Imagine you won thousands of dollars in a competition, only to have the check bounce! That's exactly what happened to some fishermen who recently won the American Bass Anglers' tournament.
They held a fishing tournament in Georgia. Unfortunately, when these bass fishermen went to cash in their winnings, the check bounced. Several fishermen are speaking out to WAFF-48 after the incident. They said their checks bounced, and they're still waiting to get paid. First place winners are owed a $1,900 check.
"They never reached out to me after that return check; I actually reached out to them," Rick Bradley, who placed second in the tournament, said. He said that ABA reached out to confirm that another check would go to the right address.
The ABA's president, Morris Sheehan, released an official statement about the issue. He said, "We recently encountered an unexpected system issues that resulted in some tournament payout checks not clearing as intended. I want to personally assure all American Bass Anglers members that this was not intentional, and we are working quickly to resolve the matter with all affected members."
Fishermen Call Out Tournament
However, Slick Johnson, an influencer, says fishermen have had issues getting paid from the tournament in the past.
"They're taking money from the anglers ... about 90 percent of the checks are bouncing," Johnson alleges in his video. "There's people that have been [waiting for] two months. When it happened at Eufala, [we] thought it was a one-time thing when all the checks bounced ... Several of those checks cleared, but some still haven't."
Bradley and other fishermen competed in the Military Team Bass Tournament at West Point Lake in LaGrange, Georgia, from April 30 to May 2. Johnson continues to call out the tournament organizer for the lack of transparency.
"They only paid out like $4,000-something, but every one of those [checks] bounced," Johnson said. "They're saying, 'Well, we're waiting to get money from this city so that we can pay the payouts and make the checks.' But I'm getting calls every single day [from] people who aren't getting paid."
