You’re right... I use to race motocross and some of those guys would kill you for a $5 plastic trophy, imagine what they will do for real money!!!

With the way social media is today,I feel like there are less people willing to cheat then there was 15-20 years ago. The public shame isn’t worth the risk I would assume. I’m sure there are still some guys out there trying to defraud tournament trails but not many.

That was Mike Hart, probably either him or Tony Chistianson were the highest level tournaments that cheaters were caught in, the Christianson deal FLW sent him packing and totally swept it under the rug out of embarrassment. I think it happens way more at the club, team and big bass tournament level than people want to admit.


100%
I only fish and trust the draw tournament style where they pair random, but won't deny stuff can happen there as well, see the Nate Wellman incident.

Caught more than once, SMH

IDK for sure but look up the kayak cheater guy, I think they wanted an example made out of him so think he got the max penalty they could dish out.

If they cheated back then with smaller pots, you could bet there are people still cheating today for the larger pots. There is no way to truly know how many people cheat. you only know how many people get caught. Then there is also the debate of what constitutes cheating. Do you categorize someone who breaks a rule and knowingly doesn't self report or do you consider cheating to be something that changes the outcome like trimming a tail? These debates have been on here before and what people consider and don't consider cheating go from one extreme to the other

There will always be people breaking the rules in 100% of the tournaments you fish but as far as actual "Cheating" like tying up fish, cutting tails or snagging etc, I think it happens more than anyone on this thread cares to realize. That's just my two cents though.

Nah. I agree on the rule infractions. In that case, I “cheated” last night. I forgot to attach my kill switch bracelet once last night. I still weighed in and won. I don’t think the cheating stuff happens. Not like most think it does. Most of the time, you simply are getting beat may someone that is just better.

In some states it's considered theft by fraud, can be either a misdemeanor or felony depending on the amount of money at stake

Im sure it happens sometimes just not as often as people think.

I ran stats on a couple of guys fishing a weekly grapevine event and found them to be a little hard to believe. I didn't run the stats until after I fished one of the events and while all other boats were sitting right by the ramp....they had their boat power poled down about 100 yards away. Of course that didn't really catch my eye until my tournament partner that saw them parked a ways away wondered why and checked their bunk boards and theirs were completely dry while everyone else's were still wet. You can't launch until a certain time so this seemed odd.....unless they have some kind of fast drying bunk boards.

I sent the stats over the last 8 or so tournaments to the TD and simply said that I found them interesting.....that team didn't show up to the next event....or the next....or the next.

it doesn't happen often but it does happen anytime money of fame is involved cheaters going to cheat most of the time they get away with it because the tournament directors don't want to be that guy who exposes someone because of the drama that ensues afterward .

There is some level of incidental cheating that happens and the contestant may not even know they did wrong.

Perhaps you started your big motor to move away from the rocks and not everyone had a life vest on.
Maybe you do not measure your fish the way the Game Warden does and violations occur.
Your boat gets blown partly into an off limits area and you move quickly out.
Sometimes it might be a rules interpretation verse what the GW or TD interprets.

Best we can do is read the rules and follow them to the best of our ability, report our actions or DQ ourselves when we do wrong and move forward.
Some cheating is blatant with the expectation of creating an advantage, other times the intention may be less nefarious but still a rules violation.

As a tournament director, here is my take on rule infractions versus cheating:

A rule infraction is anything that does not give you an advantage over another angler (not snapping life jacket, forgetting to attach kill switch, empty water bottle flying out of the boat, etc).
Cheating is anything that does give you an advantage (caging fish, meeting a buddy to combine fish, adding weight to a fish, etc).

Before every polygraph, I have a private conversation with the team that is selected to take the polygraph. I ask this exact question - did you do anything today that is going to show deception on the polygraph? If they confess a rule infraction at that point and I feel it is accidental, then we will work with the polygraph examiner to work around the issue. If you do not divulge anything prior to the polygraph and then show signs of deception, then everything is considered cheating to me. You had the opportunity to divulge the "mistake" and you chose to try to get away with it. In my opinion that is now cheating because you tried to get away with a rule infraction.

We also do not simply polygraph the tournament winner. We randomly draw from the top 6 places, but it is weighted towards the top. 1st place gets 6 chips in the bucket, 2nd place gets 5 chips in the bucket, 3rd place gets 4 chips in the bucket, etc. I also do not allow the team to determine who takes the polygraph. We flip a coin to determine which one takes it.

Sadly, the polygraph is our only line of defense against cheating. Otherwise, we rely on other anglers to investigate any suspicious activity during tournament hours to help prevent or deter cheating.

After reading the above, this pretty much clears up any misconceptions that I had about cheating. I hope it did for others as well and then we can let his dead horse rest...again!