Folsom fisherman wins conservation-based West Coast tournament despite ‘home lake curse’

A Folsom man won a fishing competition on his home turf.

Luke Johns, 23, won the Apex Cup Championship, a three-day, conservation-oriented fishing tournament put on by its parent company, Wild West Bass Trail, on Folsom Lake on Feb. 19 despite what he calls the “home lake curse.”

“It’s kind of a superstition between fishermen, that fishing on your home body of water, it’s often a lot harder to win a tournament there than it is at other lakes because you fish that place so many times you know so many good spots,” Johns said. “You often get an information overload, and you can spin yourself out. It’s really hard to just focus and not let past memories affect your decision making.”

The Apex Cup Championship is a qualifying competition meaning Johns was required to catch enough bass fish of the right size to stay in it. The heaviest five fish in a day yields a victory.

“Every time you catch one that’s bigger than the one that you already have in there, you throw out the smaller one,” he said.

Johns’ winning weight totaled 16.16 pounds.

“We have to bring our fish back to weigh-in at the end of the day alive,” Johns said. “As soon as they get weighed, they go back into what they call a live release boat, which is another boat with giant fish tanks on it. We actually get penalized if we bring back dead fish.”

Should a participant bring back a dead fish to the weigh-in, the penalty is one-quarter pound. Johns said he’s lost tournaments before due to the penalty.

“It does make a big difference,” he said.

The tournament is not always hosted on Folsom Lake, Johns said, and he will often travel the West Coast for competitions.

“My parents will show up to a lot of them,” he said. “But ... it’s also not a very great spectator sport from the fact that we’re out on the lake all day. It’s hard for them to watch any of that.”

This story was originally published February 24, 2023 at 5:00 AM.