How a catfish poacher became big bass king of the world

[bossbowman]

I am curious after reading that about a few things-

1. He seems to have only fished little local tournaments. No major tournaments or anything like that.

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The biggest tournaments that go out west are the FLW western costas, in baseball terms thats considered triple A, Bassmaster rarely goes out west anymore. The WON bass and ABA's are a tier right below those FLW costas probably on par with the FLW BLF's elsewhere, these were not little non important fruit-jar tournies. Him winning all the time just had the entry numbers way down.

[Flex]

The biggest tournaments that go out west are the FLW western costas, in baseball terms thats considered triple A, Bassmaster rarely goes out west anymore. The WON bass and ABA's are a tier right below those FLW costas probably on par with the FLW BLF's elsewhere, these were not little non important fruit-jar tournies.

I didn't know that. But still 3k pay out for first place? You cant buy a 100k bads rig, fill it with gas 4 times a week, and pay bills off that I wouldn't think.

Just curious what he did in "real life " for work.

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[LukeDuke]

It will be interesting to see if this sparks a "me too" type response in competitve fishing....there are tons of skeletons in the closets of some name pro fiherman I bet!

[bossbowman]

It will be interesting to see if this sparks a "me too" type response in competitve fishing....there are tons of skeletons in the closets of some name pro fiherman I bet!

Nah the cheats get weeded out on the way to the top, see the story of Nate Wellman, theres a few shady ones no doubt in FLW still, I would say all the guys in the Bassmaster elites or MLF are the real deal.

[WalkieTalkie]

..

[WalkieTalkie]

Guido was from Missouri, I believe he said the pro was from Florida... Probably Roland. The way Guido won the Classic is pretty infamous though.

Yep! He had a heart attack 8 days later

[Thumper]

#1 I didn't know California was a big bass mecca.

#2 Cali boys must be pretty soft to be told a grown man is threatening their son and when he sneaks in your house he doesn't leave in an ambulance.

.......or end up waiting for the coroner.

The article mentioned him catching them at night and in areas closed to fishing.

True, it also mentioned several anglers, including Long, were given pass code and open hours to catch big fish to increase the use of the lake and campgrounds. The author was also one of these anglers and went only once because he felt it was unfair.


He was fishing slow; snagging them or foul hooking them when the fish was removing the lure from the nest? Same/same?

Was he catching fish before the fishing tournaments and sneaking them into his daily tournament catch, 99.99% YES!









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[Mike]

I didn't know that. But still 3k pay out for first place? You cant buy a 100k bads rig, fill it with gas 4 times a week, and pay bills off that I wouldn't think.

Just curious what he did in "real life " for work.

Regarding West Coast events, the WON Bass series was a real big deal back in the day out West. There was not a lot of our traditional tours we now know that traveled past Sam Rayburn really. Even Amistad and Falcon were long hauls for the circuits. Back in the early late 90's and 2000's, those payouts were pretty decent outside of BASS and FLW.

Long worked in the rebar business from what the article stated.

[bossbowman]

Regarding West Coast events, the WON Bass series was a real big deal back in the day out West. There was not a lot of our traditional tours we now know that traveled past Sam Rayburn really. Even Amistad and Falcon were long hauls for the circuits. Back in the early late 90's and 2000's, those payouts were pretty decent outside of BASS and FLW.

Long worked in the rebar business from what the article stated.

WON bass is still a big deal, their big event is the US open on lake Mead and this year they announced the payout to the winner will be 100K, thats the same as a Bassmaster, MLF or FLW tour event win. Its the only 100K event anyone can enter without having to qualify somehow that I know of, I'm not real sure about some of those big bass events but thats not a traditional tourney.

[Javelin]

There was lots of cheating in the early days of the bass fishing tournament world in FL.
One, in particular later had a tv show.

A famous Key West guide, who was actually a good fisherman, always “caught” a large percentage of his light tackle winners and records when he had the same couple of anglers.

I caught him using a live crab on a fly rod, fishing for permit one time.
Here didn’t enter any of the fish he caught that day. But, I knew most if not all his light tackle catch’s were BS.

Crazy what people do for money and time in the spotlight.

John fox?
And I hope not mark soisen