John couldn’t stop thinking about what he saw, which supported his suspicion that Long was bringing bass to the tournaments. The Kerrs left promptly after seeing Long was upset by the situation, and went back to their home, also in Ramona, to prepare for the following day’s National Bass West Tournament at Lake Hodges. I asked him ‘why do the fish need to stay in your tank?’ He said they needed to be acclimated before being put in the pond.” He came back out, composed, and told us he was stocking a pond down the road. John also thought it was weird that Long was housing bass in his garage, “Mike came over from the neighbor’s house in a golf cart, and Jordan asked him about the fish and he got upset, went inside and started yelling at his wife about leaving the garage door open. I asked him what was up with those bass, and he said he was stocking a pond.” Jordan Kerr, now 25, said, “I look in the garage and I see two big bass, one about seven and the other about five. Note the aquarium, visible behind him, below the plaques. Mike Long sitting in his Ranger Bass Boat in the garage of his Ramona home in April of 2010. Near the stern of the boat was a large fish tank occupied by a pair of largemouth bass. Upon arriving they found the garage door open, his Ranger Bass Boat parked inside. On Friday, Kerr brought his 13-year-old son Jordan by Long’s new home to see it for the first time. They completed construction in the Spring of 2008, and moved in. In 2007, Long and his wife purchased a 4.5-acre lot in Ramona’s Heritage Ranch and began construction on a 3,255-square foot contemporary home with a four-car garage. Speculation aside, real evidence was starting to fall through the cracks that was tough for Long to explain. Nobody can win that much without cheating, nobody,” Bailey said about why he thought Long was cheating at the time. Art Bailey, an accomplished tournament angler, former Navy Sailor, and notoriously honorable individual was the first I remember calling Long out publicly. He was rattling off tournament wins at a feverish pace, and the suspicions among the rest of the field ratcheted up from whispers to screams. Between Maand Maa one year period - Long won 12 tournaments in total, eight of them fishing solo! And then he laid down a 3rd, 1st, 1st, 1st, 38th, and 1st in subsequent consecutive tournaments. But, Long won the very next tournament he entered after it. ![]() A 19th-place finish with Kerr, broke the streak. ![]() That win with Holverson in May 2008 marked the fifth straight tournament that Long had won, spanning four different series’ and three different bodies of water. Prior to their win on May 3, 2008, Holverson and Long had fished four tournaments together dating back to 2004. With Kerr he won twice, but added five wins by himself and once with Todd Holverson, a veteran team tournament angler who he had fished with sporadically over the years. It was around this time that Kerr was starting to have real serious concerns about what Long was doing and how he was doing it in tournaments, “I had an inkling that he was doing some things in his boat, so the last year we fished together I said, “we’re fishing in my boat, I got it wrapped with my sponsor, we’re fishing out of my boat or we’re not fishing together.” The 2007/2008 WON Bass Season would be their last as partners, which they wrapped up with their sixth straight “Anglers of the Year” win as series champs.Ģ008 was the year that Long really ramped things up as a tournament angler. But this had become the norm in their partnership - Kerr caught the fish, Long took the credit. ![]() I don’t remember if we culled it or it made it to the scale,” he said. “Mike caught one swimbait fish, a 6-pounder that we didn’t need, or it was the smallest one in the well. Kerr said the truth was something entirely different, Long contributed nearly nothing to that limit.
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