A video posted on social media shows Jason Fisher, tournament director for the Lake Erie Walleye Trail (LEWT), cutting up Friday’s winning catch of five walleye and finding lead weights and ready-to-fill fish fillets inside. “We have fish weights!” Fisher shouts in the video, before raising his hand and motioning for the fishermen to leave. “Go away!” shouts to the would-be winners. In the background people in the crowd shout “call the cops” and accuse the men of stealing. The winning anglers, Jacob Runyan, of Broadview Heights, Ohio, and Chase Cominsky, of Hermitage, Penn., were immediately disqualified. They were in line to win about $39,000 Cdn, according to CNN. In the video, Fisher is seen urging Runyan to leave for his own safety as people curse him. According to the news site Cleveland.com, Cominsky had already locked himself inside his truck in the parking lot. WARNING | The video contains graphic language:
Polygraphs that have failed in the past: reports
The duo previously won several other LEWT contests, according to Toledo newspaper The Blade, and have won a “significant” prize money in the past. A Facebook post from February, for example, announces Runyan and Cominsky as the winners of The Walleye Slam 2021. The Slam’s website lists Runyan as the 2021 winner for catching a 12.79-pound fish. The pair had previously been disqualified from a 2021 competition for failing a polygraph test, according to an article from Cleveland.com. The news site says all big winners are required to take the test. The Worldwide Polygraph Network notes that polygraphs may be administered at fishing tournaments to “determine whether winning anglers have followed tournament rules, caught the winning fish personally (eg, hook and hand violations) and during hours of the tournament, have used unapproved lures or have weighed or changed the fish.’ Runyan and Cominsky later passed the lie detector test that allowed them to win the Walleye Slam. “I knew we would pass the Walleye Slam test,” Runyan told Cleveland.com in 2021. “Our reputation means the world to us and we would never cheat.”
“Forever tarnishing our sport”
In a video statement posted to Facebook on Monday, an emotional Fisher called the apparent cheating “one of the most disgusting, dishonest acts the fishing world has ever seen.” “There have always been stories about dishonesty in competition, but I’ve never personally seen anything like this — in competitive fishing, that is,” Fisher said. “The individuals involved here seem to have put greed and selfishness ahead of everything else, forever tainting our sport.” He noted that information from Friday’s tournament has been turned over to the Ohio Division of Wildlife, which will handle the case and “any potential criminal action from that point forward.” The department enforces fishing regulations in the state. The Cleveland County District Attorney’s Office has opened an investigation into the lucrative walleye fishing tournament. CBC News has reached out to both departments for comment. Fisher also apologized for using profanity in the original video, noting that he “acted out of emotion.”
