A lot of people expected a much better performance from Luke Clausen in the recent Forrest Wood Cup at Georgia's Lake Lanier than the 66th-place showing he turned in. After all, the former Cup and Bassmaster Classic champion is well-versed in deep finesse tactics and his somewhat nomadic lifestyle had had him spending a great deal of time in the Atlanta area for the past year or so.



He said he was never as much of a semi-local as some had pegged him to be, though, and what he did know may have ended up hurting him.

"A lot of things didn't go right, and in reality I'd probably spent just enough time on the lake to make myself dangerous," he said. "I spent 7 or 8 days out there last year and then 4 or 5 days this year, mostly just idling around. Due to the schedules, there were guys from other places who spent more time pre-practicing for that tournament than I've spent fishing the lake. I didn't spend nearly the time on it that people thought I would.

"I'd seen how to catch them off the brushpiles and I knew a little bit about that, but I wasn't getting many bites and I lost confidence in that after a few days of practice. I went to the banks and saw a bunch of fish, and if I could've figured out how to catch them, I'd have done pretty well. But it was one of those things where they'd swim over and look at your bait and check things out, and then they wouldn't eat."

In all likelihood he could've returned to plan A and improved his final position. But like a lot of pros, he fishes championship events with a last-place-is-as-good-as-2nd mentality.

"I got myself behind the 8-ball after the first day and I kept trying to make something happen up shallow, but I never really could. It was the wrong move in terms of a decent finish, but it was probably the right move to have a chance to win because it was the only way I was going to find anything different that a bunch of other people weren't doing."

Season-Long Climb

Following the cancellation of the FLW Tour opener at the Red River due to flooding, Clausen's 2010 season began with a thud – a 111th-place finish at Table Rock. It only got better from there, though, as he notched consecutive placements of 45th, 23rd, 8th and 7th the rest of the way.

"Having that tournament canceled made the season seem super-short, and then the one at Table Rock was one of my worst ever," he said. "I might as well not have practiced – I didn't learn anything, and that showed in my tournament.

"There's lots of excuses I could make, like the weather was cold, the fishing was bad, I had a cold, whatever. But the fact of the matter was that I didn't figure anything out and I gave myself a hole to climb out of."

The highlight of his campaign came at Ouachita and resulted in the first of his back-to-back single-digit finishes.

"On the second day I didn't have a fish halfway through the day and the wheels were falling off the bus. I went to an area that I hadn't been to since the first day of practice and found some new water, and just started catching them.

"Those ones where you learn more as the event goes on are rewarding and you end up wishing there were more days in the tournament."

Back in the Homeland

Clausen has just one tournament remaining on his 2010 slate – the Toyota Texas Bass Classic at Lake Conroe in October. He's back in his native Pacific Northwest at the moment, doing some work on houses he owns in Washington and Idaho.

"I'm trying to get everything lined up before hunting season starts," he said. "Dove season opens next week, and then it'll be elk and deer. I'm looking forward to getting back into that and doing something different in the outdoors."

And where will he call home by the time the new Tour season rolls around after the first of the year? Most likely one of his previous stops.

"I'll probably end up moving back to Nashville. Atlanta's a little bit too big of a city for me."

Notable

> Clausen is thrilled to see Kathy Fennel take over as president of FLW's Operations Division – one of several changes in the organization's top management structure that were instituted following the Cup. "She's a genuine person and when you talk to her, she listens to what you have to say," he said. "She not only cares about the fishermen, but everybody involved in the sport. She understands the struggle that each person goes through."