Fishermen relish the opportunity to compete, a reason fishing tournaments have proliferated all around the country and on cable television.

Most often, anglers on a boat throw a few bucks in the pot and try to win it all by catching the first or biggest walleye or bass of the day. Thousands of Lake Erie walleye fishermen each fall take a $35 long shot by entering the Fall Brawl or Walleye Slam, the two major walleye fishing derbies on Lake Erie that are among the country’s largest competitions.

But many had been stepping away the fall derbies and summertime fishing tournaments the last couple of years. The odds are long, and over the last two years, one angling team — Jake Runyan of Broadview Heights, Ohio and Chase Cominsky of Hermitage, Pa. — were the consistent tournament and fishing derby winners on Lake Erie after teaming up a couple of years ago.

There had been disqualifications in the Fall Brawl, a six-week fall walleye derby, over its 11 years, but almost always due to not knowing the rules.

A shoreline angler had been casting after dark for his walleye, giving away the fish too small to be winners to other shoreline anglers in order to continue casting. That broke Ohio’s fishing rules, causing a disqualification.

Another had been remiss in not registering his new boat, breaking a derby rule. Or keeping one fish over the daily bag limit.

But stuffing about 10 pounds of lead egg sinkers into the bellies of a limit of five walleye in last Friday’s Lake Erie Walleye Trail Championship and getting caught?

Runyan and Cominsky were suspected of cheating in the past, and were finally caught on video Friday afternoon at the LEWT weigh-in.

Emotions ran the gamut. Anger, disappointment and, not surprisingly for fishermen who wanted to get back to competing as sportsmen against friends and foes, major relief that Runyan and Cominsky were finally caught.

Tournament director Jacob Fischer, who had suspected cheating by the young team, had been keeping a close eye on the pair. After handling their walleye, Fischer quickly called for a knife and cut all of their walleye open, a rare occurrence.

Hefty egg sinkers in the fish bellies resulted in their immediate disqualification … and more.

“Blatant, and criminal,” said Stephanie O’Grady, media and outreach specialist at Ohio Department of Natural Resources. She called in Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael O’Malley, whose staff was to meet with wildlife officers this week.

“I take all crime seriously, including attempted felony theft at a fishing tournament,” said O’Malley, promising Runyan and Cominsky will be held accountable.

Few fishermen have heard of such blatant cheating because it is rare. After interviewing dozens of fishermen, I found only one knowledgeable walleye fisherman could describe how to put sinkers in the belly of a fish, relying on his experiences on the family farm.

It’s easier than herding cats, he said, but not by much.

“Put a sinker in a silicone tube and you’ll be able to jiggle it and wiggle it down the fish’s gullet and into its stomach. Then use a stiff plunger inside the malleable tubing to deposit the sinker,” he said.

All of the ingredients have to be on the fishing boat in order to be ready to do that, which confirms the anglers plotted and planned their cheating.

It didn’t come off as “Double Whammy,” the hilarious 1987 Carl Hiaasen novel on bass tournament cheating.

Tournament organizers, realizing the black eye cheating gives the industry, work hard to keep cheating under wraps. The big tournaments are known to quietly disqualify cheating fishermen and with other tournament directors, blackball them from the sport.

Fischer is well-respected as the tournament director of the LEWT, especially after finally catching the cheaters, despite how long it took. Fischer apologized publicly to the LEWT fishing family, a tight-knit group, for not getting the job done earlier, and was praised for doggedly continuing to investigate the pair.

Few Lake Erie walleye anglers would know how to cheat, but winners are forced to take a polygraph test, usually long after their win. Runyon did fail a polygraph test after winning the Fall Brawl in 2021. Cominsky passed his test after winning a $125,000 boat in the Walleye Slam last fall.

Cementing their suspicion in fishing circles, Runyan and Cominsky won three LEWT tournaments in a row this year.

“That’s so unlikely with big fields of top-notch fishermen competing,” said a veteran angler. “They said they were just good fishermen, though there were rumors of their cheating ways in Pennsylvania and New York.”

Perhaps no one else knew how to insert the sinkers, or to pad the sinkers with walleye flesh to keep them from rattling. Or figured ways to alter the outcome of the lie detector tests.

Fischer undoubtedly had never seen such a trick as adding weights to the catch, but he was a tournament fisherman and knew the five walleye Runyan weighed in on Friday were far too short to tip the scales at 33-plus pounds.

“I estimated they’d weigh about 20 pounds, or less, which would have still put them in second place for team of the year, and a pretty good payday,” he said.

A few swipes of his knife revealed the secret contained in all five walleye.

“It hurt my soul to see that,” said Rodger Riggs, a veteran Cleveland walleye tournament angler. “I was out there competing with a young guy, just 14, and we’d had a rough day. Wind, big waves and running 27 miles offshore to look for big walleye was difficult.

“The boy’s father was at the weigh-in, so I sent them over to the stage for the free hot dogs and beverages, and they saw the ruckus. The kid was thrown into the mosh pit.”

But his dad said the youngster learned an important lesson, said Riggs. That 99% of the anglers he’d met at the tournament were great people, but there was a couple of bad eggs who would cheat and steal from others.

While a typical LEWT tournament pays off about $7,000 for a win, many have contingency bonuses from boat makers that double their winnings. When you add cash awards with side pots and cash prizes for heaviest fish and biggest bag of fish, a top team could win $30,000 or more in one tournament.

“I really enjoy the challenge of tournaments, and fishing with and against my friends,” said Riggs. “Fishing is a great sport, and takes a lot of skill and a little luck.”

This was the first instance of anglers having a history of cheating. Runyan flunked a Fall Brawl polygraph in 2021 and even though he’d taken the circuit to court, the previous Fall Brawl owners have never given Runyan or Cominsky a nickel. The pair did win a boat in the Walleye Slam derby last fall. Both took a lie detector test and passed it.

Winning enough money to fish for a living is very difficult, and getting tougher with high boat, motor, tackle, fuel and travel costs.

Officials would have to fillet hundreds of walleye after the weigh-in during a days-long big tournament. In Ohio, walleye weighed in must also be dressed and sent to soup kitchens. But keeping the top three to five catches to be filleted is certainly easy enough.

Bass caught in tournaments are generally released alive back in the lake where they were caught. A dead bass would be penalized a few ounces, and easy to check. A weighted bass would struggle to swim.

After talking to dozens of top LEWT anglers, who did not want their names in the newspaper in order to maintain their relationship with their sponsors, most were ready to launch their boats and happily go fishing, and maybe enter a tournament that’s on the up and up.

The Fall Brawl and Walleye Slam, the two six-week, late-season walleye derbies that both begin on Saturday, Oct. 15 on Lake Erie, had about 2,000 entries a week ago. Entries in both derbies have doubled in recent days, and fishermen say they think they will finally have a chance win a prize this year.

“The LEWT and fishing derbies do a lot to support the local fishing shops and tourism,” said Fischer. “Every year we hand out scholarships, take Wounded Warriors fishing, and donate to local charities,” said Fisher.

With the small $35 entry, many fishermen feel the $100,000-plus boats that are the top prizes should be replaced by smaller prizes earned by far more of the anglers entered in the derbies.

That would diminish the urge to cheat, and put smiles on many more fishermen’s faces.