COLUMBIA, S.C. — The 2024 Bassmaster Elite Series season crossed the halfway point at the conclusion of Saturday’s Day 2 weigh-in at Lake Murray. We are 4 ½ tournaments into a 9-tournament season. Every day of every tournament the rest of the way will receive increasingly more attention as the Progressive Bassmaster Angler of the Year race comes into tighter focus.
Day 2 at Lake Murray may be one of those days that in hindsight was crucial to the eventual AOY champion. For example, Cory Johnston was in 60th place after Day 1, but he rallied with the biggest bag of Day 2 – 21 pounds – and jumped to 11th place. Jordan Lee had another one of those crucial days, rallying from 35th place on Day 1 to 7th on Day 2 with a limit weighing 20-5.
There were only four limits topping 20 pounds on Day 2 after 13 were weighed on Day 1 at the Minn Kota Bassmaster Elite at Lake Murray.
Remember, AOY points aren’t official until the tournament standings are final. I like to refer to these mid-tournament AOY points as mythical. But they do provide a snapshot, and this is the picture 4 ½ tournaments into a 9-tournament season: 1. Trey McKinney 478 points, 2. Jordan Lee 472, 3. Chris Johnston 429, 4. Cory Johnston, 428, 5. Justin Hamner 402, 6. Cody Huff 400.
All six of those anglers are ranked in the top 20 of the Day 2 standings at Lake Murray. How they finish will provide a clearer picture of the AOY race with four tournaments left in the 2024 season.
Przekurat prefers tough conditions
Since winning the 2022 Elite Series Rookie of the Year title, Jay Przekurat has proven his initial season was no fluke. He finished 10th in the final Angler of the Year standings when he won the ROY title. He improved on that during his sophomore season, when he finished 6th in the 2023 AOY race.
Przekurat, now a 24-year-old “veteran” of the Elite Series, is having another solid season. His consistency has been on display at Lake Murray. He was in 17th place with 19-11 after Day 1. He jumped into 3rd place with 19-12 on Day 2 and a total of 39-7.
The fishing conditions were significantly tougher Saturday. That was reflected in the overall totals from the two days and some drastic fluctuations in several individual performances. Przekurat likes his chances of improving relative to the rest of the field when conditions are tougher.
“I only caught seven or eight fish (Saturday) and they were all doing something different,” Przekurat said. “I want it to be tough. When everybody catches them, you feel like you have to catch 20 pounds. I like it tougher, kind of like what I did today. I just scrapped together what I caught.”
Weather penalized early flights
Initially, Brandon Cobb didn’t expect to make the Day 2/Top 50 cut at Lake Murray after he weighed a 16-pound, 12-ounce limit Saturday. Cobb was 71st after Day 1 when he caught 14-6. The top 50 cutline was projected to be over 33 pounds based on the Day 1 standings. Cobb’s two-day total was 31-2.
Reflecting the tougher conditions Saturday, Cobb finished Day 2 in 43rd place and advanced to fish another day. The South Carolina angler had hoped to take advantage of his early boat number – 7 – at Saturday’s launch. But the early shad and blueback herring spawn didn’t materialize like it had for the early boats Friday.
“We had really bad storms (Friday) afternoon – hail, lightning, thunder, and that kills the shad spawn,” Cobb said. “They flip the flights on purpose to give everybody equal opportunity. But the storms basically didn’t give us equal opportunity.
“Anybody that was in an early flight (Saturday) was able to get where they wanted, but the fish just flat out did not school.”
Cobb managed to improve on his Day 1 total anyway. The overall differences in the Day 1 and 2 totals at Lake Murray tell the story:
| Day 1 | Day 2 | |
| Big bass | 6-6 | 6-3 |
| Big bag | 25-8 | 21-0 |
| 20-lb. bags | 13 | 4 |
| Anglers/limits | 102/94 | 102/85 |
| Total fish | 492 | 471 |
| Total weight | 1,633-7 | 1,407-2 |
| wt. per bass | 3.32 lbs. | 2.99 lbs. |
