Caught hook, line and sinker.
A prize-winning angler has been arrested for a felony for allegedly adding weights to his catch to try to win a $10,000 prize at a Texas fishing tournament.
Curtis Lee Daniels, of Willow Park, Texas, was arrested Sunday after a metal detector found a bass he entered in the Lake Fork Lure Company Tournament was a little, well, too fishy, Fox 4 reported.
Three weights were then found inside his competition entry, with others found on his boat, officials said.
Daniels — who had already won two hourly prizes totaling $2,500 –was arrested and charged with violating fishing tournament law, the Texas Game Wardens confirmed.
The charge is a third-degree felony because the tournament’s prize amount exceeded $10,000.
“Maintaining fairness and integrity in competitive fishing is incredibly important to us, and we greatly appreciate the diligence and attention you gave to this matter,” tournament organizers Big Bass Splash said in a statement thanking Texas Game Wardens for their help.
“Your efforts help protect the reputation of the sport and ensure that honest anglers can compete on a level playing field,” the statement posted on Facebook continued.
The tournament’s grand prize went to the real winner, William McDaniel of Festus, Missouri, for his bass weighing a whopping 10.22 pounds.
Lake Fork Reservoir, where the tournament took place, is known to be one of the premier bass fishing lakes in the world.
Fifteen of the top 20 Texas State Record largemouth bass ever caught were found in the reservoir, which lies some 70 miles east of Dallas-Fort Worth.
Cheating in fishing tournaments is serious business, and in recent years, multiple culprits have faced jail for tipping the scales in their favor.
In May 2023, two fishermen were jailed for 10 days and handed probation after they were caught cheating at a tournament in Ohio.
Jacob Runyan of Ashtabula, Ohio, and Chase Cominsky of Hermitage, Pennsylvania, admitted to stuffing fish with lead weights and fish fillets in an attempt to win thousands of dollars in prize money at the 2022 Lake Erie Walleye Trail tournament.
