Take Me Fisting

Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judge Steven Gall on Thursday sentenced Jacob Runyan, 43, of Ashtabula and Chase Cominsky, 36, of Hermitage, Pennsylvania, to spend the next 10 days in the Cuyahoga County Jail.



Once they are released from jail, each will serve a year of probation and must pay a $2,500 fine. Gall also imposed an additional 30-day jail sentence if the men violate probation.

The fishermen agreed to have their fishing licenses suspended for up to three years as part of their plea. They also forfeited Cominsky’s Ranger bass boat, valued at $100,000, to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.

Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael O’Malley, after the hearing, compared the men to Pete Rose. He said much like the Cincinnati Reds great who was caught betting on games he participated in, the men deserve to be banned from their sport for life.

The men were in the running to be the trail’s team of the year, and their five fish needed to weigh a combined 16 pounds to win the prize. The fish weighed more than 33 pounds.



The tournament’s director, Jason Fischer, grew suspicious that the fish weighed that much and began to inspect them. That’s when spectators began recording.



The videos showed Fischer pulling the weights out of the fish during the weigh-in while Runyan watched. The director yelled, “We got weights in fish,” then gestured to Runyan like a baseball umpire ejecting a manager from a game.