It’s been a crazy few weeks in the bass-fishing world and all anybody seemingly wants to talk about is the Nate Wellman-Joe Stois incident from the Bassmaster Northern Open. I’m not here to opine on what transpired at Lake Erie, I’m here to say that in the aftermath all is not dire. To the contrary, I see an opportunity to make things better.
As we know, integrity and rules enforcement are the backbone of our sport. In bass fishing, we don’t have officials directly in front of the action nor do we have the benefit of instant replay. What we have is co-anglers, marshals, polygraphs and sometimes a camera. Let’s tell it like it is – it’s an imperfect system.
And with any imperfect system, there will always be people who try and take advantage. In other words, for those of you that were shocked about the incident – don’t be. Bass fishing operates in the real world. And in the real world, whether at BASS or FLW Outdoors, there will always be cheaters. It sucks but it’s the way it is.
The good news is that the awareness this incident has brought on will deter those cheaters in the future. They’re out there following every announcement from the major tournament organizations. They’re reading every column from the writers and every blog and comment from the fans. And you know what? They’re scared. They’re scared because collectively we’re getting better at this. We’re getting better at writing rules, enforcing rules, sniffing out violators and punishing them. It takes a village, but we’re improving.
The upshot is that all this attention will either deter these people from cheating in future tournaments or discourage them from entering altogether – both of which are positive. The challenge for us as the bass fishing community is to stay vigilant, because eventually they will try to cheat again.
If we do our part, this incident isn’t a black eye to fishing; it’s a stern reminder to the cheaters that they will get caught. There are too many good people out there like Joe Stois ensuring it.