They gave the guy the trophy then issued the DQ?

obvious the man made an honest attempt to buy a license and thought he had a valid license as indicated by the fact he was able to pass the polygraph......we had somewhat of a similar situation at a tournament on Eufaula(Al.) several years ago....tourny was held out of lakepoint landing and probably 98% of weigh-ins are held beside the marina where they have a stage and bleacher seats...this was a benefit tourny put on to raise funds for something(don't recall what) but they decided to hold weigh-in in parking lot near boat launch and claimed they had starter boat inform everybody...problem was nobody could hear the strter boat announce this so the guys with heaviest bag were couple minutes late because they went to wrong weigh-in site....guys in charge of tournament were not real experienced in running tournys but they did smart thing and asked for input from top ten finishers and we all voted to not penalize the winners because of the confusion about weigh-in site....
I believe that if the NFPL officials had put it to a vote,the top ten would have voted to let him complete whatever steps are neccessary to obtain his license and allowed him to win.....

Since he attempted and thought he had a license I would have had to let that slide, or maybe do as beartrap has suggested. A couple of years ago I bought a Texoma license with my iphone ( or I thought I did ) did not matter, I fished on the Texas side the entire day.

I’ve got no issue with the DQ. Now Soukup should have been DQed Bigly but that’s a different conversation.

Crazy that someone spends the kind of money it takes to fish any national trail and overlooks something so simple as a fishing license. It truly blows my mind. With that said, hats off to the NPFL for doing the right thing and following their rules as published.

I see this differently.

Since I thought I had auto insurance and I attempted to buy it does that make me legal to drive?

The law does not care about intent... that is for juries to consider in sentencing in serious matters. In this case he fished illegally. Poaching basically. Regardless of his intentions that is what happened.

My great uncle told me a story about a moose hunting trip he took to Alaska in the late 70s. The spread on the antlers for a legal moose had to be 50 inches. He was sure when he shot that the moose was 52+. Turns out it was 49.5. He took it right into the nearest village and self reported as soon as he could. Waited there 13 hours for a Trooper to get there. He had made a mistake, was not his intent.

Well the State Troopers, understood if he was self reporting and waiting around half a day for them, it was not his intent to take a non legal moose, but he did. They took the meat and wrote him a ticket. Lost his hunting privilege's for a year. Intent did not matter. Its what actually happened.

he didn't overlook getting a license,he thought he had a license...yours and the tournament directors line iof reasoning is about like putting someone in prison for 10 years for going 2 mph over speed limit...probably the real culprit here is the texas licensing dept. for making it far more complicated than it should be to obtain a fishing license on-line...we went through same b.s. here in Georgia a few years ago trying to get a hunting license/dove stamp on line...

Seriously? It literally takes 3 minutes to get a fishing license online. Then you get an email saying you can print this as PROOF that you have a license. Or if you are old fashioned simply run down to the local bait store and buy one. It's not complicated. So yeah, he absolutely DID overlook getting a license. Not only does that break a very clearly written tournament rule, it is also AGAINST THE LAW to fish without a fishing license! You seriously want a tournament organization to just overlook that? If they overlook that then why have rules at all?? Yeah it sucks for him, but he can only blame the man in the mirror. NPFL didn't ban him for life or even for a single event going forward. They simply followed their own written rules. What a novel concept.

I think NPFL made the correct call. An organization that dictates on a case-by-case basis what written rules they are going to enforce vs let slide is not very professional. Intent, misunderstanding, accident doesn't excuse the infraction.

That’s the dumbest line of thinking possible. What if we all “thought”…I thought I made all my house payments, car payments, taxes, filled the truck up with gas, ate breakfast…

Who wouldn’t keep the receipt for tax deduction, when he’s a tournament angler? This goes more into the ignorant category, than “Oopsie” category.


He thought he had a copy somewhere on him, yeah right…..

Agreed, it is not very hard to do. Just had to do it last week and took all of 5 minutes. Even easier if he had a previous license with the state in his lifetime

Here's my thoughts. As per state law, he fished illegally. If a game warden had been onsite like they do many times at Fork. He would have been given a ticket and had to release his catch. So if a guy gets a ticket for fishing illegally he should be allowed to win ? Wrong. Once again we are supposed to be adults.

GW or not he got lazy and was caught. Intent does not factor in. The rule as written was violated. If rules are on a 'case-by-case' basis they aren't rules they are "bumpers" at best and the inmates will run the prison given lack of accountability/enforcement.

Why do you think holding the anglers hand is a bad thing if it ensures that something like this never happens? But hey, I'm sure you have never been helped before.