‘We Got Weights In Fish’: How A Regional Fishing Scandal Took Over TikTok
We’re less than four days into October and the internet’s next biggest cheating scandal isn’t wife guys or chess matches — it’s in the world of professional fishing. Here’s how it started: Two fishermen who competed in a Lake Erie fishing competition on Friday were accused of cheating and disqualified after a tournament official found small lead weights stuffed inside their catches. While this was major news for the fishing community, a surprisingly lull in celebrity chaos and other breaking gossip for the day sent the videos sprawling out to TikTok For You pages everywhere.
The drama all began at championship weigh-in for the Lake Erie Walleye Trail (LEWT) Tournament, where each group was meant to present their catches and have them weighed. The group with the heaviest fish win. Easy right? But a viral recording taken at the competition shows the moment it all went wrong. In the clip, an announcer can be speaking to two men about their entries. Identified as Jacob Runyan and Chase Cominsky, the men are congratulated on their fish and asked about their technique. But after the fish are weighed, they come up several pounds heavier than other competitors’ offerings, despite being around the same size. In the now-viral clip, tournament director Jason Fischer can be seen cutting the fish open with a knife, revealing several metal balls before yelling “We got weights in fish!”
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In the video, the proclamation sets off a flurry of activity from the crowd. The viewers, calm a moment earlier, immediately begin yelling expletives at the accused, advancing on them as the shouts gets aggressive — and a sleeper TikTok hit is born.
RJ Macalanda, an avid fisherman who runs a popular TikTok fishing page @officialfishbosh, tells Rolling Stone that tactics like weighting fish or stuffing them are extremely common ways to cheat during fishing tournaments. Competitors catch their own fish and then push weights in the fish’s mouth to up their weight and push past the competition. But actually catching cheaters, especially directly in the act, is especially rare, according to Macalanda.
“This is not the first time I’ve seen cheating in fishing,” Macalanda tells Rolling Stone. “I’ve been a fisherman for a long time and been to tournaments myself where I suspected cheating. But it’s a subject that’s very taboo. All of the fishing communities kind of come together and want to highlight these cheaters because a lot of people spend their lives trying to catch fish like this. So for somebody to just come in and try to steal money from them is pretty serious.”
Macalanda adds that part of the controversy is that the accused fishermen have ranked or won multiple tournaments in the past, which casts doubts on the validity of their wins. If the cheating is confirmed, he doubts the fishermen involved will ever be allowed to compete in Ohio and might possibly receive bans from other states. Neither of the men responded to Rolling Stone’s request for comment.
“The difficult part of all of this is that you can’t disprove past results because obviously the fish are gone,” says Macalanda. “Tournaments do have a polygraph system, so they go through a lie detector test. Sometimes it’s caught and sometimes it’s not. But it’s really hard to tell if past fish have been stuffed or not. So this one situation topples the house of cards for them.”
Since the video was posted, the fishermen accused of cheating have been disqualified from the event and an investigation is currently underway by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, according to CNN. Fischer, who confronted the two men and shared several photos with Rolling Stone, said in a statement on Facebook that he was disgusted by the affair.
“Disgusted guys and gals, 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 said. “I hope you know now that when I say ”you built this LEWT and I will defend its integrity at all costs,” I mean it. You all deserve the best.”
But the alleged cheating isn’t just a topic in the fishing community anymore— #fishtok has gone mainstream. In the three days since the competition took place, videos of the confrontation and people’s reactions have been viewed more than 1 million times — including by people who have no idea what’s going on.
“Is anyone else randomly on the fishing contest scandal side of TikTok even though they have never liked a single fishing video or is it just me?” one video read. Others, once made aware of the viral footage, were desperate for a fishing expert to explain everything.
@originalmikewheeler What is happening right now. #fish #fishing #yeehaw #boat #redneck #fishingcontest #EndlessJourney
♬ original sound – Gnahk Ayhet
Macalanda says while the cheating scandal is extremely serious, he was surprised at how the viral video, and others on the topic, continue to reach non-fishers. He sees people’s interest in the scandal and rules of fishing competitions as hope that more people might see fishing as an exciting sport.
“It’s been kind of crazy to see other people be interested in all of this,” He says. “The biggest misconception about fishing is that it’s a ‘sit and wait’ sport, so the positive thing about this is people are more curious about the fishing industry or just fishing in general. It’s definitely a lot more high octane than what other people on the outside are used to.”
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