®
by Jody Only
PAST,
PRESENT &
FUTURE
with Luke Clausen
L
uke Clausen of Spokane, Wash. is one of a rare
group of anglers to have won both the Bassmaster
Classic and the Forrest Wood Cup and is the only angler in FLW history to win the Forrest Wood Cup his rookie
season.
By 2018, Clausen had amassed over $2.5 million in FLW
and B.A.S.S. career earnings, when a springtime, headfirst fall
from a loft onto a concrete floor hospitalized the west coast
pro with a season-ending injury.
In 2019, he returned to complete as a Major League
Fishing pro. WesternBass hooked up with Clausen to talk
present, past and future of fishing.
WB: It seems like very few pro anglers maintain
residency on the West Coast and compete on a national level. What keeps you here?
Well, I drifted around a bit; for a time; but I grew up here and I guess no place really feels like home besides where you grew up and there is no place else that compares to the West.
WB: Did fishing the bass club as a youngster shape your
career in any way?
CLAUSEN: Most definitely! Having the experience
to fish the multi species of the area and the time spent in conditions from dirty water to super-clear helped to develop decision-making and shaped me and help me develop skills quicker than a lot of people that don’t have the opportunity in live in geographical diversity.
That compounded with my college fishing and driving to California to fish the Delta, Clear Lake, Shasta, Oroville and having experience with Florida-strain and spotted bass at a relatively young age just gave me an education in fishing for a different species in a lot of different conditions.
WB: Since you’ve been fishing since a kid; would you call
anything over your lifetime “revolutionary” in the sport?
Photo: Bassmaster
CLAUSEN: One of the biggest things is that I love
the remoteness of the area. Even though we are a fairly large city, I am on the outskirts – a few miles from the Idaho border. I get to spend a lot of time traveling around here to hunt and fish and consistently exploring the opportunities that here are in the West – that’s something that you don’t see back east.
WB: Speaking of growing up, did you grow up in a bass club?
CLAUSEN: I did. I grew up with the Spokane Bass
Anglers. It’s not around anymore. Now there is the Spokane Bass Club. Tyler Brinks (a WesternBass writer) actually started that club. I spend a lot of time fishing Coeur d’Alene, the holding pools of the Columbia and some of the smaller lakes around time.
In 2006, Clausen, earned a rare wire-to-wire victory
and became a Bassmaster Classic champion
Spring 2020
page
19