Louisiana Man Arrested For Cheating in Big Bass Tournament

For over forty years, Bob Sealy with Sealy Outdoors has conducted some of the nation's largest bass tournaments with the richest payouts.

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With some of those payouts well into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, there are a handful of anglers who will attempt to circumvent the rules and cheat honest anglers out of their hard earned entry fees.

May 17 through 19, the Big Bass Splash on Toledo Bend offered up a total of $500,000 in cash and prizes for competing anglers.

That was too much temptation for one Pollock, Louisiana man who was arrested on May 23 for alleged bass fishing contest violations.

The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries states that agents were contacted by Big Bass Splash tournament directors at Toledo Bend about one of the participants placing lead weights in a fish he caught and used for weigh in on May 17.

When agents arrived at Toledo Bend, agents determined that Aaron Moreau, 38, had placed 2.59 pounds of lead weights in a fish he used for weigh in and then fled the scene.

Agents were able to obtain a warrant for his arrest shortly thereafter. Moreau turned himself into LDWF agents on May 23 and he was transported to the Sabine Parish Detention Center.

Fishing contest fraud brings up to a $3,000 fine and one year in jail.

Wired2fish.com writes that:

Bob Sealy issued a statement reassuring anglers of their commitment to safeguarding integrity in the sport, emphasizing that the accused individual will face a permanent ban from all future Big Bass Splash events.