Ep. 387: We've Got Weights In Fish! - The Full Story From The Man Who Found Them

it's stupid, he's over it. Probably he's what he's so over it. We have in studio the guy Jason Fisher. It's a great last name for what we're talking about. Jason Fisher, the guy who caught the the Whalley chee Ds and the now infamous. And it's like, I don't know is it famous or infamous? It's infamous, Yeah, the infamous wall Ie tournament cheating scandal of of Ohio, of Lake Erie. He's shaking his head. No, I still don't even know what I'm doing here. This is it's it's unreal,

what's going on. We're still getting phone calls from news outlets and podcasts and all these people want to like think we're interesting, and I'm just like, I have no clue how this went such a worldwide thing. And here I sit with you out here in Bozeman in Montana, ready to talk about it. But but let's do it. You know what I knew the story was. I mean the minute I saw it, I knew it was interesting, but I I just thought it would be very contained. And I knew about it right off the bat because

Chester's Walleye Derby partner Seth that we work with. I was with Seth, and Seth like stays hip to all things Walleye and all things Tournament. So it wasn't like it was like hours after that after it happened. He had knew him, he knew something shit about it, and so right away, um, I was like, oh that's good,

that's fascinating. And I was that day. I think it was the next day after the term, I was telling get the guy in the show, Get the guy in the show, and uh, then it blew up and I knew it had officially blown up when I saw a guy on barstool Sports of all places, trying to describe it. This dude, it's like his zero idea what he's talking about he said today were putting metal balls in the fish,

metal balls, the metal balls. Right after that happened, Seth and I got like, I don't know how many, like a hundred d m s people like, did you see this already? We're like, yeah, we saw. I used that to gauge the I used that. That's one of my primary metrics to gauge how interesting some thing is. The people is how many of my friends will independently, um

send me something so like the Coronado ship. Remember that, how many maybe five probably more people said the Mammoth that they were able to reconstruct his travels based on them call it. But if you're late to the game, it's like, don't even bother sending it to Steve because no, because I need it. You've already heard it. I need to use this text message. I'm like whatever, I'm just trying to clog up your phone. No too, I get too.

I get like Titta. Later, if I get up into four and five, I know we're on something up and I'm this probably shattered the record, even though you think it's stupid, so so, and the crazy thing is is you were first man. I mean, so it's it's I swear. So it turns into the day of you know, people

within our our our community are anglers. I mean they're just rapid fire, and they're starting the memes or starting this or starting and the favorite is my favorite is the I think it was you as Trump and WALLEYE. Fisherman has Biden. Yeah, yeah, that one. I so again I received that one. Like you said, you gauge how good something is by how many people. So I have like friends from high school and just people who haven't

talked to in years. They're like sending me like, oh, look at this, you know, like I haven't seen it already times. But but but then so, like the next day after this, I start to get calls from all these media outlets, and then you texted me and you're like, hey, Steve Ronella with meat eat, like like nobody knows who the hell you are. And I'm like, yeah, okay, this is probably one of my buddies, like trying to trying to joke on me, because at this point nobody was

nobody like that. No, no national level me media outlet is trying to get ahold of me. It's just it's just people burning my phone up. Buddies and then I'm like, yeah, all right, you know, and then I'm like, what, I don't believe you? So you call text I know it's you. Well the first thing you told me, the first thing you said is I don't know what to say. They cheated and got called. Yeah, it's it was just one of those where I'm like, why I didn't realize. I

can understand Lake Erie. You know, it's a big fishery. I can understand tournament fishermen nationwide, even bass guys, catfish guys, all these fishermen. I can understand why those people are going to be upset. But just the the whole vast majority, like you see TikTok TikTok went nuts with just parodies and memes and people using like the the sound, and I to me still right now, I have no clue

why it turned into such a big deal. I mean, we're gonna calls from New Zealand, Australia, you know, London, all these media outlets wanting the story, Norway, and I'm just like, this is unbelievable. Meanwhile, meanwhile, my wife's like you got kids to watch, Like I don't care. She's like, you you worked all day yesterday and you know, you got to take care of the kids right now. And I'm like, no, Like this is the Discovery Channel or something,

and she's like, she's like, I don't care who it is. He, you know, get up and take care of your kid. He's need some food or something. This even spread into a circle of video game journalists I follow on Twitter who were like, Wow, I'm learning about a whole new world here and there spreading a game journalists on Twitter. Yes, are you surprised by this? Twitter is not dead after all. I guess now fills but he'll be able to say what he really thinks non Twitter. Now think about So

you still have no idea why this? Why do you think I'll tell him his his his worries are over. I'm gonna tell him exactly by it centering, But first we gotta talk about a couple of other things. You got a minute, right, I got a little bit. Let me tell you why I think it's interesting. You want me to tease it for you. Let's tease it. How in the world would you not think that someone's gonna realize there's big ass lead balls in a fish. Just

think about that one for a minute. If they had gotten caught reading a scale, no one would care, right, But there's an audacity, there's like a crazy audacity to it. And then also also the way in which the gentleman in the video, the way in which the perpetrator just decides to stand there and hang his head and take his lumps as though he'd been tied to a whipping post. Oh yeah, it was. It was. Oh I would have run one of two. One of two stayed there, the

other one did run. Run. Yeah, okay, that's great. I was. The other guy was in his truck or something, but he knew what was going on. So I'll tell you all about it. Well, that's what that's what you're here for. The whold texts. We gotta talk about something else. Real question. I was gonna I was gonna give you a cliffhanger right back. I was pleasing. But that that in and of itself is a great story too, because the guys, not me, the anglers, is who make this story interesting.

These are the guys that just wanted to punish these dudes. Because I'm the facilitator, right Like, if we're all here and we're betting, we're you know, we're playing darts or something, and you say, hey, Fisher, hold the cash. It's not my money, it's your money, right, So I'm not the one I'm upset because it's my it's my venue. But these guys it's their money, it's their time to shine. And that's that's why this story is bad for all these dudes. You but you wind up being well into this.

But you want to being like Gandhi. Oh yeah, totally, like you could feel it was ready to teeter over the edge at any second. You know, I was good. There was another uh you know, Henry Kissinger want a Nobel Peace Prize. But had I said you were like Kissinger, people be like you mean like, uh, the um clandestine bombing operations in Laos and Cambodia or do you mean the or do you mean the Mobile Peace Prize? So

I went Gandhi, Yeah, Gandhi's a better choice. Gandhi wouldn't approve of Walleye fishing, probably not, but it was Gandhi esque what you did. You didn't want these that that you that you thought to you like like the lady Justice.

You the first thing on your mind was being like the individual safety sensing the heated passions because you'd have thought it was gonna wind up being that someone was gonna get their you know, I'm not I'm not saying that I saved the day, but I truly believe that had it gone on for a little bit longer, one of these guys would have just said the hell with it and just and just went after I'm sure you know, and uh, then they would have enjoyed the full support, well,

the whole, yeah, the whole. Then then we probably wouldn't be here because then the story would be twisted in a different light. It wouldn't be somebody, you know, put some weights and fish. It would be you know, big brawl at a walleye thing and then fisherman. Right, Yeah, we would probably never be able to walleye fish again on on the lake shore. You know, they'd be uh, there'd be articles about the further testament to the divisiveness

of American culture today. Um, alright, couple things that hit on this one. There's the thing that we've been wanting to talk about for a long time, but we never never It's very important to me that I talked about it, but it never seems like a good time to talk about it. So let's gonna talk about it. Um, there's this new U. S. Geological Survey report. People are gonna be sitting there being like, why in the world are you talking about this when we can hear about we

got weights in fish. Okay, here's the thing I want to talk about. I don't know what it's. I just want people to know about this because I don't know what I don't know what any individuals gonna do about it. But we'll talk about it. So we've covered in the past. If you watched me either the television show, you saw an episode we did about sage grouse. Okay, and in the episode about sage grouse we covered the the sage brush sea or the sage brush ecosystem. A new report

came up from the U. S Geological Survey. Uh. We've also in the past had on people from the U. S Geological Survey. We had on a guy who's ran the process of trying to count how many grizzly bears are in the lower forty eight. We had on a guy that works on the way ducks move do z ease UM, particularly the way asiatic diseases flow into North America via ducks. UM. Now I'll point out the Geological Survey is not a They're not a policy making agency

US Geological Survey. They don't manage land. They don't do policy. They do science for policymakers. They're saying that we've lost half of the original sage brush ecosystems. We are losing one point three over the past twenty years. We've lost one point three million acres of sage brush habitat per year. Another thing I didn't realize the sage brush ecosystem I'm reading for this report. The sage brush ecosystem is the

largest terrestrial biome in the lower forty eight. Like, what you mean by the biggest terrestrial biome in the world is the tiger. So it's that mixed aspen black spruce stuff that you met that like crossed most of Canada, Interior, Alaska, Siberia. The tiger is the largest biome. But this is the largest biome, largest terrestrial so land based biome in the lower forty eight, sixty million acres spanning thirteen western states. Uh, there's a recommendation in here that people have been focused

for a long time. Sage brush recovery has been focused on looking at compromised sage brush areas and trying to restore low quality sage brush areas. And this report and the people thinking about this report are suggesting that it be like a radical reconsideration, it seems to me, and switch gears and just try to preserve, not just try to focus on preserving the remaining thirty three million acres

of sage brush. Which it's kind of like it's almost fatalist because it's kind of like kissing the ones that are there goodbye. No, that's depressing as ship. That is what is the like We're losing so many of those acres due to what Like what's the main thing that is for? So I'll tell you it's a great question. Chester. They're gonna get to your thumb and your baby um increased fire when you burn it. When it burns, cheat

grass beats it to the punch I got. So after you cook it off, then an invasive comes into cheat grass is like hicks, and it just grows everywhere. And it's just the stage brush is too slow to recover, and so non non natives get a foothold. They never need us grab hold. Also related to fire suppression and other things and climate issues um juniper encroachment. Seeing a lot of that where which wasn't Colorado. Which are those

junipers native? Yeah, but they're just they're just out competing sagebrush and in some play in some ways they look at fire suppression because you don't historically you have these very low level, fast burning fires often right that would be adversarial to stage brush and ben adversarial to juniper. But through fire suppression, you've got junipers that grow in

on stage brushes. All these pictures like they'll find like some hundred year old picture and you go and get the photographer to stay in the exact same place and take a picture now, and you're just like, holy shit, Like even you wouldn't believe you're when you're cruising around now, you're not getting like even in this area, you're not getting a sense of how open ship used to be.

For most of Lodge Pole juniper just pine and croachm on grasslands and it's just like anything like in the mountains. Now those fight it's just based off of fires mainly you know, hot burning fire. Now we'll just you know, wipe out the undergrowth and whatnot, and then it gets beat by these like super prevalent non natives. And the other thing is human encroachment. UH subdivision's oil and gas development. UM.

That's like kind of the most immediately controllable one. It looks like this report says about a quarter of the impact is attributed to urban development. That's that's a lot. You look at the Gallatin Valley, it's like where can we build and it's basically just like out towards between three Forks and Townsend that's all sage and that's like huge development area right now. That's why I'm like, I've I've over the years become like a very much cow's

not condos guy. Man, you have that bumper sticker. I need to get one. Like a lot of people like people on the sort of like do's not even want to say radical. There's a lot of people from the environmental and conservation space that are always very quick to point fingers at ranchers um because of various things like cattle on stream banks and stream bank erosion and eating

grass whatever. Well, I'll tell you what, man, you look at that or a parking lot, right there's a real finality to concrete, Yeah, you can't a real finality to a crop field. Cropfield looks to me like currently doing something and has so much future potential concrete done. Not many people have killed the Hungarian partridge in a Walmart

parking lot. Probably, I mean I could also be mistaken to say this, but I my sense is that a fair number that people who are maybe throwing farming and ranching under the bus, or those who are moving into the condos are buying the condom. Yeah, that's true. And also they're like they're absolutists and they're they don't think they're I don't think they're even kind of realistic. Only they're kind of realistic to be like, oh, oh industrial egg or go away and it will be replaced by

national parks. It's like, no, won't. Yeah, you're never going to get back to where you were two d years ago. And this is talking about sage grouse, um, talking about prong horn, mule deer. It even mentions cattle grazing. But you just take the wildlife end of it. Um, those species aren't imperiled because of cattle ranching, right, not like they are from not like they are from concrete development. Yeah. Uh, Chester cut his thumb open and had a baby. Yeah,

we want to talk about first. Well, first I had the baby. Let's cover that first thing. Um, we were, well, the little little pooper is still supposed to be in in the oven right now, not supposed to have been born. I think he was due the uh of this month, November, and he came, uh the ninth. Yeah, he came the of October. What the thing I find most interesting about your baby who I visited in help, is that you thought it was nice of you bang his meat loaf.

You thought you were gonna do you see those hats green chilies in there? Yeah, they're delicious in my agbor gab those to me, my neighbor, jet boat pat to me. So, uh, what I was gonna say is you thought it was so funny is you were trying to angle how we were going to go hunting this coming weekend because the baby wouldn't. People like, man, it's pretty close to the do date. Yeah, I mean, I don't think I was actually gonna make that happen, but you gotta you gotta

entertain the idea, as things are never gonna happen. So, um, I thought about it, But the more I thought about it, the more I wasn't gonna gonna go mule their hunting and uh yeah, no this we almost delivered the baby in the car. Danielle went from her busy, normal self running around town, editing photos, yelling at Chester for yelling at me for laying on the couch saying I was tired. No, that didn't happen, but she, uh yeah, it was just

her normal busy self. On we went to bed and she said to me, I've got I've got some kind of weird cramps going on. Um, she's pretty tough, but she's like, you can go back to bed, it's fine. And this is probably at midnight and I wake up at like two and she's like, I still got these cramps.

I'm gonna go take a hot shower. And she started getting a little The cramps started getting a little worse, and she called Boseman Hospital here and they're like, maybe you should just come in and have us check you out. And then her water broke a little bit. But she still wasn't like in pain or she didn't think she was in labor. She was in in labor. And uh. We put her in the car and we started at about seventy on the on the Interstate and we started

driving to Bozeman. It's about a twenty five minute drive by the time we ended up, you know, between Belgrade and Bozeman were I was probably going a hundred and five because she said he is coming now, and she was even out of her seatbelt, back arched up in the air. Her hands were like down there because she thought he was coming. And I'm sitting there like just inside an emotional wreck outside. Did you think about pulling

over and just trying to have the baby. No. I wasn't going to do that until she was like he's you know, he's there. Yeah, my old man delivered a baby on the side of a road one time. Yeah, the woman that was trying to get to play. He pulled over and he said he we'll delivered it in

that he just caught the baby shout out. Yeah. I was like, dear God, please just make him stay in there just a little bit longer, because I had a plan, Like it was like I was gonna pull up call nine on one immediately and then if I was going to get pulled over on the interstate, I was going to keep going and also called nine one one and tell him bullets fly. Yeah, but we made it. We got a mad chase at the hospital exit. Yeah, he's

falling over at the er. Anyways, I pull over at the er, quick back pedal a little bit in the car. She didn't have a baby bump anymore. You know, she had his feet what I think we're his feet now. He was so low his feet were pushing on her stomach, so there was no baby bump. It was like a triangle and you could see his feet like pushing out on her stomach. I think that's what it was. But it was like something out of a sci fi And meantime, in my head there were some not so good thoughts

coming going around because give me an example. It's I mean, I don't know what you mean. Honestly, I'm not I'm not sure cute. I thought something was real wrong because it was early and oh yeah, and you know obviously she was in labor. It's my first time having a child. She's in pain. Pain. Uh. I look over and it's not a normal baby bump. It's this weird two feet trying to kick himself out. Um, so it's early. It's early too. So anyways, we got to the hospital. The guy,

uh security guard and like look scared to death. Because Danielle was like, get me, get me to the you know, delivery room, and he's running her down the hallway. I parked the car, run back in and I sprint down this long hallway and at the end of this hallway are two doors, and you know, it's the delivery room. It's kind of weird how it's just, you know, this long hallway and at the end of it is the room we run into. Danielle gets on the bed, She's like,

can I get an epidural. They're like, well, we'll check you out real quick. They're like, no, honey, you're having this baby right now. Basically, the doctor comes in and has just enough time to snap on his gloves and I grabbed one leg and nurse grabbed the other leg, and out pops Oscar Chester. I love you, and I would raise that baby as my own if I had to.

But I will not call it Oscar. I'm gonna call it Chester, telling him since day one, please please elaborate he was gonna call it Chester to change his mind. No I didn't. I never said I'm going to call it Chester. I pondered the idea, but Oscar the last Chester. Oscar Gregory O G. That's pretty good. I might call him o G. Just call him o ceah, so oh see that's not bad. Anyways, he's he's healthy, he's small, so he was on oxygen for a little while. Um, but he's he's cute as all kid. Well now he's

gaining weight too. Yeah, he's still not as big as those walleyes. I tried on the day when I got the text message that your baby had been born. I got a little angling in that day, and I wanted so bad to catch walleye and that. So I can always tell your little kid, yeah o G. I could always be like, dude, I called a wallet the day you were born. Ever forget that, That's what I would have said. Instead, all I got was a mooney cares about that? I caught a moon eye, like I got

a sagger. That's close. It would have counted. I mean, yeah, let's count. So yeah, we've been at home, um, kind of enjoying this time off, just me and mom and my wife called it the baby bubble. The baby bubble. Yeah, going to a baby bubble. Yeah, it's kind of odd. Hold up, Yeah, I've got some projects done around the house. Um, put a heater in my garage. Um, I got out bow hunting one day locally here with the longbow I built a few years ago, and I saw a bunch

of deer shot a dough. She took a couple of steps and I was trying to get another arrow out and I sliced the heck out of my thumb. Back down to the emergency room, back down to the hospital. Trip here we go. I got a few stitches in there. Slow any chases on this trip or no, no, no, no, that's great man, Yeah, no, it was. It's been good. Now I'm here, we're gonna talk about but you're, um, it's amazing what they can do now with the babies.

You could have a baby that early in that small and now that babies at home gain weight, right, that's like the one thing that they want to see is weight game. So we feed him every three hours and they're like they check his weight. Um, but we have oxygen tanks at home, which he has been off of him for a while, and then a little monitor, so we gotta every time we move them, move chords around

and stuff. Um. But like you said, like I don't know, twenty years ago, could you have taken him home probably not. I don't know, go back far enough. It had been just like I don't want to talk about what it was like. But not good, no, no, but he was actually right when he was born off oxygen for two days and then he kind of he was working so hard, got a little tired, and that's when they put him on oxygen. Oscar Oscar Floyd, Oscar, not Chester. There's a

I'm gonna call it Oscar. There's a reason behind that name. Though. Danielle's great grandfather was a cowboy up near have Her, Montana. His name was Oscar. Oh. You know what, I just realized that, you know, Boone's kid, first kid that got killed, was named James. I'm gonna start telling everybody that's why I name my kid after why not? Right, Yeah, It's like, feel like I'll tell you what I did, all right, Jason, we got wait, how did you get in the wall?

But how did you in the wall? Eye tournament business? This is a good place to start. So while I fishing or tournaments fishing, alright, So fishing, I've always fished, um, you know, just just like anybody else. Family, farm ponds, you know, just bob er and a hook, you know, worm catching bass. Born in Ohio. I was actually born in California. Um military family, so we bounced around a bit. UM came to Ohio. That's where my parents were from family farm and p a. Much of my fishing was

with my grandfather's. Both of them would take me fishing. The one I didn't think that you could actually catch fish, because we'd go out and I'm pretty sure we went out on his boat just to get out of the house, away from the wives and the grandma's. And then my other grandfather didn't fish much at all, but we would go to our family farm pond and it was like lights out, you know, bass and and catfish, and we thought we were heroes. So I had to independently different

fishing upbringings from my grandfather's. UM. My dad never really fished all that much with us. He was more of a hunter. UM. But but I I fished with my grandparents growing up a lot. So UM I always fished, and and I got into college and I met a few guys and and one of my buddies in particular, he grew up in Toledo and he ran fishing charters and his family grew up fishing Walleye and salmon on the Great Lakes, and he was a big time fisherman.

We're just studying college. Um so a lot of stuff, man. I I I basically studied, I think girls in baseball. Um and then I went down to southern Ohio. So I did a lot of hunting down there. I met some guys, you know. So people thought I transferred out of college because everything but school interested me. Um. So I did go into college. I end up. I end up going through the police academy. Uh. And that's what I do now. I do that now. Um as my job. I'm a local city city cop outside of Cleveland, and

I worked for a nice town. But that's what I do. So book smart stuff's not my not my deal. And hands on, I worked, you know, I grew up doing construction and and underground utilities and kind of working hard. And then I just I found my way into actually the real estate stuff. I was working with the real estate company and then in oh six oh seven, that kind of crashed out nationwide and my boss is like, you gotta do something. Man. He goes, basically, I've been

paying you, but the banks aren't paying us. So I thought it was a good time, you know, to go back as I always wanted to do it. So I went through the police Academy and and that's what I did. UM actually started to think about a career job. So that's that's when I turned over and did that. UM put back to back to college and fishing. I met. I met this guy and and he's just he was an outdoor full you know, hunting and fishing, and he grew up fishing. So I always went out on his boat,

used his gear, and we learned. I learned to fish the Great Lakes, I learned how to fish for walleye and he It wasn't a tournament style, was just basically a catch style. Just get out there, troll, get as many fish as you can, uh you know, go home, clean them up, eat them, do do the thing the next time. You know, is there what is the difference

between the tournament style and the cut style. So Lake Erie is a phenomenal fishery just in general, but the tournament style, you you transition from trying to catch just as many fish as you can. And we would do that oftentimes, like you'll troll and you'll troll spoons and uh you you know, basically spread them out and spoons are fantastic way to catch fish, but I as a

tournament guy, we wouldn't target big fish that way. So you would target structure or deep water, using like bigger crank baits and things like that, and not saying you can't big fish. You want a few hogs and not a bunch of littles. Right, so you're almost you're almost trying to get away from the schools. You're trying to fish the edges of schools because one theory on it is is that the big fish don't like to be

around the little fish and vice versa. If if if you're a big fish with a bunch of little you know, smaller fish, oftentimes males, it's just they're annoying them, especially during like early springtime spot like the males are actually pestering the females. So you know, in a tournament setting, are you're trying to get trophy fish, you want the big females, and they're they're just bigger all throughout the year end in the fall, So fishing styles are slightly different.

But but just to catch fish, it's basically, you know how I got brought up? Can you shed a little light on that fishery from when you were fishing with your buddy back in college to what it is now. So the answers yes, and the answers yes and no. Because I had no idea that we actually could, you know, had such a good fishery on Lake Erie. It was just I never did that. My family didn't have boats. We weren't out there running Lake Erie like a lot

of these guys grew up doing. So. I just thought it was yeah, would go out there and it was easy. So now I see that it's not so easy. But once you know where they're at or know how to do it, it's it can be easy because you can. They say that they're you know, a hundred million walleyes on Lake Erie. And as you were talking about the ducks, they are doing interesting studies. Uh. There's a biologist with the ode and Ours names Travis Hartman. I've been talking

to him. He puts out where they're spawning, where they're going to you know, feed throughout the course of the year because they all migrate from the shallow waters of the west, the all the spawning structure all the way back out east, and then they work their way back I mean in you know, Pennsylvania, Buffalo, New York and things like that, and then they're coming back east and they're it's all food related. It's food driven, but I'm sure a lot of it has to do with temperature.

But basically, to answer your question is, I don't know the specifics about walleye fishing and how it's changed because I'm relatively new into it. But I can tell you this. When I started was the beginning of like this O two oh three hatch where these fish were just everywhere, you know, phenomenal fishing. And then you know, around the mid like twelve to fifteen, they were giants, so everybody

thought you thought you were a hero, you know. And that's coming back now because now we've had this fifteen and sixteen hatch where it's just continuous year after year of these good hatches on Lake Erie, and now these fish are like five six pound fish. And then the next two years. If you if you're a walleye fisherman anywhere in the world and you wanted to go catch some trophy walleyes and catch a lot of them, you're

gonna want to go to Lake Erie. It's just I'm not gonna say it's easy, but when you find them, it can be easy, and you can they're healthy, just the fisheries healthy in general, and it's and it's thriving out there. Wold be good little trip for you an Oscar. Yeah, I don't know if should we invite seth Okay, So you get turned on the wall eyes and so I I go, I go to buy a boat. I want my own boat now, I want to be I want I I'm tired of borrowing my buddies gear. I want

my own boat. So I transitioned from like stuff that you should not be on the water with, you know, meaning it's almost like a boat that that some of these refugees are coming over from like Costa Rica, Like you should not be on Lake Erie on these boats, you know, it's like a garbage can with it with a motor on it or something lake fast and and and you know the boats that I transitioned into the lake area with is just you know, that's for a

whole new day. But so I go to buy a boat, and I bought The first boat I bought was aluminum boat, and it was brand new, new motor started every time, and that was something if I've made it to the lake, fired up the boat, fished and got back. We were having a good day no matter what you caught out there. My first boats. If we made it like out and back without a call to the coast guard, we were doing good. So this is a whole new thing. We got a brand new boat, new gear, and I'm out there.

We're just trying to do things, you know, by ourselves. And this is around that you know, twelve to fifteen, where these fish you're just catching giants. So you know, we went out there and I worked, you know, evenings, so my cousin and I would fish every single day. I'm talking rain, sleet, or shine. If it wasn't blowing thirty miles an hour out of the northwest, we were out there fishing and we just acted like we knew

what we were doing. And we started to learn and catch these fish, and like charter guys would call, hey, you know, how do you guys do today? What are you doing? Like they had no clue that we were so new at this that they should never even me talk into us, but they were asking us for advice, and you know, it just transpired into this thing where

where I just I just love to do it. So we started fishing every day, and uh, I got into getting a new boat from the boat shop that I work at a little bit in and these guys started to see me tinkering around with my boat. I'd always put something on it. I'd put a new fish finder on it, or or I changed it oil in the boat. So that's when they started, you know, hey, you want to work here a couple of hours a week or whatever. Yes, Sure.

So I just kind of dabbled myself into the mix of this fishing industry, like with talking to these charter guys, are talking to the guys at the boat shop, and an opportunity came about to run a tournament. A the people who ran this boat shops tournament um just they just didn't want to continue it anymore. They said, we're not doing it. And the boat shops like, look, we don't want our tournament to go by the wayside. Do

you want to run it for us? This year was a tournament called so it was called the Vix Sports Center open Um. It was run Vick Sports Centers, the boat shop that I worked for, and they just had an annual tournament just to have fun. With families. You know, they'd give away prizes. If you bought a boat from them and you won, you would get prizes. If you had your family on board, you would win extra extra prizes. So it's just like a for fun thing, not big money. No,

not big money, you know, a couple of grand whatever. However, many tournaments around US are all based on entry fees. So if you have fifty boats, you're gonna win a lot more money that if you have ten. It's just the way it goes. So UM all based on entry fees. So I ran this tournament, had no clue what I was doing. I knew we had to put fish on the scales and at the end of the day tallied up. I mean, we had a white grease board. We're writing the names on there with the weights, and we just

we just bought thirty pizzas or something that day. We just had a little you know fun in the parking lot. You know. It was just a grass roots go there, catch fish and see who one type thing. But that was my first actual like tournament experience as as a tournament director. UM I fished a few tournaments myself. We did okay, but you know, we currently fished for just the Lake Erie. Walleye Trail was not mine, it was it was a circuit that we always fished caming up.

It was the biggest, you know series on Lake Erie. But there was only four events at the beginning of the year, and I would fish that with a partner and uh, you know, we did, okay, we I think the highest I ever finished was like a third or fourth place. But but my first tournament directing experience was this fixed sports center open got it? What was the name of the tournament that the that the infamous occurrence happened done? So, So that's the lake Erie while Eye Trail.

It's what I currently so I I could back up a little bit. So I fished the lake Erie while I Trailed with a partner for several years and then the guys running that event just had had enough. It's it's a lot, you know, so whenever your family dynamic changes a little bit, they just they said, we're we're done with it. And they were looking for a tournament director. So this is a tournament I think someone owns so it is at that point in time, it was owned by a club, so our club had to say so

and they put it on. So funding was you know, probably I would imagine because a bunch of guys throw some money in there to get a trailer and some equipment. So it was probably not just one person that shelled out all this cash. It was a handful of guys in the tournament directors or whoever owns a tournament is putting some money in their pocket. Yeah, so our tournament is like a fifteen percent so um, our tournaments are three hundred bucks tournament turned that tournament's cut is about

forty five dollars. Now that's all expenses, and then you know, home, what's three bucks? Entry? Entry feast pays three d bucks yep, yep, And the tournament pulls forty five bucks out and the rest of its prize money correct. And then obviously you have some sponsorship bonuses and things like that. But everybody thinks you do make money as a tournament director. You do make money, but you're not getting rich by any means.

You're covering the costs. You know, I have like a bunch of a bunch of helpers that help out every day. You know, you've got a gas to just get to where you're going. All of the things that you provide. There's awards in there. Um awards are expensive now, they just keep going up and up and up. But all of these expenses come out of that forty five bucks too, So at the end of the day, you may walk

away with five bucks or something in your pocket. That's all you're gonna make off tournament, the tournament itself, tournament day itself, you're not making money off of. Where you can make money is if you get a sponsorship or a company that wants you to promote their business. That's where the tournament can make money. But the actual like

cut off of the tournament is very minimal. But as the director owner of the tournament, you could sell a sponsorship package and have all the signage be Bill's boat, Marina or whatever. The of course, yeah, yeah, that's that's where as a business you can make money in the tournament world. It's not the cut off of the entry fees because that's that's small. On a full field, you're talking like three grand, you know, on a sixty boat field, you're talking about three grand and you've got to cover

a lot of expenses that day. What what's the most you ever made fish and walleye, what's the biggest purse you ever landed. I personally, I think we finished fourth place in a in a national tournament. I think we brought home Maybecks, me and me and my partner, so we split it up. It was probably about twelve fifty apiece. Um, you know, I personally have never done great. You know, if you can't beat them, be the tournament director. I

guess because the cheaters, what are the cheaters first names? Do? I have to say? Chase and Jake? Chase and Jake. I don't even I don't even like saying it. It's like taboo Chase and Jake. Uh. You heard as the days went on following the story, like the amount of money they had won kind of seemed to get to a point where I was thinking, really, but you already knew that, right, Like you were at least aware of

them winning all this money. You know what they had, Yeah, they had, Like you heard, they had won hundreds of dollars. They won hundreds of thousands of dollars fishing walleye so on Lake Erie. So the walleye, the Wallyye tournament game has changed over the course, I would say even the last like five years, maybe seven. But but there's several big derby's that we run now um on Lake Erie that you can make some serious cash. So, like, so

I have a tournament right now running. It's called the It's called the Walleye Fall Abrawl, and I'm personally our tournament is given away five irony. Yeah, the that's on right now. Yeah, we're giving away five hundred and twelve or fifteen thousand dollars in cash and prizes to people. And it's a thirty five dollar entry. So like the game has changed within the last few years to just be this mega Well it's thirty five dollar entry, right,

So what happened? You go ahead, where's the money come from? Like sponsorships, um, and stuff like that? Right? So Blaster the Blaster Company, for you know, they make like oils and degreasers and and and so they they've you know, titled this and grabbed ahold of this Fall Fall Brawl and the money's there. Ranger Boats Vick Sports Center they're putting up the first and second place are both boats

that are over north of a hundred thousand dollars. So you you, as anglers, anybody can join up for thirty five bucks. That's amazing. That that's all the commitment to extended from a cash perspective, well to throw your hat. And some people don't even fish. I mean they sign up, you know, their wives, and on the off chance that they do come fishing and catch that fish, you know, you you have the opportunity of a lifetime. And it

happened last year. You know a guy in in you know, just his you know, small little john boat right out of harbor of Cleveland. You could probably throw in a rock to where his boat was. You know, he won a brand new hunter and dollar ranger boat that you know. Another guy that finished because of what happened, because he just he looked into some toad, just the big one man, that's this big fish, Just one big fish, just one

big fish. And uh a guy off shore last year it was either like fifty five or sixty five grand that he won for fifth place or six place. I can't remember off the top of my head. But that's the cool thing about these Derby's is anybody could do it. You could show up on a weekend vacation if you're enter, if you enter into the tournament, you catch one, it's

it could potentially be life changing for somebody. But there's also like pro style anglers doing these things are no So there are, of course there are anybody who fishes while I you know, and and they're gonna be around eight Lake Erie. They're probably gonna enter, so you do have the big name pros. But I can honestly tell

you that those guys haven't won. There's been some people that have cashed the checks and uh a couple of years ago a pretty well known charter guy one um and this spring another charter guy one that's just you know, you up your odds. The more you play the lottery, the more chances you have to win the lottery. But but the the average Joe's just the average guy that goes out and wins one of these things. I think

it's just cool. It's the best story there is. And they just the guy that won last year, his kid posted something on Snapchat and the photo just went all around our area is you know, here's the Fall Brawl winner, and it was it ended up winning, and it was just cool as hell because it's just this fish laying

in the bottom of this tin can boat. And his kid called it right off the rip, you know, and they would have won a what they would have won a hundred and thirty thousand dollar, hundred twenty thousand dollar Ranger four Virado. I mean, I don't know what the guy was in, but I know it was a small aluminum boat, so, you know, huge upgrade. And this this is just this fall Brow is just the big fish, just the big fish, not the tournament where these guys

ended up. So, but the interesting thing about those two guys is they weren't like they stuck to these smaller like regional tournaments and not like the national tour, which kind of struck me as pretty telling about their like, Oh that's yeah, man, because they're gonna get way more attention focused on him in a big national walleye tournaments. You know what I mean. This is probably a million dudes just fish small tournaments. Yeah, do you think Chester

is bad because he fishes? Saying that, I'm saying it seems like like like it was a point that was made about these guys that they never chose to like even though they're doing so well and they never made the leap to like the resume would have led one to believe that they would have chosen to be which you take on that, Jason, So there's a few differences the national level tour um here, the National Walleye Tour, you fish with somebody on your boat that is not

your partner. You get what's called a co angler. So you, as a co angler would sign up, Hey, there's there's a walleye tour coming to Bozeman, Montana. I'm going to sign up as a code on the off chance you get to fish with some of these great guys that you hear, you know, like the Keith Cabias or you know, Corey Sprangle. You're like, hey, it's basically an educational charter.

You heard of those guys Chester, those are the big names. Yeah, you know, I've done it myself because it's you want to fish with these guys and you get randomly paired up with somebody on the national tour here. So I don't know that you would have the dynamic to jump in that tournament and be able to do well. Now. I know they fished in the National Walleye Tour when it would come to Lake Erie, but they wouldn't travel

to go do these events. And then the other national tournament that you have is the Master's Walleye Circuit, and again they wouldn't travel to those, but they would fish it when it would come two hours lake Erie in the waters. What's his name is again? I'm not gonna forget again. Jake and Chase. You'd be bummed if one of their names is Dave, because you like the name Dave. Chase and Jake. When did you how long? How long have you been hanging? I mean, when did you first

meet Chase and Jake? So I met at them through the boat shop just just fish. I mean you would you would fish against these guys. You would talk to them at you know, weigh ends, and I would say I met him probably I don't know, five, five or six years ago, maybe just fishing against them, and um, they weren't they weren't alway. I didn't always know them as partners. You know, you could fish with other people.

But but over the past couple of years they that they were the team, right, And uh, I would work, you know, I work at the shops. So these guys would fish. They had they had ranger boats. I would work on their boats. I would help them out with this, you wrench on their boats. Yeah, yeah, I mean these guys were in and amongst the crew. They would fish my my series. Um, they were always at the shop getting stuff done and they would get you know, new

boats every year. So I was in there either helping rig rig asking questions, answering questions, you know, being a part of you know, I would say these guys and and there, you know, journey through this thing. And they're not always fishing my tournaments, they're fishing other tournaments. But but yeah, I mean I've known them for for several years, five six years. I've never fished with him, never went in a boat with him, never went in a boat with them. Did you when did they become uh known

as winners? Basically since I knew them, they were always So We've had several different series on Lake Erie that would either you know, put on a few events or they've they've kind of come and gone, they've run their course. But but they've always won, you know, or been the leaders amongst the leaders or the place winners. So you know, to say that they were just like just this random you know, showed up and started winning thing that you know,

that wouldn't be the case. They've always kind of been in the mix. So my theory on it is is, you know, they probably are good anglers. I've never been in the boat with them, but you've got to be able to go and catch some fish to be in these tournaments. And who knows, you know, when it changed to kind of what it transpired out to be now. But I mean they've they've always been fisherman. You know.

Do you think they were interested in in cash or recognition? Yes, so, like it definitely is a recognition thing, um, because if you followed them on social media, it's always you know, they started their own YouTube channel and they came up with with a little nickname and they started their little fishing group, Cranking Hogs. Yeah, so if you knew him, like going back six years, like how long did it

take for the rumors to like start swirling around? They've always been around so fun fact, the first tournament that I ran, the people that did not want to do the tournament quit the tournament because of one of these guys. Straight up. So this this guy was was fishing on an inland lake and they have a a rule that you have to be on the wall off the water before like seven o'clock the day prior. So you lost me.

So so to practice fishing for these events, let's say, it was on a Saturday or Sunday the day before that. You cannot be on the water past seven p i. So, so they disqualified him. And because he was scouting too late. So there's obviously different stories. But like the story that he told me was he was just there. He was with like a young guy or whatever, and they were taking photos and they were just on the water. Their boat was not on the trailer. But they said, listen,

you're on the water. It's past seven o'clock. We're going to disqualify you. But there was always you know, that that smoke in the air that that you know, he was winning too much. He was cranking hogs for the next day. So those guys this is before my time, we're obviously looking at him, or at least they were there right. Um. So the boat shop that I worked for was like, listen, man, you know, this is one

of our guys. He's running one of our boats, and we want, you know, we don't want this tournament to go by the wayside because of you know, this guy. That's why I started, you know, running the tournaments. That one of the guys fishing after fishing after hours on a scout day or being on the water after hours on a scout day caused someone to abandon the tournament.

That's like a pretty thinly held conviction. Well so, so it just caused a stink, right the group, the group that was running these tournaments was like, because he started all this drama, you know I'm gonna you know, I got disqualified. This is bs and blah blah blah. You know, he raised the stink and they're they're like, you know what, men, we we just won't. We won't do the tournament for you. God got it just like because it was it was as you laid out earlier. It's a passion pursuit for

the director. It's not a giant money maker. And they're like, this isn't even fun. Screw it was that. That's exactly it, because I can tell you that that had this man, we I could just just so much. But they don't want the drama. You know who would if you're doing this for fun. You're you're putting in all this work.

If you were making a hundred grand or something, okay, you might deal with some headaches, but you're not like you're literally like pissing off your wife or taking a day away from your kids to make a couple of hundred bucks, you know, and it's just not worth it. And this club in particular, I believe they're a hundred percent club. They do it for the fun of the game. So they're like, we're not making anything off this. So I mean, of the of the of the entrance fee

goes to prize money. You got it. You got it. And and and these people were just like, look, we don't want to deal with this, and if you're going to cause a stink, we just won't hold the tournament. You know, We're just not gonna do it. So so I ran the tournament, and uh I ran the tournament. Oh gosh, I want to say maybe maybe sixteen or seventeen, you know, So that's how you inherited the tournament. That's

how I inherited the tournament. And uh, fun funny thing is he he won that tournament that I ran in and so this was this was he both of them or one. So so this this tournament was you could not it was more than a one angler or or a part in the tournament. So there was a couple of people on the boat and these two guys were not partnered up at the time. Um, and it, man, I tell you it, just it piste people off. Was it the one? Was it the one with the stocking

charge or not? Well, you gotta be more. Uh it was it the dude in the video? Jake? No, No, that's all so developing a theory? Can I can I jump ahead? Yeah? The chance? Is there a chance? Jake was shocked to see those metal balls. It was shocked to see the lead weights in the fish. So I'm gonna get too far ahead of myself. No, no, but but that's that's some meat and potatoes. And I haven't I haven't publicly said this to anybody, and I'm gonna. I'm gonna say it, and this will be the only

time I mentioned their names. Fair deal. So when I said I'm gonna inspect these fish, and I grabbed the bag and I had it and I'm kneeling down, Jake said, where's Chase? And he felt alone? And I knew it, and I knew it. I knew it in my gut that something was wrong. I knew he felt alone. Mm hmmmm mmmm. Make of that what you may, dude, that's a bummer. Yeah. Um, So you're trained at police work,

to you man, so you pay attention to ship. I just is that just talk to people all the time, and they're probably telling you half bullshit, you know what I mean. I mean yeah, but everybody you talk to people all the time, that's half bullshit too. It's just it's just that's just the way it is. When you, like going back to that first tournament when you said like a lot of people were pissed, is they're like like overall like within that angling community, like is it

a tight knit group of people? Like yeah? And I mean so there are people that literally quit fishing tournaments because they're like, we can't win. That's how they felt, you know. And um and and I'm and I'm the type of guy that like, I'm not gonna discriminate on you because you're winning, right. I don't know that there's any type of like dishonesty going on. And I can't say, hey, man, you're too good for the game, because if you are

that good, that's bad for tournament fishing. Uh. If I block you, and if and if you're if you're you're doing something and I don't have any proof that's bad. Also because I'm just basically just acting willy nilly, So I try to always treat them fairly like I I and in my own buddies, we'll tell me to a fault. I gave them the benefit of the doubt because I had no actual evidence that they were doing anything wrong. You probably no better, mean, but there must be six

ways to cheat, right or whatever? Like early on, was there a they must be doing X, Like they're they're catching fish elsewhere and hiding them somewhere, they're putting them in alive. Well, and I don't know, like you know, I mean, like what was the sort of idea that people had in the rumor mill? You name it? Yeah, all of it. And and I've heard, oh, they must

be meeting somebody. And then you know, it's not uncommon to catch big fish in Lake Erie, but it's tough to do at this port on this day and catch five of them, right, Most of these guys will go out and they'll catch two or three or you know, or they'll catch five good ones. But you but you hear this, We need the kicker, right, you need that

like ten pounder or whatever. That kind of will put you away from the pack, because if you catch five fish on Lake Erie, they're all going to weigh decent, decently, you know, close to one another, but you need those kickers. So it's like were they getting fish from somebody else or were they you know, tampering with the fish or were they catching the fish throughout the week and then keeping them and then you know, get them out of

a cooler and way in them. I mean, there's just like so many different ways on Lake Erie to do dishonest things. Catch you know, too many rods in the water. You know who knows you know, So there's always this element of of basically an honor system. But we would combat that, and all of these tournaments generally use like polygraph testing and lie detector testing. Now you're entering into

area that I'm very very interested in. I heard before we get to the polygraph, before we get to the polygraph, like I've never been to one of these tournaments or away and is there like standard x Y, I see procedures that the directors are the people who are working the tournament due to like inspect the fish or like it wouldn't matter if it was a bass tournament or a wallet whatever, like, because there things that are always looking for so for right off the rip, the first

thing that you do when you show up in the morning is you drive through a line and we inspect the boats. We inspect your live well. Um sometimes it just depends kind of where we're at time wise, will inspect hatches or coolers, um, but places where you could potentially put a fish, we will inspect that day of well, give you a check in. Nobody gets a pass. Um. Again, it's it's how backed up it is on how fast that goes. There's always people complaining about my boat got

tossed and this guy's boat got looked at type thing. Um. But but you just you try and work within the system. And I personally think randomized checks are good because you know, Steve, your mot your your boat might get you know, passed by or checked and then your boat might get completely looked at in the coolers and the hatches and where you know. Um, So that's the first thing we do. The second thing we do is everybody leaves at the same time and I call you out. So boat number one,

you guys are good to go. They have a boat board, so I know that everybody's leaving at the same time. So they're all fishing within the same hours. So you can't show up at five am, get your boat checked in and then sneak away and go fish and have extra time. So everybody leaves and returns, we check them in as they leave and check them uh and as they return. Obviously that's for safety too. And how many

miles might they be? How many miles might they cover in that span of time between check in, between checking out and checking in on the earie could be a lot. Yeah, So so these guys, it's obviously it has to do with the prize money. But but also these guys just don't care if they if I told them that there was a good bite going eighty miles away, if they had enough gas, they would go there. I don't care if they would be negative money at the end net negative money to go and do it. They would do

it to win. So the point being on the distances, you're doing what you can, but who knows what the hell people are doing right for those hours right, And that goes back to the is it for the money or the notoriety thing? That's when it's you're going to win. So they'll do whatever it takes to win and fish wherever they need to fish to win. The two how long ago did the um the two anglers Chase and Jake. How long ago do they become like associates where they're

actually fishing together. It's either been like two or three years or three or four years. I mean it's not it's it's more recent history than it is, just a long time history. Had they each individ udually developed a reputation on their own, I would no. I would say no, Um, the one guy did, stemming back from the very first tournament that I ever worked. You know what worked, worked

and took over because he's been around UM. Like you know, I didn't really know about the other guy until, you know, a couple of years back when they became partners. So maybe explain quickly how this tournament works. Like you had X amount of boats, they go out for the day, they bring back X amount of fish. You weigh um, just so people get a sense of like what happened, you know, so in our world, we we weighed five fish, um, and we we were leaving from Cleveland. This is our

championship event. You register, anybody can register, but the teams that fish with us for the season are fishing for team of your points. And this is just this is the championship. It all leads down to this basically. So we leave out of Cleveland. I think we're at about seven am to three. We have an eight hour window

they bring back their five best fish. And I always say this boat per boat, per boat, So your team, you can catch as many fish as you want, but we want you to bring back your five best and I don't I notice you don't care if they're dead or alive. So on Lake Erie, UM, first off, while are difficult to keep alive, especially when they're coming out of deep water, and then especially in the summertime, it's

just near and possible. And then you throw in the factor of these thirty forty fifty mile runs and two or three ft waves, and it's just they're they're just getting the crap beat out of them. So additionally to that, the division has all tournaments on Lake Erie are harvest tournaments, so the guys keep them or we donate them. UM, so they cannot be released because they want them out of there because just the numbers are really high. The numbers are high, but also they've probably seen in the

past the fish not be able to make it. They're just beat up, you know, so you bring back your best five to the scales, we check you back in. You get in line and you weigh your best five fish. You come up there. If you have a big fish, will weigh that first, and then you put all five of your fish up there, and then the team. It's strictly by weight. It's not length, it's it's weight. And if we have a tiebreaker, it's done by your big fish. Um. So then the you know, the teams stack up where

they may well. I think this tournament we may have had eighty boats. So what's a what's a winning weight for? I mean, obviously that varies, but what's like an average like good weight that you guys are bringing in on this particular day. So, like you said, it number one. It varies by location, but also varies by time of the year. So a winning wait for this tournament, it was really tough fishing, um I was. I was thinking somewhere in the high twenty eight pounds. I always get

generally pretty close. I'll say, take it'll take thirty three pounds, or it may take forty pounds, or you might say in a couple of years, especially in the springtime, it might take forty five pounds to win, um five nine pounders. Yeah. So one of my my tournament partner last year last year weighed in a forty pound bag in here on and I don't he was almost not not he didn't even get a plaque, but he made a check for

forty pounds. And a couple of years back, like sixteen, I waited with a partner back to back days forty two pound bags. We weighed eighty four pounds for the two days and we finished fourth. It's it's nuts. What is Let's just take the let's just take the day of the tournament. We're focused on what was the what was the spread? So on those days when everybody's bringing in, let's say it's a day where forty one wins is

second placed, uh forty pounds fourteen ounces. Yeah. So it's when the days that guys do good, generally a lot of guys will do well. And then when the days that guys do bad, a lot of guys will do bad. But you'll still see the people that get into them

have pretty consistent weights. So you may have five or ten guys within like five pounds, give or take a pound or two here or there, but you're not going to see one guy that comes in with thirty eight pounds and then the rest of the field has twenty five. It's just that that's an extreme outlier. Could happen, sure, but generally these guys are good and and there's sixty of them, right, so you're not gonna have one person that's just reinvented the wheel for the most are got it?

What on the what on this day was what were people? What were the bags coming in at? So the last place that we paid down to was tenth place. They were at like sixteen point eight nine. And how much how much cash is tenth place? I don't know, maybe maybe five eight hundred bucks? And then how much cash was first place that day? Eight thousand that's good day of fishing plus a boat. Right, so there was no not a not a boat, not a boat, eight thousand,

just a check for eight thousand bucks. There's a lot of efficient So there was a lot of contingencies on this. Again it was our last event, but but eight grand was the tournament payout for first place. All right, Here, here's the thing I need to that I've tried to explain to people. They weren't a contender to win the day they were in contender to win the series. Correct, explain that. So for the year, we have several sponsors that pay out what's what we call the Team of

the Year. So Anglers will accumulate points throughout the course of the season, and we take your best four tournaments plus the championship and gives you the Team of the year the top dogs and um, they were in contention for that. They were in first place leading up to this event for Team of the Year. And that's is

that a good chunk of change? That's ten grand, So that's the bonus this Now we're starting to talk about how you're making money in this because eight grand for the tournament, ten grand for the Team of the year, and then we have several other contingencies that we're all going to boil down to this. Would it have been possible to walk away with would it have been possible to walk away with eight teen that day? They had

they won? Not? I mean theoretically, could someone cap off a win for the day and there's eight and then also had achieved Team of the Year and then they get an additional ten. So I had like seven teams and this all plays in a factor and how this all transpired. But I had seven teams or eight teams that were within points to be able to win the championship for the team, and then actually obviously they would

have been contenders to win the tournament as well. So the championships weighted heavier, so it's three points as opposed to the general season, which is too. So I had my top seven teams that these guys, had they done well enough, they would have probably one team of the year, depending on how the other teams finished. So I had all that mathematics worked out, and I had it all written down, and and that kind of factors into how you know, But I guess what a mask is. You

could potentially win both those purses. Oh yeah, absolutely. I didn't know if there's anything to exclude you from winning the ten and the eight. No, And most of these guys that are in the in the mix are good enough to win both. That's you know. They they're consistent throughout the year, and they're generally going to be consistent in the championship too. So now in the back of your head is like, like that has a pretty big

impact on your year. Yeah, to walk with that kind of cash next time someone yells a you bought fishing too much. Be like, look at this. M hmm. These guys, these guys that do this, they make money. But they I say this all the time. They're pulling into the parking lot with two grand worth of equipment. You know, it's like there's no there's no shortage of money. And these guys are not you know, super wealthy businessmen. They're not all lawyers, they're not all doctors or something. These

are your salt to the earth carpenters. You know, you're you're paving crews, your concrete workers, your police officers, your firemen. You know, there's businessmen mixed in here. There's real estate, property owners. But these are all aspects of life. So these guys devote their life to this. They care about this stuff, they love doing it. And it's not it's not all about the money. But to walk away with the eight thousand or ten thousand dollar check makes a

little bit, you know, more worth it to them. But it's it's not just strictly based on that money. When I first the first clip I saw from the day it was it was a thirty minute long long clip that's almost filming, and you were and you were waiting. A lot of guys are getting weighed. As a tournament director, I think you mentioned this to me on the phone. As a tournament director, in order to enhance the drama, you might schedule out the weights in order to get

these these top contenders waded towards the end. Is that accurate? Yeah? So what I did was that I took took all those teams that were in the running for Team of the Year, and I made a sheet for my way guy, my my guy that checks in the fish, and I said, hey, if these guys have a good bag, keep him aside. If these guys have a really good bag, keep him aside. If these guys have a decent bag, keep him aside. Because I wanted the build up to be at the end.

So if your Team of the Year and you walk up, you know, your third guy on the stage, and you put up a good number, it's just it is what it is, right, Okay, they got you know all right there in there in the lead, but there's no build up there just out of curiosity, how many people are hanging around for this like this particular like team championship way in thing, and there was probably I don't know, you don't gather from the first video I saw Europe MCN.

But everybody's standing back a little ways and it's not until she is the fan that you go like, oh, there's a bunch of people. Yeah, well, these guys all kind of hang back. They hang by their trucks or you know, doing whatever, eating hot dogs, hanging out. But you gotta understand, if there's eight boats two anglers per boat, there's hundred sixty you know anglers there, and then you know they may have their wives or kids or just some random fishermen they are coming back for the day

they want to hang out, you know. So you start to accumulate a decent crowd towards the end of this thing, and um, you know, we try, we try to keep that. It was never like that before. But you know, so we cook, you know, food, and I got my dad out there slinging food on the grill just because I want the people to stay. It's important for not only the fishermen, but then you get things like sponsors, and that's how your circuit gets bigger as being to updraw

the crowd. So you know, that's that's important to us. When they came up with their bag. It seems that like in the crowd, you can you're already hearing a murmuring, there's guy says, let me see those fish, right, or I hear guys say I caught fish that looked a lot, or caught fish looked just like that in reference to the weight. So when when they came up and your m seeing the event, they're bringing their fish up, did

you know something's going on? So I didn't know in a sense of did you know that there was something going on? But but I'll back up a little bit. So I was paying very close attention to the fish in general because I'm trying to make it exciting for the live feed and for the anglers. So the second place team that was running for Team of the Year,

they put up a fifth place number. So I knew that these guys that were in first place going into this event needed to be within five spots of them in order to capture the Team of your title based off points. So when I saw them put up a fifth place number, I'm like, Okay, they need to be tenth place or above and they're gonna win. So you actually hear me say it, I'm like, you need sixteen point eight nine pounds. I think that was the number off the top of my head, in order to capture

the Team of the Year. So when they're putting these fish from the bag to our way basket, I'm like, okay, I'm doing some quick math. I'm like, all right, four pounds. Four pounds, Okay, like they got Probably that's that that real consistent. You're doing that base off just off the scale or off looking at so that that was the number they needed was roughly seventeen pounds that day, roughly seventeen pounds to take home the Team of the Year title. And how long did they know that that's what it

was going to be. They did not know that, so so you didn't announce it and in an hour went by. So this is part of this is part of like the perfect storm, right, And I've heard I'm not out there, I wasn't one of the guys, but I've heard it was, you know, hey, how did you guys do today? You know, And and nobody would tell them, nobody said a word to like how much or how good their day was. So when they got in and I and I told them, I said, hey, I want you guys to weigh last.

I kept them there. One of my guys got them off the boat and kept them in a tank and

waited to the end to weigh their fish. So they had no clue how the day was going to transpire, no clue, so, you know, just just knowing that and knowing how this all worked out, it was it was just like the perfect storm that if in fact they put all those weights in the fish, right, because technically nobody's been proven guilty of anything here, if they did that, they did it based off of what they thought they needed for the day, and they thought they somehow we're watching.

I thought they could somehow watch what was going on and be like, we need sixteen ounces. So it's that's true normally because I put on a live feed and guys can watch and ultimately it takes a long time to get through all of the anglers. But in this perfect storm situation, I wanted them to weigh last because of the drama of the event. So when they got from their boat, I put him in the tank and to keep their fish, you know, healthier or wet, and

they couldn't change it. It was from that second my guy went and grabbed him off the boat and brought him over the tank. It was locked in that. Those are the fish that they were weighing. They had no access to them, they had no access to them. Well, they kept, they kept, They had the fish the whole time. They were in possession of them. But they were there. They couldn't There was nothing that could be changed with them, their visible. The problem for them was everybody did shitty,

so they overcompensated a little bit. You got so everybody. So the fishing was tough. Okay, the days leading up to it, we had some northeast winds. Guys weren't able to pre fish and that's essentially practice. So nobody really knew how it was going to pan out. But but it sucked for a lot of different boats and the closest, the best boat of the day was twenty eight pounds in some change, whatever it was. They beat them by almost five six pounds. That's a lot. Yeah, an extra

extra did they not need? Did they not need the lead? So they would not have won the tournament. They would have if if you take out the extras that were in the fish and just wade the fish, they probably would have been somewhere in pound ballpark. I would guess and would have had Angler the Year and would have had Angler of the Year. And with their bag way, I believe thirty three point nine one. So is there right,

You're like, well, so, so yeah, I was. As I was saying that, when they're in the tank and they're putting the fish from the bag to the basket, I'm doing quick math in my head and I'm saying, okay, five fish times four or five pounds, you're gonna be in twenty or twenty pound ball. And you're making that guess knowing what having looked at you know what basically what a fish is gonna weigh. So I I do a pretty good job. It's my It is my job.

When you're coming up and I look at my computer screen and I see that the big fish number is that like seven point eight, and you got a big tail hanging out of that basket, it's my job to say, oh, here we go. You know, we got one, you know, looking for the big fish of the day, eight point two, We got a new leader. If I'm not doing that, if I'm not doing that, then then our tournament is just the same old turn that everybody else is having.

So I owe it to these guys to just be you know, as exciting as possible your ass off in the videos. I'm I'm trying, you know, because it's you do a good job. It's awesome. Like these guys are not only fishing my events, but they're my friends. So the question everybody always asked me is like, oh, well aren't you doesn't it suck you're not fishing anymore. I get to be a part of the championship bag every time. So those dudes are high five in each other, they're

high five in me. They're grabbing ahold of me, giving me a hug. I mean, it's it's awesome, you know, And uh, that's part of it too, So I really want to do a good job at that. Are they weighing the fish one at a time? No, So we weigh in the big fish first, that's one at a time, and then they add the other to make your five fish basket, and then we ate weigh all five. So

any so, so Chase and Jake step up. One of them stufs up whatever hill and he's gonna put his biggest fish on the scale and you see the read out. Did you think that fish does a weigh that I've ben look at these fish all my life. So people people say when they watch the live feed that that they can't tell. But the wind was just sucked right from my sales man because it was seven nine oh. And there's just zero chance that it was seven nine

oh because you've been looking at too many fish. You know, eight pound fish are are those fish on lake area that? And they're just a solid, healthy lake erie fish. Now, the class of fish that were coming in was the stock five pounders that are on lake area right now. You can go out there and if you want to make some some walleye gumbo, you're you're gonna catch. Yeah, the perfect fish to do that with. These were not those eight pounders. And to weigh seven nine oh, you

can tell. You can tell by the tail, you could tell by the head, and it just wasn't there man. So I I just the wind was just sucked right from my soul at that time. And I'm what do I do? You know, what do I do? So they put the big fish into the basket and weigh them all and I'm just like thirty three and some change

would have almost thirty four pounds. I'm like, no way, And what was the what was the second place at that point in time in some change that's ro off and and they're the similar class of fish or like these fish look like those foot fish, but they're somehow you know, seven pounds eight pounds heavier than everybody else. Right, we know they're like going for the team of the year. Where were they? How are they standing for the individual tournament top dog? They Yeah, they would have won. They

would have won by six pounds. They would have for for that particular they would have won the tournament and the Team of the year and walked with eighteen okay without not without the way I'm trying to figure out if they were if they got real greedy and they're trying to get both purses. So they did, Yeah, that that was what happened, But they would have been if the fish that they weighed were unaltered, they would have

been in the money. And they also would have one Team of the year because they would have been above sixteen point. But they wouldn't have won the individual. But they you know, keep in mind, no one knows. Maybe you know that that um the first time they did this. Yeah, so you know what I'm saying, like because in my head I'm like, oh, if they just wouldn't have done it.

But I'm like, well, if they wouldn't have done it, they might have never even been in that situation anyways, because it might have been habitual, right, unless it was just like yeah, he had to be like was it the first time? Did you get caught? The first time? I mean the fact that like, not only were there there's big lead weights, but they're like, oh that's not enough, I gotta shove some blaze. And the one that the one that got me was the pair of pliers. So

so let's back up to back up to the moment. Yeah, yeah, I want to get to all this stuff. But you haven't touched one of the fish yet. No, okay, So he lays it up and you're like, you're like the ky, that's not right. They lay them all up. That's not right. Uh, this all happened very fast. What was so? So give me a play by play. What was the next thing you did? He all five around the scale and you're like, no way. So yeah, I just I tried to play it off like it was all good, and I said, hey,

get some photos. I want you to hang tight because

I wanted to look at him. I know, I knew in my gut that just something was wrong and I had to do something, Like I've I'm just in my mind, I'm hearing all the all the anglers throughout the whole course of the you know this year and last year, you know that you gotta you gotta protest them, you gotta do this, you gotta check those fish, you gotta you know, you gotta do something about this because I'm I'm literally losing anglers because they continue to win and

guys are just like, I'm done with it. What was the crowd reaction? They were pissed, and it was it was like silent. It was when you have a team that puts up a good number and not one single person in the crowd is happy for him. Exception, I think it was like my buddy's mom there. She was like she's like and he's like, he's like, we're not room for those guys, you know, but but like nobody's happy. You know that there's a problem, and and and it all falls back on me because everybody wants me to

do something about it. It's not it's not an easy spot to be in, man, No, Like that's tough. This whole year and again, so they were disqualified from an event um last year, the Fall Brawl. I now run it. I did not run it last year. So they were disqualified via the results of this polygraph. And this has nothing to do with when they got disqualified for the late night fishing, nothing to do with it. So there's these incidents, right, But I have no first hand knowledge

as to what took place. And again, you know, could I say I don't want you to fish? That's what everybody wants me to say. But I'm treating these guys as equals because I have no actual knowledge that anything was wrong. I I hear this story. Hey you were disqualified from that event, but why did did you not wear your life jacket? Or did you you know, alter the fish like to to ultimate ends of the spectrum.

You can't get that piece of knowledge. No, is there a standard set of questions that are asked in those polygraphs or I think it all depends on, you know, the the actual tournament and then the examiner, and then you know, there's there's could have been did you drink beer? Of course? Right? Did you ask did you have three rods out? And then realize you add to me rods

out and pull a rod in or whatever. Right, So so that and that's my point, Like, should being disqualified from an event be a life sentence, you know, because I don't know what they did. And I've always maintained this with whoever I talked to, Like, if you did something wrong, that's okay. Everybody will do something wrong at

some point in time in their life. But if you cheat people out of money, screw you like I like I I and I always say, I'll treat this as if it was my money, but it's not my money, it's your money. So if you're treating or cheating people out of money, I have a huge issue with that. I don't want you any part of our events. And and I could never say that that is actually what took place. So I so I allow these guys to

fish Like my own buddies. I could look show you text threads where like my buddies are like, you gotta get these dudes out of here. This is bullshit, and I'm just like, just shut up. I don't have anything to exclude them with, and it wouldn't be right for me to do that. I mean, I felt that, you know, and I defended these guys because I had no proof that they did anything wrong, and I'm not going to

treat somebody differently because they're doing well. You know. Is there a reason you rely on polygraphs for this kind of stuff rather than something like a random fish inspection, like every every bag that comes up, I'm gonna say one of these fish and kind of feel around and see if anything sketchy. So that would give you one verification that somebody didn't cheat in that way on that fish. So first of all, your way five, so you got a one in you know, chance of catching somebody if

they didn't alter one fish. And then there's so many different ways that somebody could do something dishonest at a tournament. Altering the fish, in my opinion, would be like the last one. The first one would be calling your buddy and saying, hey man, they're biting over here, get over here, and then you just catch good fish. The next one would be probably using too many rods to catch those fish.

You know. But I would guess if anybody was doing anything wrong on the event, it wouldn't be loading the fish. That's a good explanation because i've i've I hadn't thought of that. I kept been like, well, it seems like none of this would be an issue if they didn't use magnets or some sort of metal detector of some sort. But yeah, it's just like it's such a uh you can't control all these other things. It's the it's the most like antiquated way to cheating event would be to

load of fish. But also at the same time, it's one of those where that's a question on every every test did you alter the fish in anyway? And if you're passing those tests, you have to believe that they were doing things honestly, and we have you know, it's the good old boys system with I'm not on your boat with you, but you have these tests and you would,

you know, verify the results based on them. So you just assume that they're, you know, doing what their job is, you know, Okay, uh, you tell them to go hang their fish up for some pictures. Known what happens. They take a few photos and you start hearing the crowd grumbling, you know, and that's when it's like, uh, I'd like to see those fish. Let me see those fish. We had the same fish as those that didn't weigh that whatever I'm paraphrasing, but no, you're you're quoting. That's exactly

what these guys are saying, you know. I mean, so I say, listen, I want to I want to check those fish, you know, And he's like, oh, this is bullshit. This has got to stop. Are you serious? And I'm like, yeah, I want to check the fish. So I get only one of them is there? Yeah? The other guys he headed to the truck the minute you said I'm gonna check those fish. Yeah, because he was doing photos. He was doing photos and then you know, he bounced, um,

which should be unusual to bounce in that moment. So the weird thing is with these guys. Yeah, so you look, just look at human behavior, right, if you just want something, you're proud of it, like you want to be there, you want to be part of that moment, because that's mostly what these guys fish for. You know, you don't. You don't go out there and put up a first place bag and not even weigh your fish or be up on stage, like who who does that? But that

was that's how this went down. And you're not even a part of being on the stage. You just one team of the year. You just won first place in the tournament and you weren't even on the stage, Like what do you have to do? Know, I mean, so to take the human behavior elements so that you have that. And I say, I want to look at these fish, and he's just like he's pissed. He's pissed at me, like I didn't protests. I didn't see that he's protesting

the decision, the angle, yeah, the anglers. Like he's pissed at me, like are you kidding me? You know, because these guys are always giving me an as sache, like this has got to stop. And I'm like, ah, I want to look at him, you know, and I'm not. I don't want to say that I did anything to be like a hero, but I was very uncomfortable. I

didn't want to do this. And and if I'm wrong, I am the asshole, you know, if I'm if I'm looking at these fish, and and if I slice that fish open and I'm wrong the whole I probably don't have a tournament anymore, you know, especially if you did just the one person right exactly. And and so that's that's the thing. I'm all always trying to not treat these people differently than than the rest of the guys. So I said, I want to look at them. So the first fish I get out and I just looked

to see the condition of the fish. Is it alive? Does it look like we call it, you know, zombies? Do they look like a corpse? Because walleyes have color, you know, nice green color. You can sometimes if they're on ice, you could see the spots where the ice cubes were sitting. I mean, I'm looking at the fish to see what the condition is and it and it and it looked kind of like a zombie, you know.

It just it looked like a beat up walleye. So I put that fish in the basket and I pull out the second fish out of the bag and the same thing. I'm just like, man, no color looks looks dead. You know, the eyes the tail fish developed ammonia. When they're in the live well, their fins get red and you could tell, you know, when they're in a live one they come out of the livel you can see

that red redness on their gills, on their tail. So I'm looking at this and I take my hands and I actually like I squeeze the fish because you know, I wanted to just feel if it was firm, like when a fish is on ice or it's or it's fresh, it kind of has like a firmness to it actually, Like so when you eat fish, you like to do it out of cold water because they're not mushy or if you freeze, like people fish for croppy and they say they get mushy if you put them on ice.

So I just want to feel the fish. And I feel this like hard like ball in the belly of this fish, and I'm like, oh my god, Oh my god. I knew. I knew. Was it was it subtle? No, No, it just wasn't like a crawdad walleyes are not eating like baby turtles or something, you know. I just I knew immediately what had what was going on. I just knew it because you match that up with the weight of the fish not being consistent with the actual size of the fish. So it didn't it didn't meet the

eyeball test. So then I I touched this thing, and I'm like, oh my god. So I didn't have a knife. Here's where your leatherman comes in. The leatherman did not come from within the fish. The leatherman I've heard, okay, I've heard people say multiple people talk about the players, but I never saw players come out of the fish. So I didn't know what people are talking about. Yeah, so that's just one of those that's one of those Internet stories because you see the picture of the fish.

So so my buddy gets me this leatherman and he hands me this thing and it's got to bust it off tip. It's like the most garbage knife that you could even imagine. And and you see on the video, I swiped this fish like with some pretty serious aggression because I was pissed. I knew, you know, I did not go searching in the fish for something. I knew that there was something in there or that I needed to get out. So I swiped this fish open, and I grabbed I grabbed the weight, and I you know,

obviously this is where the internet caught fire. Raw emotion from like my soul comes out because everything that anybody had ever said about these guys has now just became public knowledge and a hundred percent fact. There was no polygraph. There was no he said, she said, there was no. Oh he was on the water later, Oh he met up with a different person, or oh, he texted and and or he bought a fish from a charter captain, you name it. I've heard all the stories, right, there

was no stories. There was weights that I'm yanking out of the fish. And that's you know, and that's when you hear we got weights and fish. Get the fuck out of here. Because I I hated what I just what I just found out is these guys duped me. You know, they were they were pulling it over on me. And this is my event and I was the one fooled. And since I allowed it, I allowed some impropriety in

my event. And it's sickened me, you know, because I care about these dudes, and I've I've said this, but like these anglers, they are my dare my boys there. You know. They brought me through. So last year I had cancer, Okay, I didn't tell anybody. These dudes found out. They made a charity event in my honor. Um we raised funds. I was financially stable. We raised funds for somebody else and we continue that now year after year. They cut my grass, they brought me food, they showed

up at my house. I love these dudes, and and these guys took away all those moments, you know, standing on stage with your kids and sharing that first place. Anybody who's ever taken second place should have taken first. Anybody who's ever taken third should have been second. Anybody who was out of the money should have had a couple of bucks. They pour their life and soul into these events and and and to take not the money that time that you can never get back, because there

there's that element you don't know. And all of these dudes brought me out of the worst time of my life and got me through it. And I care about this stuff more than you could even imagine, just because of the people who are involved. It's not about making a couple of hundred bucks on a weekend. It's not about a sponsorship. It's about the dudes that care about the sport and care about me. And I want to provide the best tournament on lake Erie because it's they

deserve it. These guys deserve it, and lake Erie deserves it. And that's that's what that boiling up, that's what came out because you almost at them. Yeah, it was that like an umpire throwing you out of the game. I thought you your instinct was to give him a haymaker and then instead to the umpire. Sean felt it was just umpire from the start. Yeah, but I mean it might be a beautiful hybrid of the two. I'm not sure. I think that it's an umpire uh more than a haymaker.

I never, I never. Yeah, I played baseball for for a long time, so that's what came out. Uh. You know, I may or may not have been ejected from a few games. So you're like, now the tables have turned. Yea, yeah, so like these dudes, these do I just they're they're gone. I wanted everybody, everybody to know that they're gone. You know, it's just in case nobody saw what happened. Like they weren't subtle about it. It wasn't like they slipped a

few split shots in there. These are like giant the wights and twelve to twelve ounce and in eight out in eight ounce weights is a lot. Yeah, it's a lot in that fish, in that fishing, in those strategies. Is there a reason to have those weights? No, not that heavy. So we would we would typically use two ounce sometimes even three ounce weights to essentially we call it snap waiting to get your baits deep um, but but no, we there would be no reason to have

a twelve ounce weight on the boat even. I mean some guys will fish with down riggers. But then you're talking, you know, pound weights. What what was up with the what was up with the fish filets they had stuffed in there. I think the theory that I think is that was padding. I think it was just simple. I think it was padding, yeah, to like to to help the look of a lead ball in the stomach. Yeah,

it was like the wadding on a musket ball. Were the like was it just inside the body cavity or in the stomach like or did it just you cut it open? So yeah, I mean I'm not like a surgeon or anything, Like, I'm just wondering how they jammed all that stuff. Yeah, I would imagine. So I haven't personally done it, but like I know guys have tried, and they're like, I don't. We don't even know how you could do this. It's hard to stuff a weight

down the throat. So, um, you know, I have no idea. Honestly, it's like I want to be so far away from the situation, but guys have, like they've tried, Like, we don't even know how they could do it in the in the video, the what gives it almost like a um like a level of emotion on part of the Greek tragedy is the way that Jake hangs his head and silently stands there absorbing a massive amount of abuse. What uh? When did that end? I don't think it ended until they It still hasn't ended. To take a

look at social media. But when did it be that he How did it come to be that he left that circle of like someone's gonna beat his ass? Yeah, So there was a guy there that that took control of the situation. He's a he's a county sheriff and he he said, you know, we gotta we gotta treat this thing as if it's a crime. So he kind of pulled him off to the side, made him hang there until some local law enforcement showed up, and and you know, they were still badgering them verbally. But that's

the image of them sitting on the side of the curb. Yeah, I think, So, So what what criminal charges will come out of this wanton wanton waste? Right? Probably for the fish filets would be like one of many. So what they've been charged with was unlawful possession of like wild game something of that nature or something like that. Well, what was the unlawful possession? I think like the fish filets. So you can't some lakes like Lake Ontario salmon fishing

at least at the water. Yeah. So so that may have been part of that because they they've also obscured the identity of the fish. Maybe it I believe it's still had the skin attached. So there's just so many rules and regulations and that the division knows by heart that I obviously don't. So they were charged with some kind of uh possession of those fish filets or doing

whatever I did with the fish flace. And then mostly all the other charges were theft related charges um, and uh anything serious Yeah, I mean grand theft over over a thousand bucks, you know, felony level. Um. They both of them were charged with the same thing, I believe, and uh, it's in the court system now. I think they actually had they had court recently. So did they seize their equipment and boat and trucks and all that stuff? They seized the boat, I know that. Um. I don't

know if there was any equipment on the boat. UM, I don't believe a truck was sees just the boat and maybe whatever equipment was on it, and there was a court date. This isn't gonna come to a jury trial, right, It's their right to do that. But you know that's there, that's their their call. Anytime you get a jury trial, it's because somebody wants one. You know, what a how are they doing? Nobody knows so honestly, I have asked

a couple of people that know them. So the owner of the boat shop a very good friend of mine. He obviously sold this guy a dozen boats over the years, knows him and uh, you know, considered him a friend. I said, you know, are they okay? Because like, honestly, I don't to take the beating that they took online. It's just tough. I mean, do they deserve some beating, sure, but I don't want to see anybody like hurt themselves and and and you know, private life, family life suffer

because they've made a mistake. It's just one of those things you just don't want to see if if if one of the guys like did something or hurt themselves. Man, I don't know, it's I don't care what you did, what mistakes you made that affects a whole lot of

other people, and I don't want to see that. So I did hear that, you know, there's at least one of the two guys is struggling a little bit um keeping keeping the sanity amongst all the beating, you know, and then one of the guys, you know, maybe I hear kind of just whatever. So I don't know that to be true. It's just I put feelers out. Did they issue any kind of public apology or anything like that. Nope, No, No, I don't. I don't know that you ever will hear

anything from him. Um, I don't know that they've talked to any law enforcement. I don't know if they talked to anybody except for whatever attorneys they got. And you probably will never hear from him again. I don't know. Do you feel that you'll at some point reach out to him. I will never reach out to him, um, like morally, like I want to, but I just won't do it because I don't want that to be misconstrued

that I was like trying to harass them. Like let's say they don't answer the phone and I and I keep calling, I don't I just won't. I just won't do it. You know, as long as they're doing okay, or somebody that knows them says they're doing okay, that's that's fine. Is your What does this mean for your tournament? Now? I mean you you're gonna forge ahead. You gotta rebrand it. Do you expect to be hundreds and hundreds of anglers at the next one? Like no one at the next one.

So I think that we're going to be stronger than we ever were. Two reasons, because some of the guys that did not fish will fish now. I've had people from other states reach out to me. Mostly everybody has

said that, like, we're proud of what you did. Thank you for catching people and keeping it honest, because I've always branded my tournament with transparency and just honestly, like if I screw up, if I screw up something on the roster, you hate me and I didn't get you on there, it's my fault, man, I will fix it. And and but but I've said I I will not stand for somebody stealing from you guys. You know anything

else we can work through no matter what. And and a lot of people like that, A lot of people appreciate that, like, I just truly want to do it for the right things, and I think it's I think we're gonna be stronger than ever. You know, I've had nothing but positive feedback. Has have more solid accusations emerged, like as anyone talked about past winds, you know where they're like, well, now that it's a big deal, let me tell you what I saw him do one time

or yes again. Though it's all just like strictly hearsay, so you hear all of the stuff about you know, I've got text messages, Oh you know this guy tried to, you know, ask me if I had any big fish, And that's just all. That's just noise really. But what it does do is it makes all of the anglers think about times where they had some questions because number one, I'm not at every tournament. I don't run every tournament, and number two, I have other things to think about.

So if somebody comes up with a fish that might not look great, it might just be part of the mix. You know, if you wait in second and put up thirty three pounds, I didn't know that it was an outlier until the very end, when you put up thirty three pounds. Now those fish are gone, right. But what I mentioned about the perfect storm is I had them wait last, not because I thought they were doing anything wrong, but because I wanted the drama to be there for

the event. And when they wait last, and it was such an outlier. Now you have all the people saying no, no, so you know they're bringing to my attention at this time or that time or whatever. It's all there's no real way to go back and see what happened. But but yeah, everything these guys have ever won is now drawn into question. Do you do you anticipate this having any kind of large scale effect on fishing tournaments as a whole, like around the country or so? I think

a couple of things. Yes. Number one, I think it's a deterrent in general because nobody, no, no, if you were a dude that's got away. We got an idea for how to win a tournament, that's not gonna happen. Nobody in their right mind wants to become a Halloween costume. I mean it's just it's I mean, you could you

the beating these dudes took in our continued. I mean, you don't know how badly I wanted to post all the photos and stuff people sending me Halloween costumes, and I mean it's just like this is just priceless stuff. But I can't, you know, I just got to maintain my my you know, stability here. It it's just nobody wants that to happen, you know. See in the back of my mind, I'm trying to think of how to turn this into a musical. And fishing. I love tournament fishing.

It's fun. It's a group of people. Like you're saying, you learn a lot. You're forced to get outside your comfort zone and figure fish out when you may not normally do that. But yeah, it's it's hard when you know you time all this money to fish and wildlife and people like these guys pull stuff like that. You know. It's just so here's the thing, right, we all grew up, we played sports and we were competitive in some fashion. Well now, and I say I say this all the time.

We're old, we're fat. You can't go play baseball or football because you're gonna you have to go to work on Monday, right, So imagine finding that that niche. Some people it's competitive shooting, some people do acts, throwing, whatever, whatever it is. Some people play cornhole, I mean, you name it. People find competition as they transition through life. Well, for us, it's fishing and and that adrenaline rush at

the beginning of the morning. Guys got their music playing national anthems, rolling, you know, and then you send them and you know, you've got a thirty forty mile trip and you're going sixty in this boat. It's just the adrenaline's pumping, man, So you're jacked up. And then factor that in with you just had a kid. You took that day away from your kid, right, no matter what, whether it's him babylin or possibly saying dada for the

first time, or maybe maybe it's something else. You know, throughout the course of their life, you're taking that away from your kid too. So these guys are investing not only time and money, but then life experiences because they want that competitive thing back in their life. You need it. People are addicted to a lot of things, right, Some

it's alcohol and whatever and bad stuff. Like we're a we're adrenaline junkies, right, You're you're addicted to going out in the outdoors and hunting and getting out of your comfort level and eating. You know, all this game that you find out there, that's what you're addicted to. You know, you might be addicted to waterfowl and you know it

sounds me like you're passionate about it. Everybody has that. Well, for these guys, it's fishing and and this is how we do it, you know, this is how we spend our time. Yeah, no, I Seth and I did uh the Montana Wall Eye circuit this year, and I get that adrenaline rush. It was, it was so funny. We I mean, we don't do it for the money, you know, and most guys don't do it for the money at all because there's just not that much money. Why why were you on that day that one day bugging me

about if I had any big fish? Get out of here. The last guy I would call if I was looking for a big wallet. By the way, we're we're donating all the We didn't win much, but we're donating all back to like kid life jackets and whatnot. So a lot of my guys do that. In the last event, Um, we helped a young man is Is he's struggling with with leukemia and uh, a lot of our anglers called me privately and said, send my money to the family

or you know donors. I don't know the number, but I bet you this year alone, we've probably given about ten grand to just local people. Um that needed some assistance. Um. It's just it's what it's all about, you know. It's it's nobody's trying, nobody wants any recognition, nobody's trying to be a hero. Chasing Jake sent a lot of that money off to those people. Uh, No, I don't think so, but I can't, you know, I don't know that to

be true. You think if Seth and I showed up at your tournament next year and we pre fish for a few days, we'd get our butts kicked because we've never fished on Mike here before. So I think that two things would happened. Seat. I think that you would have a blast and and anything that you needed we would. We would assist you with, including a boat if you wouldn't want to drag one across the country. And then you would get your ass smeared by these guys. These

these guys, these guys are good. Dude. That sounds like a challenge that you shouldn't turn down. No, I'm I don't doubt it, but I would to the big water Chester. I love it. I mean I'm a little bit accustomed to the you know, being from Wisconsin, great lakes stuff, but never fished Eerie. So I'll say this, and I didn't know you were from Wisconsin. But so we call them cheese heads. You guys are fishing fools, and in

the cheese heads always come down and do good. And there's different times of the year where if you want a jig and cast at him, you'll do just fine. Uh. John Hoyer just won the National Walleted Tour Championship casting up in the weeds, and Uh, it's just you gotta know your niche and get after it and make it work for you. He's that representative of the sport. That's just great, dude, nice to anybody that i've personally, you know, anybody has nothing but nice things to say about him.

And and he called, you know, he reached out after this, and he goes, you did a good job. So those guys were fishing, Uh, the USA Predator Series, they were they were acrossed, uh, overseas somewhere Nova Scotia. Maybe they mailed me back a tackle boxing you know, I said, like, we got weights and fish and him and Max Wilson and uh and um and uh Ryan Buddy and uh

who's the last guy? They sent me back this tackle box, man, and I'm just dying from their from their their Predator series over you know, because that's when it took place. They were they were getting ready to be over there. So emailed me that back that tackle box and I put it up on my wall. Jason Fisher, thanks for coming on, man. I appreciate the opportunity. Although I thought it was fake. I thought I was getting catfished, not Wally. So that's real. This is the This is gonna be

the definitive. I think we'll call the episode we Got Weights and Fish the definitive oral history. Yeah, thank you though, Yeah, that's great and I really appreciate you doing it. Let's let's make a side bed here. If you if you come up and finish, what do you want to got top five or you want to place in the money for for your tournament? What's how far down does the money go tent So it depends, So we pay out fifteen percent of the pool. So you know, if there

was a hundred guys, we would pay fifteen. Man, we're still learning a whole lot. So I would say being in the money, be happy. All right, there's a hundred boats. You gotta be eighty five of them by my record. How many days you're gonna let me pre fish? I got a place to say, I got a boat you could use. I got everything you need. Man. The one thing I don't want if we do go down is

too much help. Does that make sense? Perfect? We won't help you at all, like a boat maybe because who knows we might not even have our boat next year. That they that we got um. But other than that, you know what I'm saying, I don't want people to be like, oh they he showed up and they told him where to go and how did how to do it? Um? He hadn't been around a while because they said, if you can't beat him, be the tournament director. So me telling you stuff? That's good point, um Chester stop him

and han man fish damn tournament. I think I think it would be an awesome time. Man, it would be It would be cool. You know, we don't have to we don't have to side bet on anything. But I think I'm not good at I'm not hunters there you go. I'll make you a side bet any montemony you want, and my bet is going to be that I'll bet just to just to make it fun. I'll bet against you being in the middle mark, So I'll bet the hunter Boats. You're your fifty or less. You're saying, okay,

Hunterbucks says, Hunterbucks says, I'll be above fifty. Okay, make a whole shipload of bets. That's what my dad quit smoking. I can't make so many bets. You'd be like, I can't lose. I can't afford to lose the bet that just gonna have a big old pocket full of sinkers. We'd love to come down. We got you set up. If you need something, we're here for you. Guys gotta go fish this tournament. Man, all right, I kind of

want to go. I don't want to fish it. When you guys really need to come down, honestly, is in the springtime or the fall, when the fish are just giant. To to go and catch fish, it's fun, you can have a great trip doing it. But the chase that Lake Erie giant is what people come to to Earie four. That's that's what you want to do. Go tournament, Yester, Okay, that sounds like a blast tournament. By see if I

can beat that fish that I got last spring out there. No, just imagine, man, this is the longest end of a meat Eater podcast. All my craft. I wish all my craft hosting and trying to just I wish I had my phone. I'd be like, throw your cards on the table right now. You know, Phil, turn the machine off. Jesse is gonna show this ball. I picture Jason fish. Oh yeah, that's a nice fish. I remember my first walleye and music s