I have spoken with several and many suggested I place it here.

Email I sent to Bass Champs describing what I seen:

This took place Last Saturday

I fish with the Forney Bass Club and one thing that has kept me away from
big time tourney fishing is the possibility of be cheated against.
I just want to validate my position of what I observed as to knowing what
looks normal and what doesn�t. I fish about 10 times a month or more
strictly for Largemouth, but at times I take my parents out on their
Pontoon to live bait, but this trip I took an employee that has not
been fishing in 10 years.
We were cruising along the west bank between 515 bridge and mustang, headed
to a spot near mustang.
Knowing a BC tourney was being held because several of my fellow club
members fish with BC, I seen
two guys in a red ranger, not sure of model, but had the metal flake silver
in one of the stripings, but both had
what looked to be white tourney shirts on, with a butt seat in the front
with a red hand towel hanging from it.

I know that may not be of any help to you, but that is the best description
I have as it happened so quick and took
me a minute to realize what was going on or I would have turned and headed
their way to get TX numbers.

As we were cruising, I would say maybe 10mph because there are plenty of
stumps thru there, that ranger
was coming from the east side from the main lake to the west bank we were
going down, they passed about
100 yards in front of us and was on pad and shut down quickly towards a
large area of tree�s. I paid no mind
to them but as we were passed them by about 30 yards or so, I noticed the
driver dumping what looked to be
one of those floating cage baskets that have the flap at top and bottom,
proceeding to dump fish into his livewell,
promptly put the basket on the floorboard under his legs and quickly get on
pad headed towards
515. I want to say this took place about 10:30 or so, could have been
11:30. My phone had been messing up
and was having to leave it on to be able to use it, but unfortunately it
ran out of battery power, but before it
had I notified one of my club members fishing the tourney that I had seen
someone cheating possibly that is,
but could not tell them anymore since my phone died.

I know it is too little too late, but I just want you to be aware of the
situation, I HATE cheaters!

There are a lot of good guys in tourneys but also many bad as I have come
across all and after
Robby Rose my opinion is worsened, as well, we had someone try to cheat in
our little club tourney
last year and hence this will be my last, back to just fun fishing.

Regardless, If what I seen was true to my belief and yes I could be wrong
and they may have also
not been part of the BC tourney, then I hope you can find out if it did and
who it was.

Thanks,

Jesse Simpson

angler X is back

Wow...not good!

I'm not surprised. Anytime you have people competing for money, especially bass champs kinda money, it brings out the worst in the sport. It's sad, but true.

that's a serious matter and all but am i the only one that noticed the guy's name. sir cheaters suck but your name is awesome.

That's too bad.

1) vague description of a Ranger bass boat, that would match 30% of Rangers that are red

2) you are not sure they were even fishing Champs or any tournament, just assuming, because to you they looked like they were.

3) you had time to notice these tournament contestants "cheating", yet all you seem have a shaky, at best, boat description, no TX numbers,no pics, really just a lot of your "I thinks"


maybe you should have some concrete evidence before you shout from the mountain top about cheating in the largest trail in our area!!!!

Bass Champs has a polygraph so that would be a very risky move on their part. Also, the timing there seems a little odd. Why would they wait until late morning to go and retreive some caged fish in open water when everyone is on the lake and in plain sight. IDK, it sounds like you were too far away to see what was really happening. I try and give the benefit of the doubt because I love tournament fishing and hope this is not true

Perhaps it was a bream trap and they were catching bait?

joe-willy, just thefact that he saw a bass boat with a fish basket, are u kidding me. a 60,000 dollar bass boat with a fish basket, com on man! and he saw them dump fish out of the basket into the live well. it's not rocket science.Right about one thing, not sure if they were fishing champs, but there was another tournament on the lake that day. I wish like hell he would have come to the weigh in.

I just hate to see someone shout CHEATING in tournament fishing without any hard proof, or in this case, any proof.

shouting the word cheating in bass fishing is much the same shouting FIRE in a crowded theater..

yea IMO this sounds a little far fetched if it truely was a cheating attempt. If someone had fish tied up somewhere I can bet they would do it in a way that they woulud never be seen. Plus the polygraph at the end of the tournament.... when they specifically say.

"Were all fish caught during legal tourny hours today"

I agree with the whole cheating thing without hard proof, that's why I wish jesse would have come to the weigh in. Don't know you JW but I feel confident in saying that if u saw what he described I'll bet u would have made every effort to track it down. I know I would.

"!!!!" - that's a lot of exclamation points.

From what he is saying, it certainly doesn't look good.

It seems highly unlikely that they would hide their fish in an open area and just dump them into the livewell right in front of you if they were in fact cheating.