Montana Anglers Win Prestigious North Dakota Fishing Tourney

There's some pretty good money out there for skilled walleye anglers, as evidenced by recent tournaments in Montana and North Dakota.

The annual Montana Governor's Cup Walleye Tournament on Fort Peck Reservoir accepts 200 two-person teams and sells out in less than an hour. That tournament was held July 9-10.

First, belated congratulations to this year's winners. In a very close contest, the first place team was Jason Eggebrecht of Fort Peck and Ross Lien of Glendive, taking top honors with a two-day total of 74.47 pounds. That was good enough to win by only 1.59 pounds, as the second place team of Nate Chappell of Miles City and Mike Chappell of Glasgow caught 72.88 pounds. Jason Eggebrecht is no stranger to Governor's Cup winnings. It's his third title in the past four years, competing with two different partners.

North Dakota's premier walleye tourney was even closer. We are also happy to announce that Ken Schmidt from Glasgow and Mark Jones from Billings won this year's North Dakota Walleye Governor's Cup, held this past weekend on another massive reservoir, Sakakawea. The North Dakota premier walleye tournament is based out of Garrison ND and had 260 teams competing for $15,000 first place prize. The tournament uses a weight weigh in method not a length measurement that is then converted to weight to determine the weight of the fish, like many Montana walleye tourneys.

Schmidt and Jones caught 40.44 pounds which consisted of weighing 10 fish ( 5 each day) over the two day tourney that took place July 16-17. They edged out the second place team by a close .99 pounds, just less than a pound.

The Montana team of Schmidt and Jones also won the ND Walleye Gov Cup in 2014.