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

Episode Date: November 14, 2022

Steven Rinella talks with Jason Fischer, Brody Henderson, Chester Floyd, Phil Taylor, and Corinne Schneider. Topics discussed: Putting metal balls in fish; how Jason didn't believe Steve was Steve; the crazy audacity; Jason as a Gandhi-like figure; how we've lost 1.3 million acres of sagebrush habitat per year for the past 20 years; Chester's son and Chester's thumb; the Lake Erie fishery; how you get to be a tournament director; walleye tournament winnings; the best five; passing polygraph tests; when you're fooled and your gut just sinks; cheating people out of money; debunking the leatherman internet story; fish fillets and 12 oz weights; and more. Connect with Steve and MeatEater Steve on Instagram and Twitter MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube Shop MeatEater Merch See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. You might not be able to join our raffles and sweepstakes and all that because of raffle and sweepstakes law, but hear this. OnX Hunt is now in Canada. It is now at your fingertips, you Canadians. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. Now the Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints and tracking. You can even use offline maps to see where you are

without cell phone service as a special offer. You can get a free three months to try out OnX if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. This is the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug-bitten, and in my case, underwearless. Welcome to the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug-bitten, and in my case, underwearless. We hunt. The Meat Eater Podcast. You can't predict anything.

Presented by First Light, creating proven, versatile hunting apparel from merino base layers to technical outerwear for every hunt. First Light. Go farther, stay longer. All right, man. this is a good one. This is the show I'm looking most forward to for the whole year, even though our guest thinks it's stupid. He's over it, probably.

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. It fits. Jason Fisher, the guy jason fisher it's a great last name for what we're talking about it fits jason fisher the guy who caught the the walleye cheaters and the now infamous and it's like i don't know is it famous or infamous it's infamous yeah the infamous walleye 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 like think we're interesting and i'm just like i have no clue how this went such a worldwide thing and and here i sit with you uh out here in bozeman montana ready to talk about it but let's do it you know when i knew the story was uh i mean the minute i saw it i knew it was interesting but i just thought it would be very contained and and i knew about it right off the bat because uh ch'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 it happened, he knew some shit about it. And so right away, I was like, oh, that's fascinating.

And I was that day. I think it was the next day after the tournament. I was telling Crinley, get the guy on the show. Get the guy on the show. And 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. And this dude has zero idea what he's talking about he said that they were putting uh metal balls in the fish metal balls yeah the day metal balls right after that

happened seth and i got like i don't know how many like a hundred dms people like did you see this already we're like yeah we we saw i use that to gauge the uh i use that that's one of my primary metrics to gauge how interesting something is the people is how many of my friends will independently um send me something so like the coronado shit remember that like how Like how many? Maybe five. Probably more people. The mammoth that they were able to reconstruct his travels based on the, whatchamacallit. But if you're late to the game, it's like, don't even bother sending it to Steve.

No, because I need it. You've already heard it. Well, I know, but I need to use. Oh, okay. I got you. But I need to know. So I shouldn't. Like one. 17 people sending the text message i'm

like whatever i'm just trying not to clog up your phone no two i get two i get like titillated if i get up into four and five i know we're on something yep and and i'm this probably shattered the record even though you think it's stupid so so i and the crazy thing is is you were first man i mean so it's i swear so it turns into the day of you know people within our our our community our anglers i mean they're just rapid fire and they're starting the memes they're starting this they're starting that and then there's some good memes that was some great favorite is the my favorite is the i think it was you as trump and the two other walleye fishermen as 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 i 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 1300 times. 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, this is Steve Rinella with Meat Eater. Like nobody knows who the hell you are. And I'm like, yeah, okay. This is probably one of my buddies like trying to joke on me. Because at this point, nobody was, nobody knows who the hell you are. And I'm like, yeah, okay. This is probably one of my buddies, like, trying to joke on me. Because at this point, nobody was, nobody like that.

No national level media outlet is trying to get a hold of me. 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 me. Yeah, he texts me. He said, give me a call so I know it's you. The first thing he told me, the first thing you said is, I don't believe you, so you call me. Yeah, he texts me. He said, give me a call so I know it's you. The first thing he told me, the first thing you said is,

I don't know what to say. They cheated and got caught. Yeah. 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 whole vast majority, like you see TikTok. TikTok went nuts with just parodies and memes and people using the sound. And to me, still right now, I have no clue why it turned into such a big deal i mean we're getting calls from new zealand australia you know london all these media outlets wanting the story norway and i just like this is unbelievable meanwhile meanwhile my wife's like you got kids to watch like i don't care who's calling she's like you you worked all day yesterday and i 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 you know get up and take care of your kid he needs 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. You follow video game journalists on Twitter? Yeah, Steve. Are you surprised by this? Twitter's not dead after all, I guess. Now Phil's, he'll be able to say what he really thinks

on Twitter now, man. What he really thinks about video games. So you still have no idea why this, why do you think it blew up? i'll tell him exactly his his his worries are over i'm gonna tell him exactly why it's interesting but first we gotta talk about a couple other things you got a minute right i got a little bit i'm gonna 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 going to realize there's big ass

lead balls and a fish just think about that one for a minute if they had gotten caught rigging a scale no one would care right but there 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 brutal. Oh, I would have post. Oh, yeah. It was brutal. I would have run.

Well, one of two stayed there. The other one did run. Oh, he did run. Yeah. Okay, that's great. That makes it even more interesting. I was wondering where 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 you're here for. Right. But hold tight because we've got to talk about something else real quick. Well, I was going to give you a'll tell you all about it. Well, that's what you're here for. Right. But hold tight because we've got to talk about something else real quick. Well, I was going to give you a cliffhanger right back. Oh, please. Yeah, cliffhanger. Dude, cliffhanger.

Don't cliffhanger. No, but 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 yeah 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 But these guys, it's their money.

It's their time to shine. And that's why this story is bad for all these dudes. But you wound up being, we'll get into this, but you wound up being like Gandhi. Oh, yeah. Totally. Like you could feel it was ready to teeter over the edge at any second. You know, there was another, you know, Henry Kissinger won a Nobel Peace Prize. But had I said you were like Kissinger, people would be like, you mean like the clandestine bombing operations in Laos and Cambodia?

Or do you mean the Nobel Peace Prize? That's right. So I went Gandhi. Yeah, Gandhi's a better choice. Oh, yeah. Love it. Gandhi wouldn't approve of wildlife fishing. Probably not.

But it was Gandhi-esque. Yes. That you thought to, you like the lady justice. The first thing on your mind was being like the individual's sensing the heated passions because you'd have thought it was going to wind up being that someone was going to get their ass beat pummeled you know i'm not i'm not saying that i saved the day but i i truly believe that had it gone on for a little bit longer one of these guys would have just said to hell with it and just, and just went after them, 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 in fish. It would be, you know, big brawl at a walleye thing and then. Unhinged walleye fishermen.

Right. Yeah. We, we would probably never be able to walleye fish again onhinged walleye fishermen. Right, yeah. We would probably never be able to walleye fish again on the lakeshore. There'd be articles about the further testament to the divisiveness of American culture today. Alright, a couple things to hit on. This one, there's a thing

we've been wanting to talk about for a long time, but we never it never it's very important to me that I talk about it, but it never seems like a good time to talk about it. So let's go talk about it. There's this new U.S. Geological Survey report. People are going to be sitting there being like, why in the world are you talking about this? When we could hear about, we got weights and fish. Okay. Here's the thing i want to talk about i don't know what it is

i just want people to know about this because i don't know what i don't know what any individual is going to do about it but we'll talk about it so we've covered in the past if you watch 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 sagebrush sea or the sagebrush 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 48 we had on a guy that works on the way ducks move disease particularly the way Asiatic diseases flow into North America via ducks and I'll point out the Geological Survey, they're not a policymaking agency.

The U.S. 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 sagebrush ecosystems. We are losing 1.3 over the past 20 years. We've lost 1.3 million acres of sagebrush habitat per year. Another thing I didn't realize, the sagebrush ecosystem I'm reading from this report, the sagebrush ecosystem is the largest terrestrial biome in the lower 48.

Like what you mean by the biggest terrestrial biome in the lower 48 like what you mean by the biggest terrestrial biome in the world is the taiga so it's that mixed aspen black spruce stuff that you met that like crossed most of canada interior alaska siberia the taiga is the largest biome but this is the largest biome largest terrestrial so land-based biome in the lower 48 165 million acres spanning 13 western states uh there's a recommendation in here that people have been focused for a long time sagebrush recovery has been focused on looking at time sagebrush recovery has been focused on looking at compromised sagebrush areas and trying to restore low quality sagebrush areas and this report and the people thinking about this report are suggesting that it'd be like a radical

reconsideration it seems to me and switch gears and just try to preserve And just try to preserve, not just try to, focus on preserving the remaining 33 million acres of sagebrush. Which is kind of like, it's almost fatalistic because it's kind of like kissing the ones that are there goodbye. No, that's depressing as shit. 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? So, I tell you it's a great question chester they're gonna get to your thumb and your baby um increased fire uh when you burn it when it burns cheatgrass beats it to the punch i got you so after you cook it off then an invasive comes in

yeah cheat grass is like ha fuckers and it just grows everywhere and it just the sagebrush is too slow to recover and so not non-natives get a foothold and they never natives grab hold gotcha uh also related to fire suppression and other things and climate issues, juniper encroachment. Seen a lot of that where I just was in Colorado. Yeah, you see that a lot. Which are those junipers native? Yeah, but they're just out competing sagebrush. play in some ways they look at fire suppression because you don't historically you had these very low level fast burning fires often right that would be adversarial to sagebrush and ben adversarial

to juniper but through fire suppression you've got junipers that grow in on sagebrush this is 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 shit used to be. Yeah. For most of lodgepole, juniper, just pine encroachment on grasslands. Yeah. And it's just like anything like in the mountains. Now those fire, it's just like anything like in the mountains now those fire it's just based off of fires mainly you know hot burning fire now will just you know wipe out the undergrowth and whatnot

and it gets beat by these like super prevalent non-natives and the other thing is human encroachment uh subdivisions, oil and gas development. That's like kind of the most immediately controllable one. Yeah, 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, where can we build? And it's basically just like out towards the three forks area yeah 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 over the years become like a very much a cows not condos guy man you have that bumper sticker i need to get one cows not condos like a lot of people like people on the sort of like i don't 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. But 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 go back. There's not a real finality to a crop field. Right.

Crop field looks to me like currently doing something and has so much future potential. But concrete, you're like, yeah, that spot's done. Not many people have killed a hungarian partridge in a walmart parking lot probably i mean i could also be mistaken to say this but i i my sense is that a fair number of the people who are maybe throwing farming and ranching under the bus are those who are moving into the condos or buying the condos yeah that's true and also they're like they're absolutists and they're, I don't think they're, I don't think they're even kind of realistic.

Sure. I don't think they're kind of realistic. To be like, oh, you know, industrial ag will go away and it'll be replaced by national parks. It's like, no, it won't. Yeah. You're never going to get back to where you were 200 years ago. And this is talking about sage grouse.

It's talking about pronghorn 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 yeah uh chester cut his thumb open and had a baby. Yeah. What do you want to talk about first? Well, first I had the baby.

Oh, let's cover that first then. Yeah. We were, well, the little pooper's still supposed to be in the oven right now. Not supposed to have been born. Right. I think he was due the 19th of this month, November. And he came the ninth.

Yeah. He came the 19th of October. Well, the thing I find most interesting about your baby, who I visited and held is that you thought. That was nice of you. You rang us meatloaf. You thought you were going to...

Did you see those hatch green chilies in there? Yeah, they were delicious. My neighbor gave those to me. My neighbor Jet Boat Pat gave those to me. Oh, thank him. So what I was going to say is, you thought what's so funny is you were trying to angle

how we were going to go hunting this coming weekend because the baby wouldn't people are like, man, that's pretty close to the due date. Yeah. I mean, I, I don't think I was actually going to make that happen, but you gotta, you gotta entertain the idea or else things are never going to happen. That's true, man. So I thought about it, but the more I thought about it, the more I wasn't going to go mule there hunting. And yeah, no, we almost delivered the baby in the car.

Yeah. Danielle went from her busy, normal self running around town, editing photos. Yelling at Chester for having COVID. Yelling at me for laying on the couch saying I was tired. normal self running around town editing photos yelling at chester for having covid yeah 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 the 18th we went to bed and she said to me i've got i've got some kind of weird cramps going on. 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 2, and she's like, I still got these cramps. I'm going to go take a hot shower. And she started getting a little, the cramps started getting a little worse. And she called Bozeman 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 labor. And I put her in the car, and I started at about 70 miles an hour on the, on the interstate. And we started driving to Bozeman. It's about a 25 minute drive. By the time we ended up, uh, you know, between Belgrade and Bozeman, we're, I was probably going 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.

She thought he was coming. Trying to hold him in. 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. Half out.

He's there. Yeah, my old man delivered a baby on the side of a road one time. Really? Yeah. A woman that was trying to get to, had pulled over and he said, well, delivered it in that, he just caught the baby. Shot out. Yeah, I was like was like dear god please just make him stay in there just a little bit longer because i i had a

plan like it was like i was gonna pull call 9-1-1 immediately yeah and then if i was gonna get pulled over on the interstate i was gonna keep keep going and also call 911 and tell them bullets flying but we made it we got a mad chase on the interstate he's getting off at the hospital exit yeah

he's pulling 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 were 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 a something out of a sci-fi like he changed position big time yep and meantime in my head there were some not so good thoughts coming going around because give me an example is i mean i don't know what you mean I honestly don't not sure you I thought something was real wrong because it was early and oh yeah okay and you know obviously she was in labor it's my first time having a child she's in pain pain hmm 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, like looked scared to death. Cause 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 grab 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 going to call it Chester. I've been telling him since day one. Please elaborate. He was going to call it Chester and it changed his mind.

No, I didn't. I never said I'm going to call it Chester. I pondered the idea, but Oscar. He'd be the last Chester. Oscar gregory floyd og og that's pretty good i might call him og just call him oc yeah so oc that's not bad anyways he's he's healthy he's small so he was on oxygen for a little while. Oh, he's cute as all get out. He's doing real good. Well, now he's gaining weight too.

Yeah. He's still not as big as those walleyes that we were catching this year. 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 a walleye. So I could always tell your little kid yeah oh gee i could always be like uh dude i caught a walleye the day you were born don't ever forget that is what i would have said to him uh instead all i got is a moon eye no one cares about that i caught a moon eye the day you were born you'd be like i got a

sauger that's close yeah that's close you'll be able to tell them that. It would have counted. I mean, those count. Yeah, those count. So, yeah, we've been at home kind of enjoying this time off, just me and mom. My wife called it the baby bubble. The baby bubble, yeah.

You're going to a baby bubble. Yeah, it's kind of odd. You hole up. Yeah, I've got some projects done around the house. Put a heater in my garage. I got out bow hunting one day locally here with the longbow I built a few years ago. And saw a bunch of deer, shot a doe.

She took a couple 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 emergency room. Another hospital trip. Here we go. steps and I was trying to get a another arrow out and I sliced the heck out of my thumb back down to the emergency room back down another hospital trip here we go got a few stitches in there he drove 107 that time any chases on this trip or no no no no that's great man yeah no it was uh it's been good now I'm here we. We're going to talk about cheaters. But you're, it's amazing what they can do now with the babies. You could have a baby that early and that small, and now that baby's at home gaining weight.

Right. That's like the one thing that they want to see is weight gain. So we feed him every three hours, and they're like, they check his weight gain. 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's been off of them for a while. And then a little monitor.

So we got to, every time we move them, move cords around and stuff. Um, but like you said, like, I don't know, 20 years ago,

could you have taken him home? Probably not. I don't know. Go back far enough. It would have been just like, I don't want to talk years ago, could you have taken him home? Probably not. I don't know. Go back far enough, it would have 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 oxygen. Oscar.

Oscar Floyd. Oscar. Not Chester. I'm going to call it Oscar. There's a reason behind that name, though. Oh, tell me. Danielle's great-grandfather was a cowboy up near Haver, Montana. His name was Oscar.

Oh. You know what? I just realized that Bo know Boone's kid first kid that got killed was named James I'm gonna start telling everybody that's who I named my kid after why not right

retroactive yeah it's like be like I'll tell you what I did hey folks exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada.

And boy, my goodness do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes. And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join. Whew! Our northern brothers get irritated. Well, if you're sick of, you know, sucking high and titty there,

OnX is now in Canada. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. The Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones,

aerial imagery, 24k topo maps, waypoints and tracking. That's right. We're always talking about OnX here on the Meat Eater Podcast. Now you guys in the Great White North can be part of it, be part of the excitement. You can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service. That's a sweet function.

As part of your membership, you'll gain access to exclusive pricing on products and services handpicked by the OnX Hunt team. Some of our favorites are First Light, Schnee's, Vortex Federal, and more. As a special offer, you can get a free three months to try OnX out if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. onxmaps.com slash meet. onxmaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX Club, y'all. All right, Jason. We got weights in fish. We got weights in fish. How did you get in the walleye tournament business?

That seems like a good place to start. So walleye fishing or tournaments? Fishing. All right. So fishing, I've always fished, you know, just like anybody else. Family, farm ponds, you know, just bobbering a hook, you know, worm catching bass. Born in Ohio? I was actually born in California.

Okay. Military family, so we bounced around a bit. Came to Ohio. That's where my parents were from. Family farm in PA. Much of my fishing was with my grandfathers. 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 grandmas. 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 catfish and we thought we were heroes. So I had two independently different fishing upbringings from my grandfathers. 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 a 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. What'd you study in college? So a lot of stuff, man. I basically studied, I think, girls in baseball. 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. So I did go into college. I ended up going through the police academy 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 work for a nice town but that's what i do so book smart stuff's not my not my deal i'm hands-on i worked you know i grew up doing construction and and underground utilities and kind of working hard and then i I just, I found my way into actually the real estate stuff. I was working with a real estate company and then in 06, 07, that kind

of crashed out nationwide. And my boss is like, you got to 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. I always wanted to do it. So I went through the police academy and that's what I did. I actually started to think about a career job. So that's when I turned over and did that. Got it. But back to college and fishing, I met this guy and he's just, he was an outdoor fool, 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 it was just a 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 a tournament style and a catch 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 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 crankbaits and things like that. And not saying you can't catch big fish. Cause 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 spawn, like the males are actually pestering the females. So, you know, in a tournament setting, or

you're trying to get trophy fish, you want the big females and they're, they're just bigger all throughout the year and in the fall. So fishing styles are slightly different, but, but just to catch fish is basically, fish is basically 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 answer is 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, we 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 can be easy because you can, they say that there are, you know, a hundred million walleyes on Lake Erie. And as you were talking about the ducks, they are doing interesting studies. There's a biologist with the ODNR, his name's Travis Hartman. I've been talking to him. where they're spawning, where they're going to, you know, feed throughout the course of the year, because they'll 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 a, 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 02, 03 hatch where these fish were just everywhere, you know, phenomenal fishing.

And then, you know, around the mid like 12 to 15, 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 15 and 16 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 going to want to go to Lake Erie. It's just, I'm not going to 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. That'd be a good little trip for you and Oscar.

Yeah. I don't know. Should trip for you and Oscar. Yeah. I don't know. Should we, I invite Seth? No. Okay. So you get turned down to walleyes. 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 buddy's gear. I want my I, I'm tired of borrowing my buddy's 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 a, with a motor on it or something. Yeah. Lake Erie is known for getting nasty. Nasty fast.

And, and, and, you know, the boats that I transitioned into the, the Lake Erie 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 this 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, 12 to 15 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 30 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'd 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 be talking to us, but they were asking us for advice. And I, 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, uh, that I work at a little bit. And, 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 the oil in the boat. So that's when they started, you know, Hey, you want to work here a couple 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 or talking to the guys at the boat shop. And an opportunity came about to run a tournament. The people who ran this boat shop's tournament, they just didn't want to continue it anymore. They said, we're not doing it. And the boat shop's like, look, we don't want our tournament to go by the wayside. Do you want to run it for us this year? What was that tournament called?

So it was called the V Vic Sports Center Open. Okay. It was run, Vic Sports Center is the boat shop that I work 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 prizes. So it's just like a for fun thing. Okay. So not no not big money you know a couple grand whatever however many tournaments around us are all based on entry fees so if you have 50 boats you're going to win a lot more money than if you have 10 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 a white grease board we're writing the names on there with the weights and uh we just we just bought 30 pizzas or something that day we just had a little you know fun in the parking lot you know it was just a grassroots go there catch fish and see who won type thing. But that was my first actual, like, tournament experience as a tournament director. I fished a few tournaments myself. We did okay. But, you know, we currently fish for just the Lake Erie Walleye Trail was not mine.

It was a circuit that we always fished. It was the biggest, you know, series the Lake Erie Walleye Trail was not mine. It was a circuit that we always fished. It was the biggest 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, you know, we did okay. I think the highest I ever finished was like a third or fourth place. But my first tournament directing experience was this Vic Sports Center Open. Got it. Got it. Got it.

What was the name of the tournament that the infamous occurrence happened on? So that's the Lake Erie Walleye Trail. It's what I currently, so I could back up a little bit. So I fished the Lake Erie Walleye Trail 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. Okay. So. Is the tournament a thing someone owns?

So it is at that point in time, it was owned by a club. So our club had the say soso and they put it on. So funding was, you know, probably I would imagine because a bunch of guys threw 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. And the tournament directors or whoever owns a tournament is putting some money in their pocket. Yeah.

So our tournament is like a 15%. So our tournaments are 300 bucks. The tournament's cut is about $45. Now that's all expenses. And then, you know. What's 300 bucks? Entry? Entry fees.

Each boat pays 300 bucks. Correct. Yep. Yep. Yep. And the tournament pulls $45 out and the rest of it's prize money. Correct. Yep. 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 helpers that help out every day. You know, you got gas to just get to where you're going. All of the things that you provide, there's awards in there. Awards are expensive now and they just keep going up and up and up. But all of these expenses come out of that 45 bucks too. So at the end of the day, you may walk away with 500 bucks or something in your pocket.

That's all you're going to 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 cut off of the tournament is very minimal. But as the director or owner of the tournament, you could sell a sponsorship package and have all the signage be Bill's Boat Marina or whatever the hell. Of course, yeah. That's where as a business you could 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 60 boat field you're talking about three grand and you 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 maybe $2,500, me and my partner. So we split it up. It was probably about $1,250 apiece.

Okay. You know, I personally have never done that 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 okay 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. No, they had, yeah, they had like, you heard they'd won hundreds of thousands, they won hundreds of thousands of dollars fishing walleye. So on Lake Erie, so the walleye, the walleye tournament game has changed over the course, I would say even the last five years, maybe seven. But there's several big derbies that we run now on Lake Erie that you can make some serious cash. So I have a tournament right now running. It's called the Walleye Fall Brawl.

And I'm personally, our tournament is giving away five. The irony. Yeah. That's on right now. Fall Brawl, and I'm personally, our tournament is giving away $512,000 in cash and prizes to people, and it's a $35 entry. So the game has changed within the last few years to just be this mega... Well, it's a $35 entry? Right. So what happened's a $35 entry. Right.

So what happened? Yeah, go ahead. Where's the money come from? Like sponsorships. Right. And stuff like that. Right. So Blaster, the Blaster company for, you know, they make like oils and degreasers.

Yeah. And so they've, you know, titled this and grabbed a hold of this fall brawl. And the money's there, Ranger Boats, Vic Sports Center, they're putting up the first and second place are both boats that are over north of $100,000. So you as anglers, anybody can join up for 35 bucks. Yep. That's amazing that that's all the commitment it takes from a cash perspective. Wow. To throw your hat in. 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 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 120 000 ranger boat that's pretty cool you know another guy that finished because what happened because he just he walked into some toads just the big one man that's it's big fish oh just one big fish just one big fish. Just one big fish. And a guy offshore last year, it was either like 55 or 65 grand that he won for fifth place or sixth place. I can't remember off the top of my head, but that's the cool thing about these derbies is anybody could do it. You could show up on a weekend vacation.

If you enter into the tournament, you catch one. It could potentially be life-changing for somebody got it but there's also like pro style anglers doing these things or no so there are of course there are anybody who fishes walleye you know and and they're going to be around eight lake erie they're probably going to 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 a couple of years ago, a pretty well-known charter guy won. And this spring, another charter guy won. 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 is 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 $130,000, $120,000 Ranger 622, 400 Verado. 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.

Yeah. 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 yeah so the 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 they're like oh that's yeah man because they're going to get way more attention focused on them in a big national walleye tournament. Oh, I see what you're saying.

You know what I mean? Cause there's probably a million dudes that just fish small tournaments. Yeah. Do you think Chester's bad because he fished small regional? 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, they never made the leap to like. The resume would have led one to believe that they would have. Chosen to be.

What's your take on that, Jason? So there's a few differences. The national level tour 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 co-angler. On the off chance you get to fish with some of these great guys that you hear, you know, like the Keith Cavias or the, you know, Corey Sprangle. You're like, hey, it's basically an educational charter. You heard of those guys, Chester?

Mm-hmm. 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 to our Lake Erie, you know, waters. Got it. What's the names again? I'm not going to forget again. Jake and Chase. Jake and Chase, Jake and Chase. You'd be bummed if one of their names was Dave because he liked 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 him through the boat shop. Just, just fish. I mean, you would you first meet Chase and Jake? So I met him through the boat shop. Just fish. I mean, you would fish against these guys. You would talk to them at weigh-ins.

And I would say I met him probably, I don't know, five, six years ago maybe. Okay. Just fishing against them. And they weren't, I didn't always know them as partners. Oh, okay. You know, you could fish with other people, but, but over the past couple of years, they, they were the team, right?

And, uh, I would work, you know, I work at the shop, so these guys would fish. They had, they had ranger boats. I would work on their boats. I would help them out with issues. Like you'd wrench on their boats. Yeah. Okay.

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 their, 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. Did you fish with them?

I've never fished with them. Never went in a boat with them? 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. Okay. So, you know, to say that they were just, they're 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, they probably are good anglers. I've never been in the boat with them, but you got to be able to go and catch some fish to, to be in these tournaments. And, 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 fishermen, you know. Do you think they were interested in, in cash or recognition? Yes. Yeah. So like I, 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.

What was the nickname? Cranking Hogs. Just phenomenal, man. Yeah. Phenomenal. So if you knew them for 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 the people that did not want to do the tournament quit the tournament because of one of these guys no

straight up so this this guy was was fishing on an inland lake and they have a rule that you have to be off the water before like 7 o'clock the day prior. You lost me. So to practice fishing for these events, let's say it was on a Saturday or Sunday. Yeah. The day before that, you cannot be on the water past 7 p.m. I see. Okay. Gotcha. Gotcha.

Gotcha. So, so they disqualified him and, and. Cause 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 were, obviously looking at them, or at least they were there. Yeah. Right?

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. But, Hommett, 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, cause he started all this drama. Oh, you know, I, I'm going to, you know, I, I, I got disqualified. This is BS and blah, blah, blah. You know, he raised a stink and they're like, you know what, man? We, we just won't, we won't do the tournament for you. Got it.

Just like, because it was, as you laid out earlier, it's a passion pursuit for the director. It's not a giant moneymaker. And they're like, this isn't even fun. Screw it. That's exactly it. Because I can tell you that that had this, man, I could just so much, but they don't want the drama you

know who would if you're doing this for fun 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 hundred bucks you know and it's just not worth it. And this club in particular, I believe they're a 100% club. They do it for the fun of the game. So they're like, we're not making anything off this. I mean, 100% of the entrance fee goes to prize money.

You got it. You got it. 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 going to do it. 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 going to do it. So I ran the tournament and I ran the tournament. What year was this? Oh, gosh.

I want to say maybe 16 or 17. Oh, okay. You know. So that's how you inherited the tournament. That's how I inherited the tournament. And funny thing is he won that tournament that I ran. So this was. He, both of them or one of them?

So this tournament was, you could not, it was more than a one angler or a partner tournament. So there was a couple people on the boat and these two guys were not partnered up at the time got it um and it man i tell you it just it pissed people off was it the one with the jay or c yeah was it the one with the stocking charge or not well you got to be more uh oh was it the dude was it the dude in the video Jake No That's all

I'm developing a theory Can I jump ahead Yeah Is there a chance Jake Was shocked To see those metal balls Was shocked to see those metal balls? Was shocked to see the lead weights in the fish?

Am I getting too far ahead of myself? No. No, but that's the meat and potatoes. And I haven't publicly said this to anybody. And I'm going to say it, and this will be the only time I mention their names. Okay? Fair deal?

Oh, yeah. So when I said, I'm going to say it, and this will be the only time I mention their names. Okay? Fair deal? Oh, yeah. So when I said, I'm going to 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. Oh. I knew it in my gut that something was wrong. I knew he felt alone. Make of that what you may.

Dude. That's a bummer. Yeah. See, you're trained in police work too, man. So you pay attention to shit. I just... She talks 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 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... That's a good point. It's just, that's just the way it is. Like, you mean life. Going back to that first tournament, when you said, like, a lot of people were pissed, is there, like, like, like overall, like within that angling community, like, is it a tight knit group of people? 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. Yeah. You know, and, um, and, and I'm, and I'm the type of guy that like, I'm not going to 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, and if you're's bad for tournament fishing if I block you. And if 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. And my own buddies will 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. Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada.

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As a special offer, you can get a free three months to try OnX out if you visit OnXMaps.com slash meet. OnXMaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX club, y'all. You probably know better than me, 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 catching fish elsewhere and hiding them somewhere. They're putting them in a live well and I don't know.

Like, I mean, like what was the sort of idea that people had in the rumor mill? All of it. You name it. Yeah. All of it. I mean, so, so, 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 10 pounder or whatever that kind of will put you away from the pack. Cause 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, 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, getting them out of a cooler and weighing 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. Oh, I see. 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 an area that I'm very, very interested in. I heard.

I heard. Before we get to the polygraph polygraph, I got to go into it now. Before we get to the polygraph, like I've never been to one of these tournaments or a weigh in, is there like standard X, Y, Z procedures. That the directors are the people who are working the tournament do to like inspect the fish or. Like it wouldn't matter if it was a bass tournament or a wallet whatever like is there things they're 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. We'll inspect hatches or coolers. But places where you could potentially put a fish, we will inspect that day of. We give you a check-in. And no one gets a pass. Nobody gets a pass. Again, 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, I personally think randomized checks are good because, you know, Steve, your moat, 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 wherever, 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 hour. So you can't show up at 5 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, in 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 Erie, it could be a lot. Yeah. So these guys, obviously, it has to do with the prize money. But also, these guys just don't care. If I told them that there was a good bike going 80 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 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 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 did 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 long time history had they each individually 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 work worked and took over because he's been around um like you know i didn't really know about the other guy till you know a couple years back when they became partners got it it 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 them just so people get a sense of like what happened you know so in our world we we weigh 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 uh are fishing for team of the year 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 7 a.m to three we have an eight hour window They bring back their five best fish. And I always say this. Per boat or per angler? 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 noticed you don't care if they're dead or alive. So on Lake Erie, first off, walleye are difficult to keep alive, especially when they're coming out of deep water. And then, especially in the summertime, it's just near impossible. Okay. And then you throw in the factor of these 30, 40, 50 mile runs and two or three foot waves. And it's just, they're, they're just getting the crap beat out of them. So, uh, additionally to that, uh, the division has all tournaments on Lake Erie are harvest tournaments.

So the guys keep them or we donate them. 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. Yeah. Got it. Got it. They're just beat up, you know?

Okay. So you bring back your best five to the scales. Uh, we check you back in, you get in line and you weigh your best five fish. You come up there. Uh, if you have a big fish, we'll 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 team stack up where they may. Well, I think this tournament we made, I had 80 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, it, number one, it varies by location, but also varies by time of the year. So a winning weight for this tournament, it was really tough fishing.

Um, I was, I was thinking somewhere in the high 28 pounds. I always get generally pretty close. I'll say it'll take 33 pounds or it may take 40 pounds. Or you might say in a couple of years, especially in the springtime, it might take 45 pounds to win. Five nine pounders. Yeah. So one of my tournament partner last year. That is good walleye.

Last year weighed in a 40 pound bag in Huron. And I don't, he was almost not, not, he didn't even get a plaque, but he made a check for 40 pounds. And a couple of years back, like 16, I weighed with a partner back to back days, 42 pound bags. We weighed 84 pounds for the two days, and we finished fourth. It's nuts. Some huge walleye. Let's just take the day of the tournament we're focused on. What was the spread?

So on those days when everybody's bringing in, let's say it's a day where 41 wins, is second place 40 pounds, 14 ounces? Yeah. So it's when the days that guys do good, generally a lot of guys will do well. Okay. 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 10 guys within like 25 pounds,

give or take a pound or two here or there, but you're not going to see one guy that comes in with 38 pounds and then the rest of the field has 25. It's just that that's an extreme outlier. Could it happen? Sure. But generally these guys are good and there's 60 of them, right? So you're not going to have one person that's just reinvented the wheel for the most part.

Yeah. 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 10th place. They were at like 16.89. Okay. And how much, how much cash is 10th place? I don't know.

Maybe, maybe five, 800 bucks. Okay. And then. How much cash was first place that day? 8,000. Oh, that's a good day of fishing. Plus a boat, right? So there, no, not a, not a boat, not a boat.

8,000, just a check for 8,000 bucks. There's a lot of. Day of fishing. 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'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 a 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 oh and that's is that a good chunk of change that's 10 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 10 grand for 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, would it have been possible to walk away with 18 that day? They had, they won. 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 10. So I had like seven teams and this this all plays into factor in 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 two. So I had my top seven teams that these guys, had they done well enough, they would have probably won 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 that kind of factors into how, you know. But I guess what I'm asking is you could potentially win both those purses oh yeah absolutely all right yeah i didn't know if there's anything that excludes you from winning the 10 and the 8 no and most of these guys that are in the in the mix are good enough to win both yeah that's you know they they're consistent throughout the year and they're generally going to be consistent in the championship too. Yeah. So now in the back of your head is like, like that has a pretty big impact on your year.

Yeah. To walk away with that kind of cash. Next time someone yells you about fishing too much, be like, well, look at this. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. These guys, these guys that do this, they make money but they pull i say this all the time they're pulling into the parking lot with 200 grand worth of equipment you know it's like there's no there's no shortage of money and 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, your, your 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, and it's not, it's not all about the money, but to walk away with an 8,000 or $10,000 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 a, it was a 30 minute long, long clip that someone was filming,

and 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 top contenders weighed toward 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 them aside. If these guys have a really good bag, keep them aside. If these guys have a decent bag, keep them aside. Because I wanted the buildup to be at the end. So if you're team of the year and you walk up, you know, you're the third guy on the stage and you put up a good number, it's just, it is what it is, right? Okay, yeah, they got, you know, all right, they're in the lead, but there's no buildup there. Just out of curiosity, how many people are hanging around for this, like this particular team championship weigh-in thing?

There's probably, I don't know, 200 maybe. Yeah, you don't gather. From the first video I saw, you're up emceeing, but everybody's standing back a little ways. And it's not until shit hits the fan that you go like, oh, there's a bunch of dudes. There's a lot 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 got to understand if there's 80 boats, two anglers per boat, there's 160, you know, anglers there. And then, you know, they may have their wives or kids or just some random fishermen that are coming back for the day that 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, 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 cause 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 is being able to draw the crowd. So, you know, that's important to us. When they came up with their bag, it seems that like in the crowd, you're already hearing a murmuring. There's a guy that says, let me see those fish. Right. Or I hear a guy say, I caught fish that looked a lot, or I caught fish that looked just like that in reference to the weight. So when they came up and you're emceeing the event, they're bringing their fish

up. Did you know something was going on? So I didn't know in the 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 the year title based off points. Okay. So when I saw them put up a fifth place number, I'm like, okay, they need to be 10th place or above and they're going to win.

So you actually hear me say it. I'm like, you need 16.89 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 weigh basket, I'm like, okay, I'm doing some quick math. I'm like, all right, four pounds, four pounds. Okay. I'm like, they got probably that real consistent.

You're doing that base off just off the scale or off looking at the fish? You're eyeing it. So that was the number they needed was roughly 17 pounds that day. Roughly 17 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. Okay. So, so you didn't announce it and then 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'd 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, and waited to the end to weigh their fish.

So they had no clue how the day was going to transpire. Really? 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?

Cause 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. Oh, okay. And they were, I thought they somehow were watching. I thought they could somehow watch what was going on and be like, we need 16 ounces. So it's, that's true normally because I, 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 them 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 to 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 the, 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. Okay. Okay. They're visible.

They're visible. The problem for them was everybody did shitty. So which. So they overcompensated a little bit. You got. Yeah. 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 it, but it sucked for a lot of different boats. And the closest, the best boat of the day was 28 pounds in some change, whatever it was, 28 some. They beat them by almost five, six pounds. That's a lot. Yeah, an extra fit, an extra big fit. Did they not need, did they not need the lead?

So they would not have won the tournament. They would have, if you take out the extras that were in the fish and just weighed the fish, they probably would have been somewhere in that 24, 25 pound ballpark, I would guess. And would have had angler of the year. And would have had angler of the year. And would their bag weigh? I believe 33.91.

So is there speculation? And you were eyeballing them, right? You're like. Well, so, so yeah, I was, as I was saying, 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 going to be in 20 to 25-pound ballpark. And you're making that guess knowing what, having looked at shitloads of walleye, you know what, basically what a fish is going to weigh. So 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 like 7.8 and you got a big tail hanging out of that basket. It's my job to say, oh, here we go. We got one looking for the big fish of the day. 8.2, we got a new leader. If I'm not doing that, if I'm not doing that, then our tournament is just the same old tournament that everybody else is having. So I owe it to these guys to just be as exciting as possible.

Yeah, you were emceeing your ass off in the videos. I'm trying, you know, cause 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, the question everybody always asks 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-fiving each other. They're high-fiving 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 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 weigh all five of them. So Chase and Jake step up, one of them steps up, whatever the hell. And he's going to put his biggest fish on the scale. And you see the readout. Did you think, that fish doesn't weigh that.

I've been looking at these fish all my life. So people say when they watch the live feed that they can't tell, but the wind was just sucked right from my sails, man, because it was 7.90 and there's just zero chance that it was 7.90. Because you've been looking at too many fish. You know what they weigh. Eight-pound fish are those fish on Lake Erie that are 28, 29 inches.

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 Erie right now. You can go out there and if you want to make some walleye gumbo, you're, you're going to catch. And I do. Yeah. The perfect fish to do that with. Okay. These were not those eight pounders and to, to weigh 790, you can tell, you could tell by the tail, you could tell by the head and it just wasn't there, man. So I, 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, they, they put the big fish into the basket and weigh them all. And I'm just like 33 and some change, whatever, almost 34 pounds. I'm like, no way.

And what was the, what was second place at that point in time? 28 and some change that's rough and and they're the similar class of fish you're like these fish look like those fish but they're somehow you know seven pounds eight pounds heavier than everybody else right where we know they're like going for the team of the year. How are they standing for the individual tournament? Top dog. Yeah, they would have won. They would have won by six pounds. Oh, they would have won for that particular tournament.

No, they would have won the tournament and the team of the year and walked with 18. Okay. Without not. Oh, you and walked with 18. Okay. Without not. Oh, I mean, without the way. Yeah. I'm,

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. Yeah. 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, if the fish that they weighed were unaltered, they would have been in the money. Yeah. And they also would have won team of the year because they would have been above 16.8. But they wouldn't have won the individual tournament. But keep in mind, no one knows, maybe you know, that probably not the first time they did this. You don't say. No, 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, you know, you 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 those big lead weights, but they're like, oh, that's not enough. I got to shove some fillets in there too. Dude, the one that got me was the pair of pliers. So let's back up a bit.

I want to back up to the moment. Yeah. I want to get to all this stuff, but you haven't touched one of the fish yet. No. No. Okay. So he lays it up and you're like, okay, that's not right. They lay them all up. That's not right.

This all happened very fast. What was so, so give me a play by play. What was the next thing you did? All five around the scale and you're like, no way. So, yeah, I tried to play it off. Like it was all good. And, and I said, Hey, get some photos. I want you to hang tight. Um, because I wanted to look at them. 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 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. And it was like silence. It was instant. When you have a team that puts up a good number and not one single person in the crowd is happy for them. With an exception, I think it was like my buddy's mom. She was like, she's like, yeah, woohoo. And he's like, hey, shut up, mom. We're not rooting for those guys.

You know, 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. So it's not an easy spot to be in, man. No, like that's tough. and sweepstakes law that makes it that they can't join, our northern brothers get irritated. Well, if you're sick of, you know, sucking a high-end titty there, OnX is now in Canada.

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the, the fall brawl. I now run it. I did not run it last year. Okay. 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. Okay. So there's these incidents, right? But I have no firsthand knowledge as to what took place. And again, I, 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, I hear this story.

Hey, you were disqualified from that event, but why? Did you not wear your life jacket or did you, you know, alter the fish? Like two ultimate ends of the spectrum. And 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 actual tournament and then the examiner. And then, you know, there's, there's a lot. But it could have been, did you drink beer? Of course. Right. Did you ask, did you have three rods out and then realize you had too many 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 talk 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 allowed these guys to fish like my own buddies like i could look show you text threads where like my buddies are like you got to get these dudes out of here this is bullshit and i'm like it's like just shut up i don't have anything to exclude them with 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 yo 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 bag that comes up i'm going to take one of these fish and kind of feel around and see if anything's sketchy. So that would give you one verification that somebody didn't cheat in that way on that fish. So first of all, you weigh five, so you got a one in, you know, a 20% chance of catching

somebody if they did 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. Yeah.

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. Cause I've, I've, I hadn't thought of that. I kept being 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, a uh you can't control all these other things it's the

it's the most like antiquated way to cheat an event would be to load a 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 any way 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 boy 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. You tell them to go hang their fish up for some pictures. And then what happens?

They take a few photos and you start hearing the crowd grumbling, you know? And that's when it's like, I'd like to see those fish. Let me see those fish. We had the same fish as those fish. Let me see those fish. We had the same fish as those that didn't weigh that, that whatever I'm, I'm, I'm paraphrasing, but no, you're, you're quoting.

That's exactly what these guys were 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 him. And only one of them's there.

Yeah. The other guy, he headed to the truck. The minute you said, I'm going to check those fish. Yeah. Because he was doing photos. He was doing photos. And then, you know, he bounced. Which would 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 won 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? Yeah. But that was, that's how this went down. And you're not even a part of being on the stage. You just won team of the year. You just won first place in the tournament and you weren't even on the stage. What did you have to do? You know?

I mean, so take the human behavior element 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. I didn't catch that. He's protesting. I didn't see that. He's protesting the decision.

Yeah, the angler's like like he's pissed at me like are you kidding me you know because these guys are always giving me an ass ache like this has got to stop and i'm like eh 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 uncomfortable. I didn't want to do this. And, 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. Yeah. The whole, I probably don't have a tournament

anymore, you know. Especially if you did it just to one person, right? Exactly. And, and so that's, that's the thing. I'm, I'm always trying to not treat these people differently than the, than the rest of the guys. So I said, I want to look at them. So the first fish I get out and, and I just look

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 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 i same thing i'm just like man no color looks looks dead you know the eyes the tail uh fish develop ammonia when they're in the live well their fins get red and and you could tell you know when they're in a live well and they come out of the live well you can see that red red, redness on their gills and on their tail. I didn't know that. 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 will fish for crappie 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? okay no it just wasn't like a crawdad yeah yeah yeah no walleyes are not eating like baby turtles or something you know i i just i knew immediately what had what was going on. I just knew it because you match that up with the, 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. Yeah.

So then I, 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. Okay. The Leatherman did not come from within the fish oh the leatherman yeah i've heard okay i've heard people say multiple people talk about the pliers but i never saw players come out of the fish so i didn't know what people were 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 yeah totally totally okay so so my buddy gets me this Leatherman and he hands me this thing and it's got a busted 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 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, 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 no 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 get the fuck out of here because i i hated it what i just what i just

found out is these guys duped me you know they they were they were pulling it over on me and this is my event and and i was the one fooled and a sense i allowed it i i i allowed some impropriety in my event and it sickened me you know yeah huh because i care about these dudes and i've i've said this but like these anglers they are my they're my boys they're 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. 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 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 is out of the money should have had a couple bucks. They pour their life and soul into these events. And to take, not the money, that time that you can never get back because 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 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 all that came boiling up that's what came out because did you almost deck them yeah was that like an umpire throwing you out of the game i thought you your instinct was to 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 like 60 40 i never thought i never thought about coughing them yeah i played baseball for for a long time so that's what came out yeah uh you know i may or may not have been ejected from a few games. So you're like now the tables have turned. Yeah.

I've been waiting to do this my whole life. Yeah. So like these dudes, these dudes, I just, they're, they're gone. I wanted everybody, everybody to know that they're gone. You know, then 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.

Like these are like giant eight ounce cannonball weights and. 12, so 12 ounce and eight ounce weights is a lot. Yeah. It's a lot. In that fish, in that fishing and 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, uh, to essentially we call it snap weighting to get your baits deep. Um, but, but no, we, there would be no reason to have a 12 ounce weight on the boat even. I mean, some guys will fish with downriggers, but then you're talking, you know.

A cannibal. A cannibal, yeah. Five, six, seven-pound weights. What was up with the fish fillets they had stuffed in there? I think the theory that I think is that was padding. I think it was just simply. Oh. I think it was padding

yeah to like to to help to hide the metal hide the look of a lead ball in the stomach yeah i'm curious like the wadding it was like the wadding on a musket ball yeah were the like i was it just inside the body cavity or in the stomach? Like, or did it just, you cut it open? Yeah. I mean, I'm not like a surgeon or anything. Like, I'm just wondering how they jammed all that stuff down in there. Oh, it had to be in the stomach, right? Yeah.

It had to be. 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. Yeah. To stuff a weight down the throat. So, you know i i have no

idea honestly it's like i want to be so far away from the situation but guys are like they've tried we don't even know how they could do it got it in the in the video the the what gives it almost like a level of emotion on par with a Greek tragedy is the way that Jake hangs his head and silently stands there absorbing a massive amount of abuse. When did that end? I don't think it ended until they it still hasn't ended take a look at social media but no yeah 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 took control of the situation. He's a county sheriff, and he said, you know, we got to 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, you know, they were still badgering him verbally.

But he was protected at that point. That's the image of them sitting on the side of the curb. Yeah. Yeah. I think so. So what, uh, what criminal charges will come out of this?

Wanton, wanton waste, right? Probably for the fish fillets would be like one of many. So what they've been charged with was, uh, unlawful possession of like wild game, something of that nature, something like that. Well, what was the unlawful possession? I think like the fish fillets.

Okay. So you can't, some lakes, like, uh, Lake Ontario salmon fishing, uh, at least. Can't clean it on the water, right? Yeah. So, so that may have been part of that. Yeah. Cause they, they've also obscured

the identity of the fish maybe it i believe it still had the skin attached so there there's just so many rules and regulations and that the division knows by heart that i obviously don't but so they were charged with some kind of, uh, possession of those fish fillets or doing whatever they did with the fish fillets. Yup. And then mostly all the other charges were theft related charges. Okay.

Um, and, uh. Anything serious? I mean, grand theft over, over a thousand bucks, you know, felony level. Um. Got it. Got it. 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 uh court recently so did they seize their equipment and boat and trucks and all that stuff they 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 seized just the boat and maybe whatever equipment was on it and there was a court date this isn't going to come to a jury trial right it's their right to do that but you know i that's their that's their their call anytime you get a jury trial it's because somebody wants one you know what uh how are they doing nobody knows so honestly i have asked a couple people that know them so the owner of the boat shop very good friend of mine he obviously sold this guy a dozen boats

over the years knows him and uh you know considered 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 is 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 made a mistake it's just one of those things you just don't want to see 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, 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 i you know may i hear kind of just whatever so i don't know that to be true it's just i put feelers out there 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 them 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 them again. I don't know. Do you feel that you'll at some point reach out to them?

I will never reach out to them. Okay. 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 are you gonna forge ahead do 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 gonna be stronger than we ever were uh 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 honesty like if i screw up if I screw up something on the roster, you paid me and I didn't get you on there. It's my fault, man.

I'll fix it. And, and, but I, 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, I just truly want to do it for the right things. And, and I think it's,

I think it's, we're going to be stronger than ever. You know, I've had nothing but positive feedback. Has, have more solid accusations emerged? Like, has anyone talked about past wins?

You know, where they're like, well 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 all 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 right, it might just be part of the mix. You know, if you weighed in second and put up 33 pounds, I didn't know that it was an outlier until the very end when you put up 33 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 yeah 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 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. Yeah. Do you, uh, 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 with. I ain't got an idea for how to win a tournament. Oh my God. That's not going to happen. Nobody in their right mind wants to become a Halloween costume. Right.

I mean, it's just, it's, I mean, you could, the beating these dudes took and are continuing. I mean, you don't know how badly I wanted to post all the photos and stuff. People sending me Halloween costumes. I mean, it's just like, this is just priceless stuff, but I can't, you know, I just got to maintain my, you know, stability here. But 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. We got weights and fish. Featuring Phil's voice.

I love tournament fishing. It's fun. It's the group of people, like'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 hard when you know you tie 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 ax 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 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 got a 30, 40 mile trip and you're going 60 mile an hour 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 babbling or possibly saying dad 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, 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 to 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, Seth and I did the Montana walleye circuit this year, and I get that adrenaline rush. It was so fun. 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 there.

Why were you on that one day bugging me about if I had any big fish? What? Get out of here, Steve. I'm the last guy I would call if I was looking for a big walleye, by the way. We're donating all the... We didn't win much, but we're donating it all back to kids' life jackets and whatnot.

A lot of my guys do that. In the last event, we helped a young man. He's struggling with leukemia. And 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 10 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, and nobody's trying, nobody wants any recognition. Nobody's trying to be a hero. Chase and Jake sent a lot of that money off to those people?

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 Lake Erie before? So I think that two things would happen. While I'm on the edge of my seat.

I think that you would have a blast and anything that you needed, we would assist you with, including a boat if you didn't want to drag one across the country. And then you would get your ass smeared by these guys. These guys are good.

Oh, yeah. Dude, that sounds like a challenge that you shouldn't turn down, Chester. No, I don't doubt it, but I would love to. That's the big water, Chester. Oh, I would love it. I mean, I'm a little bit accustomed to being from Wisconsin, Great Lake stuff, but never fished Erie. 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 the cheese heads always come down and do good.

And there's different times of the year where if you want to jig and cast at him, you'll do just fine. Uh, John Hoyer just won the national walleye tour championship, casting up in the weeds. And, uh, it's just, you got to 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 me you know he reached out after

this and he goes you did a good job so those guys were fishing uh usa predator series they were they were across uh overseas somewhere nova scotia maybe xander. They mailed me back a tackle box. You know, I said, like, we got weights and fish. Him and Max Wilson and Ryan Buddy. Who's the last guy? They sent me back this tackle box, man, and I was just dying. From their fish. From their predator series.

Because that's when it took place They were getting ready to be over there So they mailed me back that tackle box And I put it up on my wall Alright Jason Fisher Thanks for coming on man I appreciate the opportunity Although I thought it was fake

I thought I was getting catfished Not walleye It's real This is going to be the definitive I think we'll call the episode. We got weights and fish, the definitive oral history. Love it.

It's a great title. Yeah. Thank you though. Yeah. That was great, man. I really appreciate you doing it. It,

what let's, let's make a side bet here. If you, if you come up and finish, what do you want to go top five or you want to place in the money for for your tournament what's how far down does money go 10th oh so it depends so we pay out 15 percent of the pool so you know if there was 100 guys we would pay 15 man we're still learning a whole lot so i would say being in the money, be happy.

All right. If there's 100 boats, you got to beat 85 of them, by my record. You following, Phil? How many days are you going to let me pre-fish? There's no limit on that. I got a place to stay. I got a boat you could use. I got everything you need, man.

The one thing I don't want. Come on, Chester. If we do go down there. Stop having it on. Is too much help. Does that make sense? Perfect. We won't help you at all.

It makes sense. No, no. Like a boat maybe. Because who knows? We might not even have our boat next year that we got. 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 them 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 a good point no um chester stop hemming and hawing man let's go fish the damn tournament. I think it would be an awesome time, man. It would be cool. We don't have to side bet on anything. No, side bet it. I'm not good at that. 100 bucks.

There you go. Chester, I'll make you a side bet. Any amount of money you want. And my bet is going to be that I'll bet, just to make it fun, I'll bet against you being in the middle mark. So I'll bet that 100 boats, you're 50 or less. You're saying, okay, 100 bucks says. 100 bucks says.

I'll be above 50. Okay. Make a whole shitload of bets. That's how my dad quit smoking. I can't make too many bets. You make so many bets, you'd be like, I can't lose. I can't afford to lose the bet. That was my best guess. That chest is going to have

a big old pocket full of sinkers. We'd love to come down. Awesome. It'd be fun. We got you set up. If you need something, we're here for you. You guys got to go fish

this tournament, man. All right. I kind of want to go. I don't want to fish it, but I kind of want to go watch. When you guys really need to come down, honestly, is in the springtime or the fall when the fish are just giant. To go and catch fish, it's fun. You can have a great trip doing it.

But to chase that Lake Erie giant is what people come to Erie for. Right. That's what you want to do. Go tournament, Chester. Okay. That sounds like a blast. Tournament. Big money. See if I can beat that fish that I got

last spring out there. Just imagine, man. This is the longest end of a meat eater podcast ever. All my craft at hosting and trying to... I wish I had my phone. It'd be like, throw your cards on the table right now you know all right Phil turn the

machine off Jess is gonna show this wall I picture Jason on oh oh yeah that's a nice fish there you go I remember my first wall I and see music And theme music. Hey, folks. Exciting news. Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. You might not be able to join our raffles and sweepstakes and all that because of raffle and sweepstakes law, but hear this. OnX Hunt is now in Canada. It is now at your fingertips, you Canadians. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. Now, the Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints, and tracking.

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