Losing $900,000 For Not Having a $15 License

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My father in law is an avid deep sea fisherman.  We love it when he comes home with some fresh caught tuna or rock fish.  He frequently enters fishing tournaments.  One of the big ones is the White Marlin Tournament in Ocean City, MD.  He has won some prizes in these tournaments, and there have been a few times that he has come real close to winning a big prize.  I don't think he ever lost out to a prize like this poor group.

North Carolina recently held their annual Big Rock Blue Marlin Fishing Tournament with total prizes of $1.66 million.  The boat Citation managed to land an 883 pound marlin that would have been a record catch and good enough to garner a prize of $912,825. 

The tournament rules require that everyone on the boat have a North Carolina fishing license which costs $15 for residents or $30 for non residents.  Unfortunately, one of the crew members did not have a valid license. The offending crew member had told the boat owner and captain that he did have the license.  Consequently, due to the rules violation, the crew lost their record catch and more importantly, lost nearly $1 million.

As I mentioned before, my father in law has come close to winning one of these big prizes.  One time he lost by a very small amount of weight.  My brother in law asked him if he ever considered artificially adding some weight to the catch, in other words, cheat.  My father in law replied that the fishing community is a very close knit community and such an action would be reprehensible to him and the community.  I think to lie about  having a license would be just as reprehensible.  Especially when that lie costs your mates a cool million.

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