Przekurat

By Gene Kemmeter

STEVENS POINT – Jay Przekurat, 20, a Mid-State Technical College student from Stevens Point, won the co-angler division title in the Basspro.com Bassmaster Central Open tournament on Grand Lake in Grove, OK, on Sept. 14.

Przekurat, fishing in his first season, made some last-minute catches to record a total of nine fish weighing 24 pounds, 2 ounces during the three-day tournament. Przekurat, a student in marketing at Mid-State who plans to graduate in the spring, won $14,400 and said he’ll probably use his winnings toward school.

He said the tournament was quite an experience for him, “That’s for sure. It was hot down there, I can tell you that. 95 degrees and no wind. And 90 degrees was the water temperature.”

The last-minute catches helped Przekurat hold onto the lead he had taken the first day and wound up holding it throughout.

Przekurat said he would like to go into the fishing industry at some point in the future, but he’s going to wait to make a decision when he graduates.

He comes from a fishing family. His father, Jason Przekurat, has won several walleye tournaments as a professional, most recently the 2016 Cabela’s National Walleye Tournament (NWT) Championship on Lake Oahe in Mobridge, SD, which was his first pro-am championship win. But Jay said he prefers bass fishing to walleye.

Walleye fishing was the big thing back in the day when his father started fishing professionally, Jay said, but now bass competition has grown bigger. “There’s more money in bass fishing and more opportunities. Bass fishing is spread across the U.S., instead of the northern part where walleye is more dominant.”

Jay fished as a co-angler, who is a bass fisher who wants to compete in tournaments without a boat. The co-angler is paired in a boat with a professional fisher so the co-angler can learn more about bass fishing. The co-angler usually fishes separately from the professional during tournaments.

Jay said he fished with three different boater professionals during the Grand Lake tournament, and they all helped. In order to fish on the third day of the tournament, he said he had to make the top 12 so he could be paired with someone in the top 12 of the professionals.

Jay had a big day on the first day, catching his limit with three fish that weighed 11-1/2 pounds. “We fished in isolated areas and just got the right bites,” he said. “I caught my biggest fish with last fish of the day.”

On the second day, he was paired with Adam Neu from Sturgeon Bay, a professional he had traveled with for other tournaments down South. “It was a stressful day,” Jay said. “He had his first keeper at noon, but there was 10 minutes to go before we went in, and I caught two fish in the last two minutes. Without those two, I probably wouldn’t have made the top 12.”

The third day, Jay was paired with Cade Laufenberg, originally from La Crosse but now from Winona, MN. He said Cade had told him the day before he hadn’t pulled any fish. Jay said he told him about the one area he fished and said they could catch fish, so they went there.

Jay said he caught two fish, “but it was tough the rest of the day. Toward the end of day, we went back to first area, although we didn’t know if there were any fish there. Cade caught one and then he almost had a three-pounder.”

Jay had a special year fishing. He collected $607 for finishing 27th at the 2019 Basspro.com Central Open at Smith Lake, Ala., in April and won three bass tournaments in Wisconsin. He won the Wisconsin Bass Nation Classic in Madison in June to qualify to fish for the state team next year in the regional tournament and also won the Nepco Lake Tournament and the Wisconsin River Series at Boom Lake in Rhinelander.