I used to fish Bass tournaments when I was in high school and college. The same fisherman won all the time. Their trick.....If it was a Saturday tournament they would fish Friday.....catch bass and cage them over night on the river. The bass they brought in were always beat up...like they had been in a cage all night. This was for $300 top prize. People will cheat at anything.
That’s actually what I suspected was going to be the case first time I saw the headline but hadn’t read the article yet. I thought maybe someone pre-caught some fish and planted it or smuggled it.
Putting weights in the fish seems risky to me. Most people ought to be able to eye of the fish and give a decent guesstimate of the weight just by looking at it if they’ve been fishing for some time. If they keep winning on weight with fish that don’t look comparatively big, someone’s going to start asking questions.