[HN Gopher] Competitive Bass Fishing Cheaters (2014)
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Competitive Bass Fishing Cheaters (2014)
Author : EndXA
Score : 41 points
Date : 2024-04-02 17:37 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (grantland.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (grantland.com)
| debacle wrote:
| The lesson here is that, even when the stakes are small, human
| beings are still human beings, with all that that entails.
| lisper wrote:
| I was recently on a cruise. There was a daily trivia game on
| days when we were at sea. It got quite cutthroat, to the point
| where some passengers had to be reprimanded for abusing the
| crew. I was so appalled I stopped participating.
|
| The prize we were competing for was a baseball cap.
| freedomben wrote:
| It's crazy to me how competitive some people get, and how
| they justify their behavior to themselves. There is a parent
| of a kid in a group with my kids, and they started shouting
| obscenities at a judge who they disagreed with. I can't
| imagine behaving that way at all, let alone _in front of my
| children._ I don 't know how they can expect their
| michaelcampbell wrote:
| > I can't imagine behaving that way at all, let alone in
| front of my children. I don't know how they can expect
| their
|
| Uhoh, they've said too much...
| freedomben wrote:
| Ha! :-D
|
| Too late to edit now, but I decided against writing that
| last sentence but apparently I failed at deleting it. I
| was thinking to say "I don't know how they can expect
| their children to act decently when they model such
| indecent behavior" but it felt a little too harsh.
| extraduder_ire wrote:
| I think this phenomenon is known as "the lesser the juice,
| the tighter the squeeze".
|
| It's also what makes listing something as free-to-take on
| something like craigslist more of a headache than putting a
| small price on it.
| michaelcampbell wrote:
| This works in reverse, too; want to give something away?
| Put it on the street with a "Free" sign, and watch it sit
| for days.
|
| Instead, put a "$25" sign on it and its gone within the
| hour.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| Bah. Why didn't I think of this. Last time I moved, I was
| upset nobody wanted to take my table+chairs set. Would
| gladly have given someone a chance to "steal" them. They
| even would have a story to tell.
| wredue wrote:
| My neighbourhood used to put on an Easter egg hunt for the
| kids. Parents donate a bunch of chocolate eggs and other
| volunteers spread them around a large park.
|
| Unfortunately this event had to be cancelled because some
| parent were running around with their kids in their arms to
| pick up the most eggs, others were shoving 4 year old kids,
| other yet were watching 3 year olds waddle in their oversized
| snow suit to an egg excitedly, but would run up and take the
| egg.
|
| I never imagined that it would go that badly.
|
| Mind you, we did attempt several years with different rules
| and communications that parents aren't to be involved and it
| didn't help.
| tombert wrote:
| This is why I refuse to play Overcooked or Overcooked 2 ever
| again. Every time I've played, it ends with me being yelled at
| because I'm not very good at it, and getting blamed for getting
| a one star.
|
| At one point when a friend suggested it, I passed and said
| "look dude, I can get paid for someone yelling at me, and have
| just as much fun." It's a stupid video game, zero stakes, but
| those games in particular seem to just turn people into
| assholes.
| HanClinto wrote:
| haha, yeah.
|
| It's so weird -- I first played this in the context of
| coworkers during a week-long hackathon event, and we played
| Overcooked to blow off steam. It was a ton of fun.
|
| Later, I was looking for good multiplayer games to play as a
| family, and with those fond memories I picked up Overcooked
| for the Switch. Boy, was that a mistake. My kids normally get
| along fine, but this brought out every bad tendency they had
| for bad cooperation and blame. Never again. The kids still
| vividly remember that and refuse to play that one together
| ever again.
| michaelcampbell wrote:
| This is kind of why I dislike coop games. In competitive
| games, if I suck, fine, I suck and I get the low score or
| do badly.
|
| In coop, if I suck (and let me assure that in general, I
| do), I've let down the team and I get the stinkeye at best.
| tombert wrote:
| My wife and I played through It Takes Two a couple years
| ago, and we actually really liked it. The game is
| actually mandatory coop (there's no single player
| option), but it's low-stakes. It was fun playing through
| all the puzzles with her, so much so that we actually
| played through it again.
| david422 wrote:
| Overcooked is about playing and interacting with friends...
| the game quest is secondary. If the game quest comes first,
| then you probably don't actually want to play with those
| friends.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| I hate that you had a bad experience with it. I love that
| game. Laughing at each others blunders is what makes it
| entertaining.
| password4321 wrote:
| I'll always remember this comment re: Overcooked 2:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31618955#31624381
|
| > _If you put your heart in it, you learn to communicate
| effectively under pressure (especially when trying to conquer
| those 4th stars), tolerate /move-on from each other's
| mistakes, and control your temper around each other._
| tombert wrote:
| My wife and I will play through point n click games
| together. There's no "pressure", but I find I have more fun
| bouncing ideas on how to solve puzzles with her, and it
| doesn't really matter who's playing at that point.
| fragmede wrote:
| I'm sorry you're getting yelled at, Overcooked is supposed to
| be fun. That game brings out who people are though, so it's a
| good proxy for how people will behave in other situations. If
| someone starts yelling at you and blaming you for failing,
| that's on them, not you. I'd use that to find someone who
| doesn't yell and blame you and become all shitty towards you,
| rather than not playing the game again.
| tombert wrote:
| Sure, but there are lots and lots of games out there to
| play. Even if it's not entirely fair, it's not like I'm
| really depriving myself of much by not playing it.
| martinky24 wrote:
| Really miss Grantland, that was some of my favorite content on
| the internet at the time. Shame it got shut down the way it did.
|
| Haven't found something that replaces the exact itch it scratched
| for me at the time. Some good Substacks are the closest.
| parpfish wrote:
| longform stuff on defector (the writer-owned site built from
| the ashes of deadspin) hits a lot of the same notes for me
| hluska wrote:
| There was a recent case involving cheating at a walleye fishing
| tournament:
|
| https://www.outdoorlife.com/fishing/walleye-anglers-sentence...
| sharpshadow wrote:
| So how does the cheat work?
| qup wrote:
| > Whenever I told friends of mine I was working on a story
| about cheating at bass fishing, they always asked the same
| thing: How in the world do you cheat at bass fishing? Let me
| count the ways, I'd tell them.
|
| > By far, the most common way people cheat is to store a fish
| basket or pet taxi under a dock, filled with lunkers they'd
| caught before the event, and then retrieve the fish while they
| were supposed to be out fishing. A variation on this would be
| to attach a string to a stump in the water and hook various
| fish to the string. This way allows fishermen to retrieve the
| fish while faking that they actually caught them, just in case
| they were paired up in the boat with a competitor. There was
| the story that Ray Scott told me about a man who showed up for
| a tournament wearing a full-length raincoat even though there
| wasn't a cloud in the sky -- his partner later discovered the
| man had a string of bass draped around his neck. There was the
| guy in the U.K. who last year won a bass fishing tournament
| with a 13-pounder, only to have the second-place finisher
| recognize the giant bass from a recent trip he had taken to the
| local aquarium with his daughter. They called the aquarium and,
| sure enough, it was missing a big bass. People have been caught
| buying fish off of noncompetitors on the lake during an event,
| or sharing fish between colluding teams.
| kristjansson wrote:
| > his partner later discovered the man had a string of bass
| draped around his neck
|
| Incredible. I guess you have to hope the other person catches
| early so they don't notice the smell!
| ryandrake wrote:
| There was a video[1] going around about a year ago of some
| guys who cheated in a fishing tournament by stuffing weights
| inside their fish. Wild what people are willing to do!
|
| 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ga3Rj9oaMWA
| acangiano wrote:
| In a recent scandal, salmon fillets wrapped around lead
| weights shoven down the fish's troats was also used to cheat.
| Severian wrote:
| Unless it was something brand new, it was the Walleye
| species:
|
| https://www.beaconjournal.com/story/news/2022/10/12/walleye
| -...
|
| https://www.beaconjournal.com/story/news/crime/2023/05/11/l
| a...
| umvi wrote:
| Pre-caught fish that the fisher pretends to catch somehow (fish
| tethered to some underwater anchor, etc).
|
| Article doesn't mention it, but seems like you could easily
| brute force it - if the prize money is big enough you simply
| have your friend scuba dive in the lake with a closed system
| and in possession of a huge pre-caught bass. Then you meet at a
| predetermined spot in the lake where your friend attaches the
| fish to your hook and you reel it in. Then you split the prize
| later. This would only work on big lakes though or there would
| be witnesses of a scuba diver exiting the lake at some point.
| causality0 wrote:
| _You don't just pull the fish in with all your might. That's a
| sure way to break your line and let the fish escape._
|
| How much stronger would fishing line have to be before you could
| brute force 95% of fish in?
| slcjordan wrote:
| They definitely make line that is strong enough but it's
| thicker and fish that spot it are hesitant to take the bait. So
| there's a balance: strong enough not to lose fish but thin
| enough to gain an edge over the other competitors.
| Y_Y wrote:
| I was thinking about designing a line that thickened and
| strengthened in response to the tension of reeling, but that
| I realized a negative poisson ratio was the opposite of what
| I wanted.
| munificent wrote:
| This is a complicated question.
|
| In general, yes, you can absolutely put strong enough line on
| that will let you haul a fish straight out of the water
| dangling from it. It you fish for small fish (perch, bluegill,
| etc.), that's basically what you do every time. They are small
| enough that even the lightest line will still hold them.
|
| The challenge, though, is that the stronger the line is, the
| more visible it is to the fish, and the less finesse you have
| when fishing with it. More visible line can spook fish and get
| you fewer bites. And a thicker, stiffer line can make it harder
| for you to work the lure in a realistic way that entices fish
| to bite.
|
| So you're always making the trade-off where lighter line means
| more bites but a greater risk of not landing the fish if it
| breaks the line. Stronger lines mean fewer bites but if you get
| a hookset, you can probably land the fish.
|
| There are other complications too: fish aren't the only thing
| in the water. Stronger line can help you not lose lures if it
| gets tangled on branches or other obstructions.
|
| On the other hand, lighter line is _more fun_ to fish with. You
| feel what the fish is doing much more clearly and the fight is
| more interactive. Catching a small fish using a big stiff
| fishing rod with heavy line feels like listening to music with
| earplugs in. You lose a lot of the experience.
|
| Also, there are different kinds of line: monofilament,
| fluorocarbon, braid. And you don't have to use the same kind of
| line for the whole length. Sometimes it makes sense to have a
| leader (a short section of line at the end) that's lighter or
| heavier than your main line.
|
| One of the delights of fishing is that it's an endless problem-
| solving exercise in gear optimization.
| RajT88 wrote:
| Just to add on a bit more, there is a saying (more among fly
| fisherman), "the tug is the drug". Some people get a thrill
| knowing they are at the limit of their gear and find that
| heightened sense of excitement to be pleasurable, not knowing
| what is going to happen. I imagine it is like gamblers
| watching roulette.
|
| This is also why some guys like to pike fish on ultralight
| gear.
| Severian wrote:
| Yup, I once worked in a 18lb freshwater drum on 6lb rated
| line. Took me about 1/2 hour. Was in a dam spillway with some
| noticeable current. Both the fish and I was worn out. And the
| poor dude was thrown back in, they aren't really very
| eatable.
| munificent wrote:
| That's a life-long memory right there.
| dwighttk wrote:
| Also the hook still has to hold
| gumby wrote:
| I first parsed "competitive bass fishing cheaters" as cheaters
| who competed with each other for the best technique.
|
| Then I realised that was silly -- they are cheating to beat
| _everyone_. A classic "garden path" sentence.
|
| Then I realised that both interpretations are correct.
| rrr_oh_man wrote:
| For the other lucky 9,999:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden-path_sentence
| ugh123 wrote:
| Wow thank you. Been looking for a definition of these kinds
| of sentences for a long time!
| shagie wrote:
| https://xkcd.com/2793/ is the relevant xkcd... and the
| explain https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2793:_Ga
| rden_Path...
| rrr_oh_man wrote:
| ...And for the "other 9,999" part: https://xkcd.com/1053/
| and https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1053:_Ten_
| Thousan...
| Y_Y wrote:
| I misread that as "garden path sentience" and imagined that you
| were a paved walkway who had gained the power of self-
| reflection.
| pluc wrote:
| Aw, one of my first project in web development was a fishing
| tournament platform so for some odd reason that's dear to my
| heart (though I care little for the actual thing). Probably the
| best intro you can have to "never trust user input".
| dang wrote:
| Discussed (just a bit) at the time:
|
| _The Weight of Guilt: Competitive bass fishing cheaters_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8694091 - Dec 2014 (1
| comment)
| rpmisms wrote:
| Count Dankula (yes, Nazi pug guy) did a good mini-doc on one of
| the worst offenders. Got me interested, and wow, this goes a lot
| deeper than I thought. Of course every sport has cheaters, but
| some don't seem to be as egregious.
| acangiano wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhQwtPh4wOA
| seabass-labrax wrote:
| SEEKING WORK | Any pleasant body of water | Remote working not
| possible
|
| Experienced seabass seeking freelance position. Open to partners
| for fishy business at tournaments. Very handsome and sure to
| impress any tournament judge. (Note: only accepting contracts on
| a 'paid relocation back to water' basis).
| hollywood_court wrote:
| I'm pretty sure there is a Carl Hiaasen novel that deals with
| this.
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