I believe that happened on Lake Tyler (when it had grass)

Happened on Red River also years ago during a big event

Yes the Red River event was a BASS open http://bassfan.com/trails_article.asp?id=651#.XRWO0f5Ombw

100% right. I used to give him the business on his Instagram account and got attacked by his "fans" who of course said just that, you are jealous and a hater. I got a few good digs in on him before he blocked me. Ironically in some ways I was busting his brass about fishing live trout and thats one thing the article did not accuse him of doing. Probably because he could not catch a stocker trout to fish with...those things are wiley

My thoughts exactly.

There is another aspect of it that hasn't been brought up yet. The article stated that the number of teams competing in the tournaments diminished over the years, specifically the ABA series. If I am the tournament director, it's my responsibility to fix what is causing the downward spiral of my trail. If that means polygraphing the accused every tournament, putting a observer in their boat, sending a trail boat to follow them, doing a complete and thorough check of their boat prior to launch or whatever it takes, I am going to do it. I'm amazed at the number of people that stood back and let it play out.

I'm in touch with the real world enough to realize that teams get on a roll and win multiple tournaments in a short period of time, but when someone wins tournaments like this PLUS has the rumors circulating about his lake records...that's just too much smoke. There is fire somewhere.

The article makes me sick. It also brings me to a realization of why I don't even like to bed fish.

On one of my trips to Mexico an old man told me of a story years ago at Amistad of two brothers who would go around pre-fishing before one of the big tournaments, they would find these big bass on beds, then they would use paint ball guns and mark rocks on the bank and stumps so they could come back and line themselves up so that they would know exactly where to cast so that they didn't have to encroach on the fish and spook them. He also said one year they roped off a cove that they found with big fish in it with a buoy line, someone would come up to it think it was off limits and turn around. They would just lift it up drive under and go wack em. He said he never beat those brothers, but he was close a few times. The marking with paint balls is ok, but the rope/buoy thing is BS.

One day many years ago I was sight fishing on Houston County Lake. Saw two guys giving it heck on a bed fish for quite some time and they finally left. I saw them swinging for the fences many times. Later I cruised over the same area and spotted her and caught her after a little coaxing(ya I know, potlicking but they had long left). 9lbs 14ozs. Really nice bass photographed, weighed & returned immediately. Later that afternoon the other guys were sitting in the Crocket Family Resort cafe next to us talking about this big bass they were trying to snag with a Little George lead weighted tailspinner. Wasn't going to say anything about catching their fish later but after hearing that I took pride in telling them. Told em to go fish for paddle fish if that�s how you like to fish. Ya, I do better these days at �being the bigger man� than I used to!

Completely agree with this but wasn't the timing of this (the downward spiral of entries) around the 2008-2009 (ish) years? If so, I know the economy wasn't in the best place during those years too. I'm sure that doesn't account for the entire downtrend but I'm sure it played a part in it.

With that being said, completely agree with the tactics you're talking about...it's just sad, some people have little to no integrity.

Bump

Found this today.

Mike Long is a burning wart on the ball sack of fishing that is finally being excised.

That is still a heck of a fish, looks like a typical trout fed bass from SD... But 2001 was a long time ago. This had been coming for a long while no pun intended...

Mike Long,�Hey dude! That�s a great looking fish you caught!...mind if I TAKE A PICTURE HOLDING IT!???�

I don�t think that POS could catch a cold.