is also taxable, I believe it is 10K but you don't deal with that much. Any winnings are taxable, but im sure some people don't report what they win. I know at a lot of these big tournaments you fill out your W-2G before you receive your winnings which is then mailed to you later on for filing taxes. A good way to avoid taxes associated with fishing is to set up a fishing business, then you can write off your expenses to knock any winnings down to 0

Really badass thing to do!!

Certainly the tournament would send in a 1099 with your name on it. I'm thinking that any winnings by contest, game, (game show), lottery is tacked right on as income for the market value of the prize received. So if the boat msrp's at say 65k, it would just as if you earned an extra 65k that year in regular income. If it bumps your tax bracket, so be it. He might have to pay in 20k+ just for winning the boat

The guy who won the very first survivor was actually convicted and jailed for not claiming his winnings - whoops. haha

What's worse is, people who win prizes in states that have an income tax, also get to pay that state. So say you fly to cali and win big on "the price is right"... you get to pay the GOV and the State income taxes, regardless of where you actually live.

You sell a boat or something to a person....he'll remember you for a few months.....GIVE it to him....he'll remember you FOREVER.......