Serious charges were brought against two fishermen in Saturday’s competition. Chase Kominsky of Hermitage, Pennsylvania, and Jake Runyan of Cleveland, Ohio thought they had won the final race of the 2022 Lake Erie Walleye Trail season, but after a sweet intervention by race director and police officer Jason Fisher, the duo were accused of putting lead weights in fish to improve the weight result after the hunt.
A fraud scandal rocks the professional fishing world
The footage, which has since gone viral, shows Fisher slicing up the fish the couple caught and removing lead weights from them. An angry crowd gathered around the scale to loudly express their discontent, some shouting to call the police. In another video, they can be heard claiming that Kominsky and Runyon had been “cheating years ago.”
Serious controversy in the professional fishing tournament as multiple winners have been found stuffing lead weights and other fish fillets into their fish for the heaviest catch to win hundreds of thousands of prizes. pic.twitter.com/Sxqeo2XC0K
– Billy (Billyhottakes) October 1, 2022
Then, Fisher released a statement on the official Lake Erie Walleye Trail (LEWT) Facebook page:
Angry guys and girls! I’m sorry I let you down for so long and I’m glad I exposed the fraud going on at LEWT at the same time.
Their previous victories have also come under scrutiny
In 2021, Kominsky won both the Blaster Walleye Fall Brawl and Walleye Slam, taking home the Lake Erie Walleye Trail Championship and $306,000 in prize money. Then they both faced a lie detector test after director Ryan Murphy awarded the Ranger Pot Award to runner-up Ronald Masall.
Roinan said afterwards, “I knew we were going to pass the Walleye Slam test. And I knew we had to get legal advice and fight our exclusion from Fall Brawl. Our reputation means the world to us and we would never cheat.”
She added that the couple has not yet commented on the recent accusations against them Indy 100.
