Try This Cheating Scandal On For Size

Yahoo.com: A professional angler found to have stuffed lead sinkers down the throats of fish he submitted for weigh-ins during a prestigious bass-fishing tournament has been banned for life from that and other competitions in a scandal that has rocked the tight-knit and passionate bass-fishing community

Mike Hart, a successful Southern California pro whose career earnings total more than $200,000, was accused of cheating in this manner during the recent $100,000 U.S. Open held at sprawling Lake Mead on the Nevada-Arizona border. An official with the Western Outdoor News bass tour said Hart confessed after he was caught virtually red-handed. Catching a cheat is difficult because tournaments are catch-and-release, so bass are kept in aerated wells on the boats and weighed live at the end of each fishing day, then released.

However, sometimes bass die after being caught and Hart had offered three dead fish during the weigh-in on the second-to-last day of the U.S. Open. They were filleted so the meat could be delivered to a charity, and found to contain weights. In all, nine sinkers were removed from bass turned in by Hart. Naslund said each sinker was torpedo-shaped and weighed two ounces.

So let me get this straight, some bass fishing vet pulls a stunt like this that puts your sport on the national stage and you ban him from the sport? What a cruel world we live in. I figure that if a few kids can take a binge drinking marketing plan that is cut from Smirnoff and turn it into the most popular drinking game around without consequences, then putting bass fishing on the national stage by cheating shouldn’t be a hair off anyone’s ass.

From my count, the last time anyone even entertained the idea of watching professional bas fishing was when the NHL was on strike and Versus and ESPN2 had nothing else to broadcast.

Now, I’m not one to get on anyone’s case for cheating. It’s part of life, if you ain’t cheating you ain’t trying, at least that is the motto at most parties. Who hasn’t been there before, last round of strip flip cup, piss drunk, and needing a miracle to get those girls’ tops off. You cheat your asses off. It’s just how the world goes round, no one wants to be at a party when guys dicks are flopping all over the place. The crowd of drunk kids needs to see those double d’s like Lebron needed Plan B in high school.

Bass Fishing is no different, no one wants to see the tournament winner have a total of 33 pounds of fish. We want to see some mutant foot long fish that weights twice that, now that’s some damn good television. Just look at the shark week ratings, Great Whites are huge and put up a fight. If I see a bass fisherman getting pulled from a boat once in a while, there will be no need for commercials because I’m tuning in.

Can I also bring up how weak their charity work is? Fillet your dead reject tournament fish and send it off to make a wish foundation. Either do it right or don’t do it at all. I know that we’re not sitting here at boozecrew trying to give a little back to the community, we’ll at least be going balls out when we do try and help people. Now if they donated every fish caught in the tournament, we’d be talking. Can we get someone on the phone for me to be a promotion guy for Bass Fishing? I may be the guy promoting shoving bricks down the fish’s throats, but at least those bricks will be going to a fucking good cause, and there will be plenty to go around. Don’t say I never tried to help charities.