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We are not after those who forget to wear life jackets, or who left their fishing license in their trucks, Lyle Amy advised, we are after those who purposely try to illegally win tournament money from fraudulent acts. And believe me; we are very good at f
Photo by Ed Snyder |
(Nov. 29, 2005 - Lake Sam Rayburn, TX.)... Louisiana angler, Sam Huckabee, while fishing a crank-bait through the stumps in an oxbow on the Red River, set his hook on what he thought was a bass bite. But as he tried reeling in his catch he could only reel in about four feet before it stopped! Believing he had a good fish he then saw it jump, but without his crank bait being in its mouth. Huckabee then realized that he had snagged a fishing line that had a bass attached to it.
Thinking he had snagged a line that someone else had broke off, Huckabee managed to land the bass to untangle his lure from the line only to find that the bass actually had one end of a braided fishing line tied through its bottom lip, with the other end tied to a stump. Not liking what he saw he immediately called the BASS tournament officials.
Sam Huckabee, who was practice fishing for a BASSMaster event, told BASS what he found and where the fish was located because he didn’t want BASS thinking he had anything to do with it! There had been several other bass fishing tournaments on the Red River recently and Huckabee figured someone in another event may have done this.
Huckabee would find out later that Louisiana Department of Wildlife & Fishery wardens located the staked bass and marked it in four places. After LDWF agents secured a statement from Huckabee, they then arrested Lee’s Summit, Mo., angler, Paul E. Tormanen after he arrived to weigh his bass on tournament day and charged him with contest fraud. Subsequently disqualified from the tournament and banned from all future BASSMaster events after admitting to catching several bass before the tournament and tying them to stumps for weigh-in, Tormanen was then booked into a Natchitoches Parish Detention Center where he faces imprisonment and fines.....Standing kudos go to Sam Huckabee, HOOORA!
Most local and regional tournament winners are usually given a polygraph test before receiving their awards, but at most national events Polygraphs are not given as those tournament organizations feel that at the national level they are unnecessary, and rely on fellow tournament anglers to report tournament rule infractions. But if a Sam Huckabee had not been there on the Red River to accidentally snag Tormanen’s tethered bass would that attempt at thievery been found out by BASS? ....... Probably not!
But maybe after the Red River event, and many others that have occurred over these past years, the national tournament groups should rethink their negative attitude towards the Polygraph system and allow them to be used as a tool to protect the entry fee investments of the anglers who fish them. The polygraph has evolved from its almost archaic system with unsightly and intimidating pulse and breathing wires, to a more high tech electronic system of computer microchips and mega-bites. Laptop computers now replace the old Polygraph machines, which are more accurate and a lot less intimidating to the polygraph subjects who are required to take them.
One "almost comical incident" occurred during a national crappie event being held on a southeastern lake. After the first day weigh-in a man stepped forward to talk to the officials in private. He wanted to report that the angler leading the tournament was cheating by catching and stringing fish to stumps before the tournament. Alarmed by this, the tournament officials immediately alerted the local wildlife & fishing agents. The agents checked where the "alleged" cheating angler was staking his crappie, and upon finding them, they staked out the area early the next morning to try and catch the angler in the act. And it wasn’t long before the angler in question arrived to pull two large crappie from a stringer tied to a stump to add to his tournament weigh-in stringer.
After witnessing this the agents returned to the tournament site and waited for the accused angler. Upon arriving to weigh his crappie the angler was then taken aside and confronted with the accusations. Being caught red handed by the agents and told that he would have to take a polygraph test; the cheating angler reluctantly removed his fish from the weigh-in and signed an admission to his deed.
When the final weigh-in was tallied the winner of the event was none other than the angler who had turned in the cheating angler. After the winner took, BUT FAILED, his polygraph test, it was then found out that the "he" was also cheating by staking out fish and then recovering them for weigh-in. BUT, that’s not all folks! The disqualified "winner" was the SON-IN-LAW of the angler that he had turned in. Both anglers were then banned from fishing future tournaments and hauled off to jail.
...........Honor among thieves? I don’t think so!
In another incident an angler was found out after failing a polygraph test that he had weighed a big bass that he actually caught on another lake, keeping the fish in a fish cage before recovering it for his tournament. The angler had been a respected guide and family man, but after admitting to his deed he was then banned from fishing all tournaments. His big bass reward would’ve been only $500, a relative small amount, but a HUGE price to pay for the stigma of cheating, which ruined his fishing guide business, embarrassing him, and his family so bad that they had to quit their jobs and move to another state ......Incredible!!
Are Polygraph systems accurate? Veteran Polygrapher, Lyle Amy, with over twenty years experience at testing fishing tournaments, explained to me that a qualified Polygrapher would perform 100% accuracy within their system for weeding out the criminal element, which he figures is less than 1% of the field. "Most tournament anglers, Lyle stated, are truthful and obey the rules and regulations of the tournaments. But there may always be one who thinks they can beat the system! We’re not after those who forget to wear their life jackets, or who left their fishing license in their trucks, Amy advised, we’re after those who purposely try to illegally win tournament money from fraudulent acts. And believe me; we are very good at finding them out!!
For those of you who still harbor such criminal thoughts to attempt cheating at such contests you must ask yourself; Is it really worth the trouble? Hopefully, your answer will be "NO! ..... Just ask those who’ve suffered from the humiliation of being caught!
The biggest argument from those who refuse to use the Polygraph system is that the tests aren’t conclusive, nor allowed to be used in a court of law. But is very apparent to me that the Polygraph system DOES WORK in catching, or even deterring the thieves who would steal from the pockets of their fellow anglers. Most tournament anglers view the Polygraph not only as an important tool for keeping the tournament on the "up and up", but also as a means for protecting their hard earned tournament entry fee investments. As one angler aptly put it. "I’d rather lose a lifetime of tournaments to the better angler then to lose just one to the foolishness of a THIEF!! ....AMEN
This Ed Snyder/Outdoors report sponsored by; The Bass Buster Inn- The Fishingworld.com- LSRPA- |
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