I know I joke about being cheap. When you break 50 years of age trying to impress people with your things and what you have starts to take a back seat for many and I am one of those. However there is another side of this that really comes to mind. I may be opening another can of worms but here it is. I am not talking about any one tournament, one series, one circuit nor am I pointing fingers at anyone. It is just an observation that I have seen over the years fishing bass tournaments.
When you consider that many people today do not have good morals and cheating is almost excepted in a lot of types of fields until you get caught, I have strong concerns about cheating when it comes to bass tournaments. Especially high end, high payouts ones. All joking aside, when you are talking about paying out 2K, 3K up to 10K or more around here, I feel there needs to be some kind of safety net in place. I have lived here six years and I know of two times where dishonestly came into play and that was low end tournaments. I have seen where there is a clause in most of the local tournaments that say, "You may be subject to a lie detector test", but I have yet to see that happen. I have seen in some big tournaments where people failed them or refused to take them when they realized they were about to be subjected to them (not around here). Does that ever happen around here?
I often wonder what would happen if on one of these bigger tournaments without making a big deal about it, if someone just showed up and did it. Yes... we have some great fishermen and fisherwomen around here; I am not talking about that. I am talking about the folks that just might be tempted to go out with live bait a day before the tournament, catch some good bass and tie or cage them out for the tournament the day before. I have caught bass that looked like they had been in a cage. With catch and release like it is the bass just may have been in someone's live well recently and that was why they looked that way. I talked to another member about this same thing at church yesterday and he said he knew of a tie out occurrence where they found the bass tied out, took them and told the director of the tournament. Nothing was ever done because nothing could be proven. Had they not found them he had no doubt that those bass would have been weighed in by someone.
The subject of chumming came up last year and was a hot topic. I often do not feel good about high end payouts because how do you really know if that has not gone on. When someone pays out $100.00 plus to enter a tournament and they have a chance to win in the thousands...well...is it just me? I have fished with guys like EricM where we used live shad and were amazed at how easy you could load the boat with four pound bass. emoEek I have seen bass fisherman flipping live shad on the lake and putting them in their live wells. How do you know where those bass went?
Does anyone do lie detector tests around here? Has any tournaments around here actually done them in the past couple of years? What do you think? Please, no names or do not accuse anyone or any event. emoRolleyes Jmax
When you consider that many people today do not have good morals and cheating is almost excepted in a lot of types of fields until you get caught, I have strong concerns about cheating when it comes to bass tournaments. Especially high end, high payouts ones. All joking aside, when you are talking about paying out 2K, 3K up to 10K or more around here, I feel there needs to be some kind of safety net in place. I have lived here six years and I know of two times where dishonestly came into play and that was low end tournaments. I have seen where there is a clause in most of the local tournaments that say, "You may be subject to a lie detector test", but I have yet to see that happen. I have seen in some big tournaments where people failed them or refused to take them when they realized they were about to be subjected to them (not around here). Does that ever happen around here?
I often wonder what would happen if on one of these bigger tournaments without making a big deal about it, if someone just showed up and did it. Yes... we have some great fishermen and fisherwomen around here; I am not talking about that. I am talking about the folks that just might be tempted to go out with live bait a day before the tournament, catch some good bass and tie or cage them out for the tournament the day before. I have caught bass that looked like they had been in a cage. With catch and release like it is the bass just may have been in someone's live well recently and that was why they looked that way. I talked to another member about this same thing at church yesterday and he said he knew of a tie out occurrence where they found the bass tied out, took them and told the director of the tournament. Nothing was ever done because nothing could be proven. Had they not found them he had no doubt that those bass would have been weighed in by someone.
The subject of chumming came up last year and was a hot topic. I often do not feel good about high end payouts because how do you really know if that has not gone on. When someone pays out $100.00 plus to enter a tournament and they have a chance to win in the thousands...well...is it just me? I have fished with guys like EricM where we used live shad and were amazed at how easy you could load the boat with four pound bass. emoEek I have seen bass fisherman flipping live shad on the lake and putting them in their live wells. How do you know where those bass went?
Does anyone do lie detector tests around here? Has any tournaments around here actually done them in the past couple of years? What do you think? Please, no names or do not accuse anyone or any event. emoRolleyes Jmax
Jmax
