The Dark Secret of "Americas Big Bass Guru" - Angling Legend Mike Long Outed as Cheater and Fraud

[W00K #17]

The Dark Secret of “America’s Big Bass Guru”

How a catfish poacher lied, cheated, snagged, bribed and bullied his way to become the big bass king of the world Mike Long was, and to some of you, is, widely considered not only the best big bass fisherman in the world, but one of its best anglers. He has…

sdfish.com

This is an in depth, investigative piece at 9 pages, so I'll just post a tl,dr as well.
If you're not familiar with this guy, he is something of a celebrity in the largemouth bass trophy fishing scene. He was considered one of the pioneers in the wave of anglers who discovered massive bass could be had in the clear water reservoirs of San Diego and other Californian cities. He has countless big bass competition wins and held many lake records. He claims to have caught hundreds of 10+ pound fish, including one that weighed over 20 pounds and was the 9th heaviest largemouth ever recorded.

All of it was a lie. Mike Long stands accused of cheating, allegedly intentionally side-snagging his bass instead of catching them with conventional lures. This is a BIG no-no in the game fish world, for example just posting a pic of a fish that you snagged on accident without mentioning it is bad form, doing so in a competition, or for monetary gain such as in a tournament or to submit as a record is a mortal sin.

Mike Long is a lying cheating fraud, and also my new personal angling lolcow.

Video below proves what hes doing. You can see him attach a large plain treble hook on a drop shot, sight cast to big, spawning bass on a bed, then deliberately drive the treble hook into its side. Take the hook out, sometimes replace it with a DIFFERENT hook from a different bait, then take his pics before finally releasing the fish. DISGUSTING.

"With so many rumors of cheating, lies and fake lake records, he’s backed himself into a corner on social media, only posting to his private Instagram account where he can control the comments and dialogue. If anyone questions or criticizes him, he deletes their comment(s) and blocks them. He’s also working on a video series featuring underwater footage of largemouth bass and promised to include some cast-to-catch footage even."

 

[Marissa Moira]

So you're saying everything he's done up until now is fishy?

 

[Exorbital Columnations]

So you're saying everything he's done up until now is fishy?

Wadda basshole.

 

[Clop]

I never understood sports fishers anyway. Eat the fucking fish.

 

[whatever I feel like]

So he actually did catch the fish? Sounds legit to me.

edit: Reading the article, nah he's scum. For those who don't want to read nine long pages of bass fishing talk, he had permission to fish a big lake whenever he wanted and would take fish he got there at off hours to other lakes to claim records.

 

[break these cuffs]

I never understood sports fishers anyway. Eat the fucking fish.

A lot of times you can't depending on the state, the species, and the season or there is a small bag limit like 1-3.

 

[Clop]

A lot of times you can't depending on the state, the species, and the season or there is a small bag limit like 1-3.

Teach a man to fish and he'll be confused and hungry for a lifetime.

 

[break these cuffs]

Teach a man to fish and he'll be confused and hungry for a lifetime.

I don't know about all states, but there is a lot of work by government biologists and universities to study and promote healthy game populations where I live. Recreational hunting and fishing is big business. Wardens do take that shit seriously too. Sometimes retardidly so.

 

[W00K #17]

I never understood sports fishers anyway. Eat the fucking fish.

Let em go let em grow.

If you just blindly take home and eat literally every fish you catch, you wont have a very good fishing spot for very long. Sometimes a fish is too small to keep, sometimes it's simply too big to want to kill. Sometimes I just wanna get outdoors and relax and have fun for a bit, without trying to take anything home.

 

[Kirito]

Let em go let em grow.

If you just blindly take home and eat literally every fish you catch, you wont have a very good fishing spot for very long. Sometimes a fish is too small to keep, sometimes it's simply too big to want to kill. Sometimes I just wanna get outdoors and relax and have fun for a bit, without trying to take anything home.

Large bass taste like shit too. The ones that are good for eating are the ones that are just legal size.

 

[ProgKing of the North]

What a bass tard

 

[Kaiser Wilhelm's Ghost]

I never understood sports fishers anyway. Eat the fucking fish.

If you live in a place where you can't fish, then sport fish otherwise, eat it.
Still this is pretty fucking dirty. It's like weakening a big game animal with poison before you go hunting.

@W00K #17 I don't know a whole lot about fishing, but I'm supposing side snagging causes real damage to the fish?

 

[WhoBusTank69]

I don't know a whole lot about fishing, but I'm supposing side snagging causes real damage to the fish?

It's unnecessarily harmful to the fish and is considered unsportsman-like conduct because you aren't actively using a lure to entice a fish into biting. Treble hooks, which is what the guy was using, are three-pronged hooks and are typically used for snagging because of it.
The growing popularity of snagging was also connected to overfishing, which pushed it into being prohibited if not outright illegal in most states.

 

[From The Uncanny Valley]

He had us hook line and sinker!

 

[The best and greatest]

Let em go let em grow.

If you just blindly take home and eat literally every fish you catch, you wont have a very good fishing spot for very long. Sometimes a fish is too small to keep, sometimes it's simply too big to want to kill. Sometimes I just wanna get outdoors and relax and have fun for a bit, without trying to take anything home.

Truthfully a lot of the time people end up killing the fish anyway in how they take the hook out or if the fish swallows it too deep. This is what makes some of the mentioned details extra vile to me, since he punctures them not once but then again after having already caught it. Animal cruelty makes for a nice nugget of shit on top I think.

I never understood sports fishers anyway. Eat the fucking fish.

No thanks, I'm allergic to mercury.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

I never understood sports fishers anyway. Eat the fucking fish.

Some fish species aren't allowed to be kept, like muskellunge in Tennessee. You can't control what bites, so if you pull it out, it has to go back.

Or, you have cases where you catch a fish but it's not quite large enough to be worth keeping, like small bluegills.

Or, you may be catching way more fish than you could reasonably eat/sell your way through.

 

[Anonymous For This]

Bill Dance is the only fishing master that matters.

 

[Karl der Grosse]

Some fish species aren't allowed to be kept, like muskellunge in Tennessee. You can't control what bites, so if you pull it out, it has to go back.

Or, you have cases where you catch a fish but it's not quite large enough to be worth keeping, like small bluegills.

Or, you may be catching way more fish than you could reasonably eat/sell your way through.

If you're a musky fisherman, you don't have to worry about eating them. Because you'll never catch any.

 

[Hollywood Hulk Hogan]

So he actually did catch the fish? Sounds legit to me.

edit: Reading the article, nah he's scum. For those who don't want to read nine long pages of bass fishing talk, he had permission to fish a big lake whenever he wanted and would take fish he got there at off hours to other lakes to claim records.

Snagging a fish intentionally is a big no-no in the fishing world (with very few exceptions, like paddlefish season in certain states). If you snag one accidentally (which does happen to everyone), you are supposed to let it go immediately. A pro doing it intentionally is equal to an MLB player using a metal bat instead of wood.

EDIT: To explain the video evidence, it's pretty obvious he's snagging. He is reeling in super slow (almost to a stop) and carefully to get the bait under the fish, then when it looks like he sets the hook (when he pulls back real hard and fast), he is trying to hook the fish. Best example is at 4:12