Well that’s good news and proof that one of them has a conscience and maybe also someone trying to steer him in the right direction. Interested to see where it goes.

DWI is a class A offense. Guess those offenders should just get a ticket too right?

As I marinate on this I think of junior golf growing up, it was a disaster of cheating at the time. Kids doing all kinds of nonsense and not even thinking twice about it. I can tell you when I captained for a team in thsba I was fishing off the back of the boat and caught a decent fish. One of the kids asked me if they could weigh it in..... I laughed and told them to catch their own fish then chunked it back. Clearly kids have some growing up to do at that age. I don't know that the kids, the parents of the kids that are getting involved in tourney fishing fully know how serious we take cheating. Obviously this is a extreme example. I think they are all well aware of it now. I think a big lesson here is for parents to a. Know your kids and what there up to, b. Know something about the culture, the ramifications for things done in various activities etc. I 100 percent am for sure there are men playing on the pga that were probably dqd for some nonsense cheating type deal in a junior golf tourney. The culture in fishing is different, the tourney rules are different , the let's call it street justice is different.

Common sense punishment should occur. These kids lives are properly ruined over a bad group of decisions and deciding to cheat. I know plenty on here will say they are getting what they deserve. I don't know the kids or anything about them, they might be little hoodlums or they might have just made a couple stupid decisions, but actions do have consequences.

Now in response to your comment. A little antidotal story from my past. I had a friend I graduated high school with in 1999. In 2000 his younger brother and a couple of friends as sophomores decided as a prank they were going to steal the side by side at the school and hide it. No intentions of actually "stealing it" but rather just play a prank. These kids were all from upper middle class to upper class families with pretty good homes. They were brought up in Christian homes and I routinely spent time over at my friends house, so I personally know what it was like over there. Anyways, my friends little brother gets caught stealing the side by side, and in the process of confessing he also spills the beans about the other two kids that were able to "get away". They all get charges brought up against them, but they get dropped to a lot of community service for first time offenders. Because he snitched, the next week he got bullied tremendously at school and was outcast. The following Saturday, his dad got home and found him laying in a pool of blood with his brains painting the wall because he decided at 15 that ending his life with a shotgun was a better idea than to continue facing the bullying he was receiving the previous week. This was before the age of social media. He would be 38 now.

The world is harsh, and actions have consequences. Maybe empathy is something we could all stand to have a little more of in our life for others.

Were they in a TR20 with a 250 over rated for the boat?

Buncha silly prideful mother [censored] on this thread....I'm 35 year LEO and if you think a several hundred dollar ticket, a ruined name, and zero opportunity to fish for their school or really any other adult trail forever isn't harsh enough for two 17 year old, go [censored] yourself! They're kids, did a dumb kid thing, were punished....14 pages of righteousness though

[quote=txmasterpo]Buncha silly prideful mother [censored] on this thread....I'm 35 year LEO and if you think a several hundred dollar ticket, a ruined name, and zero opportunity to fish for their school or really any other adult trail forever isn't harsh enough for two 17 year old, go [censored] yourself! They're kids, did a dumb kid thing, were punished....14 pages of righteousness though


Wait, 14? My phone says 23?

Jmo. But we have all made mistakes in our lives. Punish them yes, kicked out of tournaments for a time yes. I think they owe the people they were fishing against an in person apology. But hopefully they will learn from this ignorance and do right from here on. If that was my child I would make him face who they wronged and apologized and then he would have to earn his boat privileges back. But don't ruin thier lives.

Next Page Yet

I don’t think they should be banned for life. Let them apologize and make restitution. Then community service. At that time see how they have done and reinstate them under probation. Possibly put a observer in the boat with them or make them fish with a trusted partner. I just wouldn’t ruin their lives by being vindictive.

As I said before, I’m not a tournament fisherman and I don’t know all the facts but agree that these boys should be punished and hopefully learn a lesson. That being said I think a lot of you are under the impression that tournament fisherman have this code of ethics that are rarely broken, well I’ve got a news flash. Being that I’m not a tournament fisherman I am on the water alot during what I would imagine is off limits for tournaments on one of the most heavily fished tournament lakes in Texas and I have seen what I would suspect to be cheating by boats that were for sure tournament guys. Not only did I suspect cheating quite a few times but I know for sure there was cheating on several occasions because I was close enough to them without them knowing and heard them talking. Again I agree with them being punished but if any of you think this doesn’t go on all the time you need to get your heads out of your [censored]. These boys were just dumb enough to get caught.

You know what.... This is a good point!!! This brought back a memory in my early fishing days when all I knew how to do was flip shallow bushes. I rolled in behind a group who worked these tree lines for a good while and when they pushed out, I got right in behind them and flipped around a jig. I caught a decent fish but nothing to go crazy over and they asked if they could have that fish. I laughed and released it but I bet 100:1 the only reason they wanted a bass was for tournament reasons.

Cheating in general is just sad, I still feel that teenage boys brains are half mush and I originally said some sort of probationary period would be good for these boys if they ever wanted to try and compete again. I don't think it should be easy on them and they should have to work really hard to get that respect and trust back, but it should be an option. I know I made mistakes growing up, I got caught a few times, I always suffered consequences for what I did and each one of those mistakes I learned from.

I guess this thread is proof that kids are too stupid to be buying guns at the age of 18. One year obviously isn’t going to make them mature enough, if they aren’t smart enough to know the difference between right and wrong.


And I’m on page 23…

Might have a point here.

Tournament cheating is probably ok in California,,,,a Liberal state where you can go into a store every day and steal up to $2000 dollars worth of goods and not get charged with a crime. Sad to see stuff like this happening in America. What happened to right and wrong????