How a pair of ‘glassy-eyed’ fish caused controversy in a Tampa Bay fishing tournament

“We’ve got weights in fish!”

The quote, and subsequent story, is one of the wildest fishing tournament events to unfold when a pair of walleye anglers in Lake Erie were caught cheating in 2022 with lead weights and more stuffed into the stomachs of their weighed-in fish. The video went viral and the anglers were disqualified.

They were eventually charged before pleading guilty to their actions in March 2023, forfeiting their fishing licenses and bass boat valued at $100k.

Despite the infamy created by this event, there are anglers still bold enough to try cheating in fishing tournaments, including some locals. As a result, tournaments have become strict in what they allow to win.

Bigger tournaments have lie detector tests, DNA tests and more to restrict this behavior or those stretching or breaking rules. The most recent occurrence of a team being disqualified was last weekend at the fifth annual Sheepshead Tournament out of St. Pete Fishing Outfitters hosted by Cloud Nine Outdoors INC.

“This team came in with a pair of winning fish, two giants. But they were glassy-eyed and pink flesh, different colors than every other weighed-in fish,” said another participant who watched the events unfold. “Either they didn’t know how to take care of their catch or they were old fish.”

Host Jovan McNeill grabbed the microphone after the controversial fish hit the weigh-in sticks and caused an uproar.

“He talked to the crowd and said he wanted to keep it reputable and disqualified those fish. Most people think they were caught before the tournament. He offered the team their money back, but they went on a swearing tirade in front of everyone.”

As the disqualification unfolded, the other teams watched on. McNeil did his best to move forward without further controversy. In total 27 adult boats weighed in and 7 junior boats.

Taking home first place was Team Dinkmasters, whose 42.25 inches of two sheepshead beat Team Forreelfishing941’s 39.85. Team Dinkmasters won $1,400 with second place getting $700. Team Tux tanks won the junior division with a combined 38.5 inches.

Young angler reels in biggest snook

While controversy might have been the talk at the sheepshead tournament, at the 35th Annual Johnny Kellar Inshore tournament, one junior angler decided he wanted to go another route last weekend.

That angler, 11-year-old Dallas Thompson, hooked and landed a 36.75-inch snook first thing in the morning while fishing with his dad Dustin.

“He smoked that snook. He wanted to fish early before the official lines in time, but I teach him we’re going to do everything by the book so we waited. 20-minutes after the start we were throwing some live target mullet along the mangroves and he got that big thump,” said dad Dustin.

“I didn’t help him at all since he had to do it on his own. It was a nervous 5-minutes as he worked that fish up to the boat himself. When we got it in, we started high-fiving!”

Even with separate junior divisions for each category, Dallas’ fish was big enough to win the adult category. But he wanted to stay in the junior division.

“I think he wanted that hardware for the Junior,” said Dustin, who would bring home some hardware of his own with the biggest sheepshead at 5.08 pounds.

Winning the biggest snook for the adult division was Capt. Chris Olt at 35 inches. Olt would also win Master Angler weighing in five of the category species of snook, trout, redfish, sheepshead and black drum.

Biggest black drum went to Henry Franks at 5.95 pounds, while the biggest trout was 25 inches for James Hingleg and biggest redfish was caught by Jaye Ynocencio at 33.25 inches.

None of the 156 anglers weighed in a flounder.