‘CHEATERS’ HOOKED
Weighted walleyes rock fishing contest
Reel outrage is rocking the world of competitive fishing after the winners of a major Ohio tournament allegedly stuffed their fish with extra fillet and lead weights to score the cash prize.
The two-person team in the Lake Erie Walleye Trail contest were set to take home nearly $30,000 in winnings Friday when the tournament’s director, Jason Fischer, thought he smelled something fishy.
The contest’s alleged shady participants, Jacob Runyan and Chase Cominsky, weighed in their five walleyes at a collective 34 pounds — when usually each fish weighs closer to 4 pounds, for an expected total of about 20 pounds.
Fischer cut open one fish’s stomach and found that an extra fillet of walleye and lead balls had been apparently stuffed down its throat, he said. Then he found the same in the other fish, Fischer said.
“We got weights in fish!” Fischer screams in video that captured the tense moment.
Someone else can be heard yelling in the video that can be viewed at nypost.com, “He needs to be arrested! He needs to be prosecuted!” referring to the participants.
A third person shouts, “Call the f--king cops!”
Fischer then tells the alleged cheaters to leave and asks the crowd not to beat them up.
Fischer, who declined to comment to The Post on Sunday, wrote in Facebook messages since the incident that he is “disgusted” by the alleged cheating and at a “loss for words.”
It’s happened before
The two suspect fishermen have made off with tens of thousands of cash prizes before, all of which are now under scrutiny, according to the Toledo Blade.
“I’m sorry for letting you down for so long and I’m glad I caught cheating taking place in YOUR LEWT at the same time,” Fischer wrote on the tournament’s page, addressing participants and fans. “You all deserve the best.”
Runyan and Cominsky made more than $100,000 after winning the top prize in the 2021 Lake Erie Fall Brawl, but then were disqualified, the Blade reported. The director of that tournament reportedly said one of the two had failed a polygraph, but didn’t provide more details at the time.
The Blade said some competitors thought the pair had been catching fish before the competitions and sneaking them in, and many in the professional fishing community were whispering about their behavior.
Even more suspect was the fact that they apparently didn’t donate their catches to local food banks like the other competitors, it said.
The incident felt reminiscent of a recent scandal shaking up the competitive chess world, when wild allegations surfaced that a player was using vibrating anal beads to receive illicit help to win.