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Fishing tournaments are big business. B.A.S.S. and ESPN havea huge investment in the market offering twenty major professional tournaments each year with over $6 million in cash and prizes leading to the BASS Masters Classic, considered by many the “Super Bowl” of fishing. Each Masters event has a prize purse of more than $600,000, with a first prize of $250,000.
With that much prize money, is it any wonder that a fisherman might be at least tempted to cheat? Since prizes are awarded for the heavest fish, it goes without saying that the scales used in these competitions are the most accurate money can buy. They are electronic and use load cells that weigh a basket of live of live fish 40 times a minute, or more, until the most accurate weight is defined. The weight is then locked into the display on the scale indicator and will not change until the weight is removed from the scale. But the possibility of an inaccurate scale is the least of the worries of a fishing tournament judge.
The rules of fishing tournaments try to be specific about not allowing ways to cheat. Duh! For example:
Fish found to contain lead will be disqualified. Now think about this--fish eat wierd things. Fishing weights are sometimes lead. What if the fish you caught had previously swallowed lead? Too bad, you're out of luck. But the possibility is small, and it does eliminate the possibility of a competitor stuffing the fish full of lead to increase its weight.
Another possibility, since lead is banned, is to stuff the fish with ice. Water is fairly heavy and the fish is kept on ice, unless it's kept alive of course, so probably the ice that got stuffed inside it won't melt before it's weighed. OK, fishing tournaments are wise to this one as well, and most say something about not allowing fish to be brought in if there is loose ice in the chest. Of course, it a fisherman is out there in a boat and stuffs the fish with ice, puts it on top of ice bags, and then gets rid of any loose ice, who's to know?
The next cheat is to stash fish. Here's how it works. You catch the fish before a tournament, stash them in a cage, then submit the fish as being caught during the competition. How to do this without any witnesses though. Taking this to the next level, were four Louisiana men who admitted that they cheated to win more than $200,000 in bass fishing tournaments in Texas. How did they do it? They brought large black bass from Florida and then pretended to catch them in Texas fishing tournaments, some of which offer $100,000 in first prizes and draw more than 4,000 entrants. The problem has become so extensive that the private Texas Bass Association, a tournament sponsor, challenges winners' fish stories with lie-detector tests.
Bottom line is that bass fishing tournaments are a big deal with a lot of money at stake. The days of the clean friendly fishing tournament have been wiped out by the sea of technology and publicity the is part of the sport today.
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