The angler who won a fishing competition in Cleveland after two of his competitors were reportedly found to be cheating wants they get the worst penalty possible.
On Friday, while competing in the Lake Erie Walleye Trail Championship in Cleveland’s Gordon Park, Ohio, Chase Cominsky of Pennsylvania and Jake Runyon of Ohio were accused of stuffing their fish with weights to make them seem bigger.
After the controversy broke, Steve Hendricks, who was named the winner, remarked, “I just hope they get them for all they can for what they’ve done.”
The majority of anglers, he said, “do it because they want to do it; they aren’t in it for the money.”
It’s awful that a small number of people can enter and undo all of that for you while everyone else is out there trying to do a fantastic job. Therefore, I hope [Cominsky and Runyon] get the most,” he said to CNN.
In describing how he believed the two had cheated, Hendricks stated, “They picked up a fish that should have weighed around four pounds and they laid it on the scale and it read eight.” Then they added their last five, bringing the total to 35.
When the fish were gutted, tournament director Jason Fischer decided to reveal the cheating of the two.
A number of lead balls were placed inside each fish on purpose in order to increase the weight of the fish the duo caught and win the competition and associated $5,000 prize money.
We have fish weights! The throng, which had assembled, was informed by Fischer.
The earlier victories of the duo in other competitions are now being questioned. They have already won several first-place awards and a substantial quantity of cash in different LEWT competitions, including the 2021 championship.
The pair won the $100,000 prize for the best catch in the Lake Erie Fall Brawl the previous year but were disqualified.
When the anglers’ catch was to be weighed, in which their five largest fish of the day were to be put on the scales, suspicions were initially raised in the closing seconds of the competition.
Onlookers were outraged and demanded explanations; some even made threats to contact the police.
The two reportedly forced the items down the fish’s throats to increase their weight and boost their performance in the competition.
Along with the lead weights, there were pieces of other fish fillets that had been put inside the catch’s body to add to their weight.
The momentous finding was captured on camera and shared on social media. On camera, Runyon is asked whether he has anything to say for himself, but he stays mute the whole time.
The two have now been exposed as “cheaters” on the official Lake Erie Walleye Trail Championship Facebook event page, and they will be disqualified from all next competitions.
“Disgusted ladies and gentlemen, I’m sorry for letting you down for so long and I’m delighted I discovered infidelity in YOUR LEWT at the same time.
I’m too tired to submit the results, but congratulations to Tsczyko, French, TOY Hendricks, and Ulmer. The yak and open winners are in the same boat. I want you to understand that I really mean it when I say, “You constructed this LEWT, and I will maintain its integrity at any costs.”
The tournament’s director at the time offered no other explanation beyond the fact that one of the guys had failed a polygraph test.
Runyon objected, claiming that they were innocent and that the fish had been captured legally. According to the Toledo Blade, he even hired legal representation in an effort to file a lawsuit for their “winnings”.
Many participants expressed their worries that the pair’s fish in another competition, the Rossford Walleye Roundup in Ohio, may have been stored away before the competition began because they “looked ancient.”
After the incident, the two made the choice not to share their harvest with a nearby food bank as the majority of the other fishermen did.
The administrators of these earlier competitions may now be considering legal action against the couple for suspected fraud and deceitful tactics.