It’s a safe bet that Adam Rasmussen fishes more often than any of his competitors on the Bassmaster Opens Elite Qualifier tour. A resident of Sturgeon Bay, Wis., Rasmussen makes a living as a fishing guide, averaging five days a week on the water throughout the year.
He begins guiding for walleye in April. Smallmouth get into the mix in May. During the summer months he swaps his multispecies boat for a 34-foot cruiser and pursues salmon, steelhead and lake trout. In autumn, it’s back to casting for smallmouth.
Over the frigid winter months he maintains six permanent shanties and a handful of portable units and caters to ice fishermen. These anglers haul walleye, perch and whitefish through the countless holes Rasmussen drills in the thick ice.
Despite his intensive guiding schedule, Rasmussen has long dreamed of qualifying for the Bassmaster Elite Series and walking across the stage at the Bassmaster Classic. Four years ago, he and his wife, Allie, talked it over and agreed to give his dream a shot.
Given Rasmussen’s heavy guiding schedule, making time for the tournaments has been challenging. He competed in two Open divisions in 2021 and failed to qualify for the Elites. He fished all nine Opens the following year and did “horrible.”
After the first four EQs of 2023 Rasmussen is 26th in the EQ points standings. After winning the fourth event at Wheeler Lake, he is nearly $52,000 richer and will receive an invite to fish the 2024 Academy Sports + Outdoors Bassmaster Classic on Oklahoma’s Grand Lake.
“It’s good to see all the hard work finally paying off,” Rasmussen said.
When he was born in Brainerd, Minn., 38 years ago, bass fishing that far north lagged far behind the sport’s advancements farther south. Anglers in this region much preferred walleye. This included Rasmussen’s father, Dave, who competed in walleye tournaments.
“My parents told me they put me in a boat when I was 3,” Rasmussen said. “I’ve been addicted to it ever since.”
His family moved to Stevens Point in central Wisconsin when Rasmussen was 6. There, much of their fishing took place on the Wisconsin River. Rasmussen fished his first walleye tournaments with his father at age 12.
While a senior in high school, he began fishing pro/am walleye tournaments. That year he won a professional FLW walleye event on Green Bay. The next day he won a World Walleye Association tournament on the same body of water.
After graduating from high school, Rasmussen enrolled at nearby Mid-State Technical College to study marketing. He also took a full-time job as a manger at Gander Mountain in Wausau, Wis. And, he fished six walleye tournaments a year, which took him to events in Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan and Ohio.
He couldn’t maintain such an exhausting schedule forever. Something had to go. He dropped out of college in the middle of his second year and began guiding on the Wisconsin River for walleye, muskie and panfish. His clientele soon grew to the point that he was able to quit his job at Gander Mountain.
His clients didn’t care to fish for bass, but Rasmussen’s interest in them had been sparked by television shows about bass tournaments.
“When I fished for fun, I’d go for bass,” Rasmussen said. He remembers watching Denny Brauer flipping a black and blue jig on television.
“At that time nobody up here had ever even heard of that,” Rasmussen said. “I got a hold of some black and blue jigs. The first smallmouth I caught on one was 21 inches. I thought, ‘Holy crap, that guy knows what he’s talking about.’”
He continued to fish walleye tournaments and began competing in local bass derbies as well. He won several bass events out of his 20-foot walleye boat. Flipping and frogging were his strong suits.
In his mid-20s he stopped fishing walleye tournaments and focused on guiding and local bass derbies. Seven years ago, he attained his captain’s license so he could legally guide for salmon and trout out of Sturgeon Bay.
Two years later he moved to Sturgeon Bay, which is where he met Allie. Their family includes Ashlyn, 2; Kalli, 11; and Ryleigh, 13. A fourth girl is on the way.
His desire to become a professional bass angler increased exponentially when he fished Minnesota’s Champions Tour bass tournament circuit.
“It’s a catch-weigh-release format,” Rasmussen said. “In 2021 I won my first Champions Tour event and set a new weight record. I weighed 98 largemouth for 247 pounds. This was on Pelican Lake. The next week I fished their championship on Mille Lacs and came in fourth. Then I knew I had what it takes to pursue fishing as a career at an even higher level.”
He is “super stoked” that the 2024 Bassmaster Classic will be held on Grand Lake. “Grand Lake is special because that’s where Jay qualified for the Elite Series in 2021,” Rasmussen said.
Jay is fellow Wisconsinite Jay Przekurat. They became friends 10 years ago and traveled together to the Opens in 2021. Rasmussen hopes to do well enough in this year’s EQs to join Przekurat on the Elite Series tour next season.
Rasmussen’s sponsors include Rapala, Storm, Sufix, 13 Fishing, Vexus Boats, Mercury, Minn Kota, Humminbird, Ken’s Sports and Crawford’s Camp.
