Performance Profile: Jason Przekurat

RCL Angler of the Year

Jason Przekurat, the newly minted 2003 RCL Angler of the Year, is one part strategist, one part hard-core competitor and one part optimist with a serious sense of spin. Just add water.

Take the Wal-Mart RCL Walleye Tour event in June on Devils Lake, N.D., where Przekurat ranked fifth in the Angler of the Year standings going into the final qualifying event. There he would have to unseat the four competitors ahead of him in the points standings and surpass at least half a dozen others below him who had a legitimate shot at the title.

What, worry? “In Devils, when I found out there were 200 boats (in the tournament), I figured, `Good, that would be more guys who I can beat out, and I can make Angler of the Year.'”

In a crowded field at Devils, it would have been easy to lose the mental edge with a sense of fatalism – that he was playing catch-up and that so many boats, including a fair share of local guides and regional experts, were in the field. Not so for Przekurat, who sensed strategic advantage, not apprehension, in the last and perhaps most challenging leg of the Wal-Mart RCL Walleye Tour points race.

“Coming into Devils Lake, anyone in the top 12 could have taken it,” RCL tournament director Sonny Reynolds said. “Last year we had four, maybe five anglers in the hunt at the last tournament. This was an old-fashioned shoot-out.”

Ultimately, the 33-year-old from Stevens Point, Wis., parlayed a year’s worth of consistency and a flair for the strong finish into not only the Angler of the Year title but also $10,000 and a Ranger boat. On the strength of a 15th-place finish on the Illinois River, a 20th on Lake Sharpe and a 41st on Lake Erie, Przekurat was in contention. With a 10th on Devils and a top-20 cut secured with minutes to spare on day two, Przekurat was on his way to take the title in dramatic fashion.

Double zero

It was a considerable but calculated jump from a time when Przekurat partnered with Land O’Lakes pro Eric Olson, now living in Red Wing, Minn., and they both blanked on both days of a tournament on another circuit.

“When we took a double zero, I said, `Mark this one down in the books,'” Przekurat said. “We will never let this happen again.”

Steeled by a poor performance with Olson, a friend, confidant and teammate of his, Przekurat has since rebounded with strong finishes – a spot in the finals in the first Wal-Mart RCL Walleye Championship in 2000 on Green Bay; a consistent 2002 that had him in fifth for Angler of the Year going into the last tournament before a second-day shortfall; and now 2003 Angler of the Year with more than $16,000 in winnings, including making the top-20 cut in three of the four qualifying events.

Then, as now, Przekurat has fished in association with others – namely Olson in the early years of team competition. More recently, in the RCL, Przekurat and Olson have added to their confederacy Joe Whitten of Toledo, Ohio, and Patrick Byle of Hartford, Wis. It is standard practice in walleye tournaments for “teams” to form in an effort to dissect water and develop patterns. (It is less common among bass anglers, who say that it is more difficult to share fish when they don’t run in schools of hundreds and even thousands and, as a result, none of the teammates do particularly well.)

Together, the team had a strong 2003 and should continue to perform because of what might diplomatically be called a setback in the tournament on Lake Erie. To wit, in the season opener on the Illinois River, Olson finished third (when Przekurat, too, made the cut). On Devils, Whitten was in 10th after day one (and finished ninth), Olson in 15th, Przekurat in 18th. But they were without Byle, who took the tournament off after swamping his boat in big waves on the final day on Erie. Byle, however, pre-fished with the crew, his first time back on the water after Erie – which, Przekurat says, gave the team a new level of loyalty and cohesiveness. In fact, Whitten and Przekurat even offered Byle a boat if either of them won it and he needed it.

“The honesty we have in our group is, bar none, better than anybody,” said Przekurat, who raced to the launch on Erie after he had heard that a red Ranger with Wisconsin tags was floating around without passengers and Przekurat feared the worst (another competitor, Bob Domek, brought Byle and his co-angler to shore). “When we send someone to an area and he says there’s nothing going on, we trust him.”

Przekurat says there was not a dry eye among his teammates when Byle returned safely with Domek.

A crystalline moment

The Erie experience, it seems, was a crystalline moment for the team in more ways than one. Not only did it bring them together, but it also probably earned Przekurat the Angler of the Year title. The reason is that, after Przekurat’s less-than-stellar first day in the heavyweight Erie tournament, Whitten insisted Przekurat fish near him the next day, which Przekurat tried to refuse, saying Whitten was in the hunt for the win. When Whitten insisted to the point of obstinacy, Przekurat fished the same area and climbed from an also-ran in the standings to 41st, tallying crucial points.

The tournaments were also evidence of the team’s and Przekurat’s own versatility. In Ilinois, Przekurat and the others handlined, trolling heavy weights without rods and with long leaders trailing minnow baits. On Sharpe, Przekurat pitched jigs to shallows. On Erie, of course, they all trolled. Come Devils, they opted for slip bobbers in the trees.

But it was Przekurat’s decision to abandon his No. 1 spot that would make the difference when the wind ripped on day two on Devils. By 11 a.m., Przekurat had kept two small fish but wasn’t willing to give up.

“I told my partner, `There are my two mistakes,'” said Przekurat, who decided to up, move and cast crankbaits. “I picked everything up and ran 20 miles. I had one spot I’d found in practice that was big enough for two boats. There was nobody there, and within five minutes, we had three fish for 18 pounds.

“I went to a different pocket in the trees and nailed a 5-pounder and then a 4 1/2. I left my first spot at 11:30 and by 1 p.m. had 23 1/2 pounds.”

Thus, Przekurat climbed to sixth overall, making the top-20 cut and cinching the Angler of the Year race over his next-closest competitor, friend Joe Whitten.

Eventually, Przekurat says, he would like to fish full time – when the time is right, depending on what strides he can make with sponsors behind the momentum of his newly secured title. He is already sponsored by Ranger, Evinrude and Garmin. For now, though, he says he wants to focus on fishing the four qualifying events in 2004, and spending time with his family. Przekurat has a wife, Jody, and two boys: Jay, 4, and Jack, 1 1/2. He also has a full-time day job with Gander Mountain in Stevens Point.

If he couldn’t do it without them, he also could not do it without his teammates, his competitive drive and his penchant for spinning a potentially difficult situation into a positive. He did it with Byle’s troubles on Erie. He did it in the waning hours on Devils when the Angler of the Year title was at stake. What he does next could and should be no less momentous, if you just add water.