Keith Combs is fast making a name for himself at the tour level. The Texan, a fourth-year tour pro, is ranked 19th in the world and he clinched his first major win on Sunday at the Toyota Texas Bass Classic (TTBC).
It would be hard to imagine a stouter field – the Top 15
from the Bassmaster Elite Series, FLW Tour and PAA Tournament Series, plus a few wildcards – and Combs bested them all.
The 3 days of competition actually ended in a tie between Combs and Mike Iaconelli, but Combs won the sudden-death fish-off when he landed a keeper 45 minutes into the overtime.
Following is look at Combs' winning pattern.
Practice
Combs, a Texan, had competed at Conroe several times over the years, including last year's TTBC in which he finished 4th.
This year he was able to pre-practice for 4 days. About that pre-practice, he said: "I spent a week last year trying to get ready for this event, and that practice gave me a little insight into what I thought I needed to do this time. I knew I'd fish primarily offshore, and I knew I'd fish manmade brush and would try to catch them cranking. I thought I had a better shot at big ones on big cranks, so that's what I tried to think about going into practice.
"In the 4 days of pre-practice I did very little fishing," he added. "I only fished to get my lineup on the brushpiles and get them marked real good on GPS. I ran two Humminbird 1198s with Side-Imaging, and that was one of the biggest factors in winning."
He estimated that he marked 300 different waypoints that had potential.
Then for the official practice he stopped on several of the waypoints to see if he could catch a fish there. In addition, if he'd ever caught a fish on a waypoint in past tournaments, he left that waypoint alone.
Winning Pattern Notes
Combs weighed a 15-fish, 76-12 total, which tied him with Mike Iaconelli. Combs then weighed the first keeper in the sudden-death overtime, a 15-incher from one of his waypoints, and thus was declared the winner.
The first 2 days, it took Combs all day to amass his limit, and he caught key late fish each day.
The final day, he caught all his weigh-fish in a 30-minute flurry that started at 3:00. The flurry came at a spot that hadn't necessarily produced that week, and it was a spot that let him down years ago in an event. Overall his bites were few and far between, and the final day, he went 5 hours between bites.
He cranked all his fish with a Norman DD14.
Water temp was in the low-70s.
He offered the following insights about his pattern:
Winning Gear Notes
> Cranking gear: Power Tackle PG170 glass cranking rod, Shimano Curado casting reel (7.3:1), 10-pound Berkley Trilene XT mono (green), Norman DD14 (nutter shad), No. 2 Owner Stinger trebles.
The Bottom Line
Notable
> Combs recently moved from Del Rio, Texas to Huntington. "It's more centrally located," he said. "It's right next to Rayburn and near the Red River and Conroe and Toledo Bend."
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