Tourney this Saturday in West Texas

Who all is in on this? Me and boh347 will be out

would love to hear what wins it>
hope you do well.

Hope you shoot every varmint you see. We are over run with them

in one out of Fairfield

Nobody cheats in any of those contests do they?

only the big ones

I can't speak for others but I know myself and Bill haven't/won't. That has been brought up numerous times and one does wonder if the ones that keep winning are legit, ethical etc.

We called in a bunch of grey fox, no yotes and no cats. The fox were coming in 3-4 at one stand. Crazy

some do will have more info in a few days

I think some were caught red-handed in San Angelo!

What did they do to cheat?

yes they were, this the team out of OK that i have been posting about. will have more info when the FINAL shtf

This may go a lot deeper than San Angelo

No details?

Do they enforce the lie detector rule, or is it just there to scare some participants into acting like they don't cheat?

they gave lie detector, that is the problem, they told the truth that got them caught.
will have FULL DETAILS in a few days

if not mistaken this was a $50,000.00 deal

they turned in the winning cat. when ask if they killed it in Texas or okla. they said OK. shot it with nite vision, NO NITE HUNTING in OK. so now more leo"s than can be counted involved.

Is this all there is to the story?

I'd like to know aswell

Rex47, that story is not correct. It had nothing to do with night vision or hunting at night. You can't bring a cat across state lines without a tag regardless if you intend to sell it or not. It's an Oklahoma law, and exists in many other states, including Texas. It wasn't the team that won this month either. The guy from OK never even made the leader board, even though he had the biggest cat. He was disqualified.

I'm curious to know what the guy/team was thinking. How do you not know that is a law being a predator hunter? Has this team ever been involved in the wtbbc before?

but they did say they shot the cat in OK with night vision, witch is illegal in OK, so it does have something to do with it. This team has won several tournaments with sometimes twice the numbers as other teams. I am not just talking about the tournament in San Angelo. Not saying any thing against the tournament.

Well it sure makes me want to save my money and not hunt a tournament if I know there are guys like this out there cheating and getting away with it. I know they got caught this time but what about the other tournaments they took money home from? THESE HUNTS ARE GETTING OUT OF HAND IN MY OPINION. With 1000s of dollars at stake people are going to try to find ways to bend the rules. It sucks for the honest guys trying to do it the right way. Go out and bust your tail trying to hunt the correct way then have to worry about how many other scum bags are doing things that are not legit. Let a couple more of these cheating stories get out especially when the folks got by with it a time or 2 OR 3 and you will probably see the team numbers start falling off.

The people holding the tour. have no way of knowing WHO is entering. People that hold tournaments are scratching their heads to come with ways to stop it.
This team has won several tournaments

If the government can put a person on a 'no fly' list, you'd think it'd be easy to get a no hunt list going.

This is my concern. Say they would of lied and said they killed the cat in Texas. What's the chance the lie detector would of actually caught them? How did they get by with winning the other several tournaments? Just makes the whole system look flawed to me.

So don't hunt them. I used to fish a lot of bass tournaments and it's no different. Any time money is on the line there are always some who will leave their morals, if they have any, at home and try to make a buck cheating. That's not going to make me stop hunting and it didn't make me stop fishing. I enjoy it and when I have won a little money it was because I beat the other guys with my skills (all luck). And there are other ways to at least deter cheating. Deck of cards and stick one in the animals mouth and tape it shut is becoming pretty common but I don't see how you could do it with 700 teams.

We hunted a smallish hunt here locally this year. On the way to the first spot we lost our kill basket, which was freaking scary by the way. Anyway, we spin around and as we are putting it back in and putting the pin in this time, my buddy looks in the ditch and there is a huge bobcat that had obviously recently been hit by a car. We could have thrown him in the basket and nobody would have known but I don't cheat, and I sure don't want to get black balled from hunting contests. To some it is worth it but to me it isn't.

there was some shady stuff going on in north Texas

Do tell.

Yes do tell...this keeps getting better...

Well, if they used night vision or thermal, they were disqualified already regardless of any other circumstance. WTBBC doesn't allow it. Obviously the system worked in this case.

As for cheaters, I've seen lots of people grouse about how this team or that team had to be cheating, and I've seen a team of guys I know accused of cheating, and a lot of it is just sour grapes. The guys I know don't have to cheat, they have a lot of good land to hunt, and they know how to hunt it, and they kill a lot of stuff.

Do I think cheating happens? Obviously, and they get caught some times. I also suspect a lot of the unsubstantiated stuff we hear about cheaters is just sour grapes.

All I know is out of 695 teams entered....me and boh347 were 694th. If anyone calls us out as cheaters I will drop kick you in the nutt sack..............

This post has got pretty interesting though. Any other juicy details?

I'd rather be last than a cheater!

Who won?

OK
last i heard, the FEDS are waiting on the Texas GWs to do what they are going to do, then the FEDS will take a shot.
supposed to have a man rasing cats for them, have a large trap/run that dogs can get in but not out. That makes it easy to kill 14 dogs, 7 cats in half day.
OK GWs are ringing their hands

FEDs and TX gws and ok gws think it is really sour but not grapes

Is this good info or just rumors? That's big league cheating if true. Being ignorant of the tagging deal could happen to a lot of guys.

as good as you will hear un till it comes out in the paper. i don't post RUMORS.

There's all kinds of versions of this going around right now, will be interesting to see what the final outcome is. I'm not sure how accurate this is, but I was told there might be some questions about the January hunt now as well. The story in this thread has obviously wobbled a little in the telling, from night vision and tag mistakes to trapped animals. I'll reserve judgement until the final tally. No matter the details it's a shame this has happened, but not surprising with as much money as there is now.

I didn't say that this instance was sour grapes bud...that part was in response to all the other questions about how widespread cheating might or might not bee in these contests. Context and stuff...

I have heard of numerous rumors about people keeping the cats after live trapping them and fattening them up so they can enter the big cat contest. I guess if there is a way, some people will cheat.

[quote=RockinU]There's all kinds of versions of this going around right now, will be interesting to see what the final outcome is. I'm not sure how accurate this is, but I was told there might be some questions about the January hunt now as well. The story in this thread has obviously wobbled a little in the telling, from night vision and tag mistakes to trapped animals. I'll reserve judgement until the final tally. No matter the details it's a shame this has happened, but not surprising with as much money as there is now. [/quote

I know nothing about the tagging. Not asking for judgement. I am not a Writer, not wobbled just telling it as i get info. will go back about 3 years, not just to January.

Well either way, it's a shame. I guess if you say it's going to go back 3 years that should tell us who the guilty parties are, as there aren't many names that are on the leader board more than once in that time period. when is all this supposed to be coming out?

For everyone else, the tagging issue is what contest organizers have said was the issue. It is not legal to bring a bobcat carcass from Oklahoma to Texas without some sort of tag, therefore a team with a potentially winning cat broke a state game law in bringing their kill to the weigh in, and in breaking a state game law, they broke a contest rule, and were thus disqualified. Further rumor (I don't know the veracity) is that now that this law has been brought to the contest organizer's attention, there may be some questions about some past winners/placers. That's what I've heard discussed amongst other guys I know who've hunted the tourney for a while.

Add to that Rex's info regarding more extreme cheating, and I wonder if the contest will survive.

See this is why I hat this BS. There is really no way to stop a cheater or his friends.

The best way I've heard of is the deck of cards. Basically you buy unique decks of cards and then the tournament director initials them in permanent marker. when you shoot an animal you have to stick a card in their mouth and tape it shut. You have a short while to do it before rigor mortis sets in and once it does you cannot open their mouth. That eliminates the frozen animals, animals shot prior to the hunt, and stuff like that.

Problem with a hunt with 700 teams is how do you get that many decks passed out and how can you do it if registration goes until the night before? And if he is really shooting them inside a trap the day of the hunt then that wouldn't matter wither. There's really no possible way to eliminate all cheating but if the Law decides to make an example of this particular case hopefully it will deter a lot of it.

Since this isn't the blue screen some may have never heard this story. Read the article below and you can learn all you need to about individuals who can pass a polygraph. He had cheated many many times and just finally got caught. Passed tons of polygraphs. Some people can make themselves believe a lie and it won't pick up on the test.
http://www.dallasnews.com/news/rockwall/2010/04/15/No-prize-just-jail-time-2239

I can't say how long it will take. You know how fast the law moves. They have won lots of tournaments in OK and TX going back 3 years and have been bragging about it. Not just TX, OK but the FEDS are own it also

It's harder to get a card to stay in a cat's mouth until rigor sets than you'd think...just sayin.

If it weighs 32 pounds I will hold my hand around it all day. But I get what you're saying.

Lol! No doubt. Biggest I've shot this year was just over 25, so my dedication hasn't reached that level yet.

Maybe he swallowed a few lead fishing weights.....I know of a few bass that have done it.......

All of mine are lead weighted, hopefully with about 55 grains, but if I'm being honest it's just as often 110.

Pretty sad but not surprising, when money is on the line there will always be someone willing to cheat. Sounds like a tournament observer needs to be assigned to each team. I look at this as theft and appropriate charges should filed. Putting a few in jail will have an impact.

I guess there was no winner in the latest Big Bobcat Contest. Maybe they only killed small bobcats, but wouldn't there still be a biggest bobcat even if all the bobcats they killed were small? Just wondering.

What???

I agree with the sentiment that it is attempted theft. The observer part would be a bit tough though, last month there were 695 entrants.

Of course there was a winner. 2 man team with a cat that weighed 31 lbs 10 ounces.

He wadnt last, so he cheated

Looks like it will be a Texas only hunt for now on.

Yup, and some new protocol for guarding against weighted cats...

I've mentioned it to them multiple times about making it where hunters can't shoot from a moving vehicle as well. But they don't even respond. I know of multiple teams that run coyotes down and shoot them. As long as the player is playing they can use the trolling rule. All they simply have to do is say you can not shoot from moving vehicle.

I've seen how slow rolling fox country can pile up foxes as well.

More cheating.................looks like more trespassing to win.....SMH

The winners trespassed?

What happened? I didn't hear anything about last weekends winner yet...

there is definite problem they need to fix

Seems there were some questions never answered, or maybe answered in another post... Any final fines or jail time or loss of equipment?