By John Johnson
BassFan Senior Editor
Keith Combs carries the reputation of an angler whom it's not wise to bet against in big-weight events – particularly in his home state of Texas. If a 25-pound-plus stringer is a possibility, he's as likely as anybody to catch it.
It's easy to overlook his overall consistency ... that is, until you examine his 7-year Bassmaster Elite Series ledger. He's finished among the top 15 in the Angler of the Year (AOY) race six times, and even the one outlying season wasn't too bad (41st).
He ended up 9th on the final points list this year following his runner-up finish to Gerald Swindle in 2016. By continually putting himself in contention year after year, he increases the odds that there'll eventually be one in which no competitor stands between him and the most coveted title in the sport.
"The kind of (AOY) finishes I've hard are good and I'll take them, but I'd like to knock down the Angler of the Year at least one time," he said. "That's a career goal and I definitely want it one of these days.
"It used to be my goal to win it at the start of every season, but after this many years, I know that almost everything has to go right for it to happen. I don't worry about it anymore and I just try to do the best I can in every tournament. I'll keep doing the things I do best and hopefully the cards will eventually fall in my favor."
Two Doubts Erased
Combs went into 2017 with four major victories on his ledger – three Toyota Texas Bass Classics and the 2013 Elite Series derby at Falcon Lake.
He picked up No. 5 at the very end of the season when he prevailed in the AOY Championship event at Minnesota's Mille Lacs Lake. It served as proof that he could triumph outside of the Lonestar State and that he could win a smallmouth-dominated tournament.
"It was really a huge accomplishment in my mind to win that one," he said. "The other ones had all been on Texas fisheries that I had a lot of familiarity with. I'd had top-10s and even top-5s out of state, but I'd never really been in contention to win one outside of Texas and I was very happy to get that done."
He won it by catching bronzebacks on a 1-ounce jig – a technique that had been productive for him during the latter portion of the same event a year earlier. Nonetheless, on his long drive to Minnesota, he pondered whether it might be wise to limit himself to nothing other than a dropshot rig.
"I was wondering why I keep going back (to power-fishing applications) when that stuff never wins those (smallmouth) events – it's always a dropshot. I don't like to fish that way; it's too slow. To win a tournament doing something outside the box, that's always good."
Hoping for Warm Welcome
Combs, who'll turn 42 in December, will compete in his seventh Bassmaster Classic at South Carolina's Lake Hartwell in late March. Like everybody involved, he hopes to encounter warmer weather than in 2015, when a late February Classic played out in temperatures that were well below freezing.
He was among the early contenders, but eventually slid to 25th.
"I had a really good practice last time and I started out in 3rd (after day 1), but it just got so cold that my bite went away," he said. "This will be my first Classic that I don't pre-fish for – I'll just go with the intention of catching them my way, and hopefully the weather favors that.
"I really like Hartwell. At first I thought it didn't set up well for me, but then I got there for official practice and caught some good fish."
He will make pre-practice trips for three 2018 Elite events – Lake Martin (Alabama) and Lake Oahe (South Dakota), neither of which he's ever seen, and the Sabine River in his home state, which has been altered due to flooding.
In the meantime, he's working on a 20-acre piece of property he and wife Jennifer purchased recently that they hope to move onto within a year or so (it's only a few miles from his current residence in Huntington). The tract currently contains no buildings or roads, but it does have a small pond.
"It's an old pond that's been on the property for 30 years and I'm going to redesign it the way I want – I'll put in some humps and wood. It's got a few fish in there right now, but it'll have some new ones once we get settled in."
