btw...
how does the story go about the pro who was having his scuba diving brother plant boxes of fish near docks? the boxes had holes in the top that the pro would have to work his bait into, then pull the fish out of the box?
can't remember where i heard the story.
Angler X , as he became known. True Story from a few years ago. He came out of nowhere to dominate the FLW Pro trail.
Tony Christian, was from Georgia, owned his own Roofing Company. Did pretty well fishing the local clubs in his area.
Jumped up to the FLW Pro Tour and Won an unheard of 3 or 4 of His first dozen or so tournaments entered.
Finished top 10 in his first 30 FLW Pro TX's.
He is banned from ever fishing any FLW ( BFL etc. ) events.
FLW lawyers and His lawyers came to an out of court settlement. The entire facts and truth of what He did was never made public.
His lawyers argued that HE broke No actual rule in the FLW rule book. FLW apparently decided it was not worth the negative press to try to fight.
What was made public was He had placed large ( 60 gallon ) Rubbermaid plastic boxes under a dock on the lake the tournaments were being held.
The lids of the boxes had a large X cut into the top, and a small hole in the center, just large enough to drop a jig into.
A number of large bass were caught before the TX and placed into the box a few days before the TX.
Angler X would pull up to the dock during the TX, and knowing where the box was anchored in the deeper water under the dock, cast around with his jig until He placed it on top of the box. Work the jig around until it fell into the hole in the lid.
Having been in the box , without food for a few days, one of the bass would grab the jig, He would set the hook, the bass would pull out of the box when the lid would flex from the X cut in it.
Bass would come out, lid would flex shut again.
He would fight the bass like normal, His Co-Anglers never knew what was going on, to them It looked like He was casting under a dock and catching fish.
Some anonymous person sent a video of a diver going into the water and under the dock in question with a mesh bag of large bass.
Once the lawyers became involved everything stopped. His lawyers argued he caught fish by the rules using rod and reel.
The guy disappeared after His ban from FLW, which kind of speaks volumes of what He was doing. He made no attempt to clear his name ( If He was not cheating ) , never made any attempt again to fish any other Pro Circuits.
If He was that good and able to catch that quality of fish as consistently as He did on the FLW Pro Tour He most certainly would have been back fishing on BASS or Anglers Choice, etc.
Here is an answer to a letter in 2005 asking about Why He was banned :
Josh,
Thanks for the info, I wanted to catch the show, but was busy. I
have heard all the rumors on BFHP and wanted to hear this ng's version.
It sounds the same as BFHP's. I do have a friend that works for FLW and
he won't comment on the situation, other than to say that FLW has never
given a lifetime ban for leaving your partner (one day tournament bans,
yes) and he also stated that some of what we are hearing is true.
Whatever this means......
I do understand why (if the rumors are true) FLW would keep it
quiet.
I think that a scandal of this magnitude would be
counterproductive for Bass Tournament fishing.
TC won 9 tournaments
(including the All-American)in 31 starts (29%), made $176,198, had 15
top tens in 31 starts (48%), all since he burst onto the scene in 2000.
In 2002 Savannah division (5 tournaments total), he won 3 tournaments,
got 2nd in another and finished 35 in the 5th.
What is more amazing is, he won big bass 3 times (only 5 tournaments) and made almost $15,000!!!
Because of these accomplishments, I thought this guy was "RoboBasser".
IF the allegations were true, the "average Joe" would figure that
it's just a bunch of cheating 'bubbas' and our sport would lose
credibility.
Jack
~~
Jack Dalzell
www.jdbass.com
