My partner and I were fishing on a Friday evening before the last BFL event in Panhandle, fishing a point that dropped off at least 30' toward this small cove. We came across this stick with line wrapped around it, my partner wanted to retrieve it to remove it from the lake, much to our surprise the line was attached to a rope that led to a cage. 4 bass 4 to 5lbs each, alive and healthy.We released the bass, cut the rope and sank the cage in the channel. I bet whoever hunted that cove for an hour. I have always heard stories about cages but never found one until then. Now I hear stories of people banking their boat walking to ponds near the lake and filling their livewells with bass on TX day.I like to fish TX's, but people are nuts,either cheating or trying to run you over to fish in front of you. My patrner is old school and he swears that it is the Mike Iconellie(A-Z) era. Just wondering if anybody else has run across cages..

It sure would have been fun to stake it out from the woods this weekend and get the people on camera that left it. Or better yet released the fish and watch the suprise of pulling up a empty cage and laugh at them.

We thought about that, it would have been great to hear them cuss...

Anytime you throw money in the miz, people start doing things that they would not normally do. It is a shame that someone could lie down at night and sleep knowing they stole something from an angler who rightfully deserved. TRITON - I talked to you at Island Creek a few weeks ago, with my brother, while waiting for a storm to pass. Good talking to you and hope you are getting on some good largemouth!

TOBY

What I think would have been cool, Is to release the fish and put A note thanking the cage owners for such nice fish to weigh in. Telling them that you was worried about having good fish to weigh, But now your worries are all gone, And that you now have A good start in the tournament...

The proper thing to do would have been to call the fish and game department and let them snag these a-holes. By releasing their fish sure you ****** them off but they will just be out there again next time there is a tournament doing the same thing. It is illegal to do this so they should pay the penalties. Tell the fish and game dept. and they will stake the site out and bust these people.

Whoa boys!!Just don't think that this goes on in bass tourneys.No,no,this alot more goes on in other tourneys.That is one of the reasons i don't fish and never have fished tourneys.Oh,did i mention that i never will fish tourneys.When the sun goes do the cheaters come to life.

Many days are spent preparing for a Tournament.
There is no place in any lake for Cheaters at any time.
The BFL and Wildlife should have been notified.
This is wrong and should have been reported!

Fishing tournaments I would have personally seen to it that these boys would have paid for this one! I just can't believe that this wasn't reported, what were yall thinking of! These individuals have probably being doing this for some time and they will continue. They should have been caught!!! No one will probably have another chance to catch them.
The next tournament yall fish think about that 20 pound bag and wonder if those fish were caught legally. All tournaments winners should have to summit to a lie detector!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

These are probably the same guys who are stealing your fishing equipment down there in Clarksville. I've read what you are going to do to them when you catch them and I would have expected even worse for these tourney cheaters. That should have been reported and then videoed when they came for their fish for their trials and after the verdict they should have been hanged. Just my two cents worth. Makes me want to pay more attention to signs that lead to this find of the fish trap. Let's all do what Triton 1 did except this time we'll report it rather than letting the fish go and cutting the cage loose. We need to find these cheaters. Those fish should have been marked with a punched hole in their tails so that they could be identified at weigh-in. You sure did those cheaters a favor but not reporting it to the tourney directors there Triton 1.

Triton 1 , I doubt if most of us would have handled the situation much differently at the time. There's a lot of Monday Morning QB'ing going on here. I suspect after thinking about the situation , as we all are able to do, you may have done somthing something differently. One thing for sure. You almost certainly prevented someone from getting robbed. Congratulations! CC

Why are you all getting mad at Triton1? Geez, you all are acting like he was the one cheating or something.

I would have done the same thing. Quit busting the guy's balls.

If not turning them into the tourn. directors, I would have been tempted to leave a catfish or possibly an old crank bait or something in the trap to be sure that they know they were busted.

There was a tournament about 7-8 years ago and I was sitting on a crappie hurdle and a fisherman came into the cove throwing a buzz bait for all he was worth. While he was there we landed a bass in the 6lb range that hit a crappie minnow. The guy tried to buy the fish from us. We released the fish in front of the guy as he was asking to buy it. He wasnt too happy but he just moved on. From that point on I recognized how cheating could occur and have not even considered tourn. fishing. Tight Lines

TRAP

No, I'm not mad at Triton 1. The title of this topic is "Somebody's Mad" and it is all of us. None of this is directed at Triton 1 but at all of the lawlessness of some fishing equipement stealers and tourney cheaters. It is all of us fair minded people that are mad at the low lifes out there that cheat and steal. We are mainly expressing other options that could have come from this finding of the cage and how it could have been handled. It is food for thought on what someone else can use as possible ways to stop this cheating.

It is definately, hugely aggravating to know those kind of people are out there because they give the rest of the honest tournament anglers such a bad name!....but just a couple of thoughts -- if they were with the BFL, I can't understand HOW anyone (boater or non-boater) could pull that off? (as to the fact you don't know who you're going to be paired up with until the night before...???) Maybe I am just naive enough to believe they're are more honest anglers than dishonest. System of checks and balances - thats why that they pair them up that way? And secondly, I absolutely would have done whatever could've been done to snag them....if caught cheating in the larger tournaments (BFL) they would have been black-balled from EVER participating in ANY of the tournaments again. Minus that CHEATER.....just hopefully flush him from the whole circuit!!!

I'm with Dinky, it don't see how it could have been a BFL participant. The draw for those tournaments is random and the chances of getting paired up with a fellow cheater are virtually niel to none. More than likely it was a team tournament or a local club tournament that allows it's fisherman to fish alone. Just my 2 cents worth........

My buddy found 1 in Rudds during our club tournament in May. It was in really shallow water and empty.

You people might think i am stirring the pot here,but last year i found one in the Stauton River area and there was a catfishing tourny going on at the time.Didn't stop to check it out.I am not partial to one tourny or another,i am against ALL fishing tournaments.This stuff goes on all the time,but since i don't fish tournaments,it really doesn't affect me.