SHREVEPORT - Anglers schemed for nearly a week to try and win a bass tournament in Caddo Parish, game wardens said Thursday, going as far as to keep bass alive in a basket until they turned them in as if they were caught during a recent fishing tournament.

Hunter Moss, 24, and Phillip Purcell, 30, were cited for contest fraud.  Both men are from northwest Louisiana.  

The tournament was being held on Caddo Lake.

The Department of Wildlife and Fisheries said the men caught three bass in the week leading up to the contest and kept them alive in a basket near a dock on the lake.  When the fishing tournament started, they retrieved the bass and weighed them in as being caught during the tournament time, agents said.

After someone complained to game wardens, the pair were questioned and confessed, agents said in a news release. 

Moss and Purcell were cited on May 29.