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Pro angler Yusuke Miyazaki, from Forney, Texas, on Cayuga Lake, New York during the 2014 Elite Bassmaster Fishing Tournament. WInners in the Bassmasters Elite Series Tournaments are required to take lie detector tests.

(Dick Blume | dblume@syracuse.com)

Those who run fishing tournaments across Upstate New York with big cash payouts have an ace in the hole when it comes to lying, cheating anglers.

It's a polygraph test.

"It's sad, but I have known of people who have cheated for $15 just to get their names on the winner's list," said Will Elliot, outdoors writer for the Buffalo News.

J.J. Elmer, of Red Creek, is tournament director of the Cashion Rods Tour, which is featuring four bass tournaments in New York this year, with cash prizes ranging from $3,000 to $7,000, depending on how many anglers participate.

"We always polygraph our winners," he said. It puts everyone else's mind at ease. He said it takes away the rumors, such as the anglers fished in waters that were out of bounds, or entered fish that were caught ahead of time or somewhere else.

Last weekend, Tim Cappon, of Williamson, who was the frontrunner in the Oneida Lake walleye derby, declined to attend the awards ceremony Sunday, which included a requirement that he take a lie detector test. Cappon said he didn't think he would win and had scheduled a Mother's Day family event at his home. He was disqualified and lost the $1,500 winner's check.

No one questioned Cappon's reason for no-showing. In fact, most complimented him on putting family first. However, a number of readers who commented online about the story and on social media questioned the need for lie-detector tests in fishing tournaments.

David Chilson runs the big LOC Derby on Lake Ontario, which offers more than $139,000 in prize money for the three, tournament series -- including a $25,000 check for the winner of his fall tournament.

"If we didn't demand polygraphs, people would cheat," he said. "Everyone knows, if you win you must show up with your fish and at the awards ceremony and take a polygraph if it's required. If you fail to show or refuse to take the test, you forfeit."

Chilson has been running the Ontario tournament for more than 20 years.Most of the time, when confronted with a polygraph, an angler who is suspected of cheating will simply withdraw his fish and not take the test, he said.

"I've had it happen about 30 times. Once I had seven people in a row withdraw," he said. "I once caught a charter boat captain who weighed a salmon under his name, and again under one of his client's.

Apart from his fishing tournaments, he recalled hearing of people with scuba diving equipment on Lake Erie who caught bass beforehand and put them in cages underwater a and then hooked and reeled them in during a tournament.

"There's always something," he said. "Cheater don't do anybody any favors. There hasn't been a year when I haven't thrown someone out of one of my tournaments."

Hiring a polygraph expert and his or her equipment costs around $350 to $400 per test administered, plus travel expenses, Chilson said.

Colin Morehouse, 86, has run the National Lake Trout Derby on Seneca Lake for the past 50 years. About 25 years ago, the tournament began demanding polygraphs of the tournament's grand prize winner for the biggest fish ($5,000), and often another division winner.. The polygraph tests are administered at the tournament's award ceremony before the checks are handed out.

"We have a sheriff's deputy who is certified to give polygraph tests. He brings his laptop and equipment," he said. "We haven't had anyone fail, but we have had potential winners and money earners fail to show to the awards ceremony."

Morehouse said he's dealt with anglers over the years who have "insisted on this and that a such as the time an angler misidentified a fish. He he said it was a rainbow, when it actually was a lake trout. I just stick to my guns. A rule is a rule."

Elliot remembers one tournament down at Chautauqua Lake where a bait shop owner near him had a big walleye kept a fish tank in his cellar. Some anglers took it and drove miles away to Chautauqua Lake to enter it in a small club tournament where a polygraph was not used.

"There are types out there who will do such things," he said.

Elliot cited a walleye tournament on Lake Erie during which anglers in several boats pooled their top catches and gave them other anglers in one or two boats so those anglers would have a better chance to win. Their cheating, though, was thwarted by the insistence by tournament directors that a polygraph test be administered.,

"It was the first time they made the anglers take one," he said. "A number of them (who were cheating) withdrew their entries with no questions asked."