The only thing the cameraman contributes is maybe helps them on making the decision they did because he wasn’t against it?

When I have ridden in the TTBC over the years as a judge a couple of the anglers asked me about a rule. I always told them that they need to go to the tournament director. They had been given a copy of the rules. If I told them the wrong thing then that would be a mess. One time was the angler had his elbow bothering him. He asked if he could ask a boat watching if they had any Tylenol. I told him that I didn’t think there was anything wrong with that but he better call the tournament director to be sure. Regardless of what happens out there the job of a judge would be to report if asked or if he knew there was a rule violation. Every guy I ever rode with is pretty much a stickler for the rules as they don’t want to get a bad name. However most of them pay pretty poor attention in the meeting prior to the tournament between the tournament director and the anglers. Always found that interesting. I guess it’s because they fished so many with the same organization. However there is specific info given like not running the bridges on Lake Conroe.

this was posted on BBC fishing forum....makes FLW tournament director really look bad...

""My son fishes for Mckendree.....he was there but not the pair in question of the DQ so I have direct knowledge of what went on as I was there. I quoted what Dan posted only to make a point on Rule 12 of the FLW rule book.....if Rule 12 of the FLW rules were as as clear and spelled out as the BASS Elite rule above this would be no real discussion....but let me add some facts to this for you all......1. There was a camera guy in the boat he had the angler tying the bait on prior to the break off. 2. He has the catch of the line an hour later 3. He told the boys thats your bait I have it on tape thats a good catch....HE is a representative in the boat of FLW....these are not tour pros these are college kids....they took his word for it. 4. These boys hid nothing and did nothing maliciously they told the Director of the story as well told it on stage.....THIS IS WHERE THE PROBLEM LIES WITH HOW IT WAS HANDLED.......
FLW knew of how that catch happened.....the officials were told before they stepped on stage....the MC asked to hear the story on stage.....the boys who felt they had broken no rules told it again....thats 2 chances for FLW to stop the weghin get the call right by removing that fish and move on.....that never happened...they crowned them let them celebrate and then destroyed them by pulling it back 5 minutes later. The DQ of the whole bag is because they waited to make a call and the fish were in the release boat. This removed the boys from any of the prizes and awards by dropping them to 8th....removing that 6lb fish in question (the largest in the bag) prior to letting them walk the stage places them in 3rd.
FLW needs to make this right and award those boys what is deserved as the punishment does not fit the crime here!""

He's correct in that it surely could have been handled better but there's no way that fish should have ever made it into the livewell.

What a learning/growth opportunity for everyone.

But now we have pros jumping in and getting on private property to land fish....

why shouldn't the fish be counted....he hooked it and he landed it...he was incredibly lucky to have done it and it happens only a few times in anyones lifetime but the end result is similar to having a fish jump beside the boat and land in the net...until somebody comes with a rule that says you can't handline a fish in if you line breaks,he didn't break any rules nor did he gain any unfair advantage over other fishermen...

Is that TD still a TD today?

Mistakes should have consequences.....the anglers received theirs. Now we wait to see if the TD receives his. If the reports of the cameraman being involved are factual he should get some fallout too.

I don't think the spirit of that rule is to prevent somebody from handlining a fish when the line breaks as that offers NO competitive advantage. If it does prevent handling, I agree with what was mentioned, at what point can you lay down your rod and grab the line and pull in your fish?

What a mess. Everybody lost in this deal.

I hope the DQ'd team gets some kind of compensation over this because they got screwed by a series of missteps by the host organization. This should have been a simple disqualification of 1 fish. "Adult me" realizes that "camera guy" is probably not the definitive source for rules interpretation, but "college fishing me" saw "camera guy" as a representative of the host organization in similar stature to a marshal or an official. I know camera guy feels terrible over this too.

To me.....they should not have been DQ'd. In my eyes, that was a total luck deal and in no way trying to cheat at all.

Wouldn't even have crossed my mind to put that fish in the livewell. At that level of tournament, you can't take chances.

call to td, even after the camerman said it was a good catch, should have been first.

from the story above it was probably mishandled and sounds like another team filed a complaint when they told the story. at that point the td has to go with the rule verbatim imo.
sucks for them.

TD should go by the rule verbatim in any case. Call to director should have been made at time of catch but he also never should have let them weigh that fish.

Yes. He's been around for a long time.

WAWI explained it clearly. Once the angler made another cast the previous break off is null and void. If he had grabbed the line prior to making another cast then it would have been legal. However, He would have had
to grab the line with his hand. Not a net and not another cast to catch the line.

best guess is td would have said no if he had been called. fish would not have made it to livewell and case closed.

both sides made mistakes, but the ruling was right I think.