Texas angler a favorite to win Bassmaster
The police officer exited his Montgomery County Constable patrol vehicle and walked through the gathering dusk down to the bulkhead lining a stretch of Lake Conroe shoreline as Keith Combs idled his 21foot bass boat toward the nearby entry to the marina from which Combs had launched the vessel more than 11 hours earlier.
The officer had been watching for the past several minutes as Combs stood on the boat’s deck methodically machine-gunning casts that, depending on which of six rod-and-reels he seamlessly alternated using, would bring the crankbait, chatterbait or jig near the submerged structure — and, maybe, within striking range of the largemouth bass attracted to such anomalies — a stunning array of marine electronics mounted on the boat told Combs was there. The 41-year-old Texan fished with the same intensity, focus and ceaseless drive on these final casts of the day as when he’d made the first ones more than 10 hours earlier.
The officer waited until Combs grudgingly yielded to the coming darkness, stopped fishing, strapped the rods to the decks, slipped on a life jacket, cranked the boat’s hulking outboard and began idling the 100 yards or so to the boat ramp before he walked down to motion him over to the bulkhead.
The pair exchanged greetings and made small talk about the weather and how fishing had been that day. Then the officer, a hard core bass fisher who’d recognized Comb’s distinctive boat, cut to the chase.
“You’ve had pretty good success on this lake,” he said, smiling at Combs. “I’m pulling for you. You’re the guy I think has the best chance to win it.”
He didn’t have to say what “it” was. That was understood. Combs is one of the 52 anglers qualified to compete in the 2017 Bassmaster Classic to be held March 24-26 on Lake Conroe. The 47-year-old tournament is considered the world championship of professional bass fishing. Winning the Classic brings with it a $300,000 prize and the satisfaction of besting a field of the premier professional pursuers of the nation’s most popular sport fish. But more important to the winner is their elevation to the pinnacle of bass fishing celebrity and the doors — and wallets — that opens for them.
Big business
Almost half of the nation’s 30 million or so freshwater anglers target black bass. The percentage in Texas is even higher, with as many as a million of the state’s 1.5 million or so freshwater anglers focusing at least some of their efforts on bass. And these rabid bass anglers account for a huge portion of the $30 billion-plus anglers spend each year on tackle, boats, motors and other fishing-related equipment.
Businesses selling fishing equipment, and anything else anglers might need or desire, want their products associated with these high-profile professional anglers. And they are willing to pay for it, through endorsement deals and sponsorships. Such financial support is crucial to professional bass anglers whose annual expenses chasing the top-end tournament series can easily hit $100,000 — and that doesn’t include their boats, which can cost as much as $90,000, and a vehicle that can tow it 45,000 or more miles a year.
But getting to that level — making a living as a professional bass tournament angler, as Combs does — is about as rare as a 15-pound largemouth. And it takes a combination of razor-honed fishing skills, single-minded focus, selfconfidence and a load of entrepreneurial business sense and ambition to make it. Plus, a bit of luck.
“It’s more than a fulltime job,” Combs said as he relentlessly pitched jigs around flooded brush on the upper end of Lake Conroe this past Thursday, one of the 15 days he’d spent scouting the 21,000-acre reservoir over the past couple of months. “It’s tough. But it’s exactly what I want to be doing. It’s what I’ve wanted to do since I was a kid, and I’m doing it.”
Combs, who the Bass Fan website currently ranks fifth in its world ranking of professional bass anglers, was barely a teenager when he set his sights on making a living fishing as a professional tournament bass angler.
A native of Central Texas, Combs began fishing as a child in the streams and lakes of the region. When he was 13, an adult neighbor with a boat invited him to join him chasing striped bass on nearby lakes such as Buchanan, Belton and Stillhouse Hollow.
He enjoyed catching stripers. But his life changed one day when, while deep-water jigging for striped bass, the pair hit a school of largemouths suspended in the deep water. They wore out themselves and the largemouths. Then they did it again on the next trip.
He and his fishing partner decided to fish a small, local bass tournament on the lake. They won it.
“I was hooked,”’ Combs said.
He joined a local bass club and, at 13, dominated the club’s tournaments, winning the club’s “angler of the year” competition. He began fishing Texas bass tournament circuits and dominated them. By the time he graduated high school, he knew he wanted to make bass fishing his career.
“I saw what was involved in being successful as a professional tournament fisherman,” he said. “It involves a lot more than just being very good at catching fish. It’s a business. You are marketing yourself. So I went to college and studied marketing.”
Taking the next step
By the time he was 31, Combs was working as a supervisor in a machine shop and fishing every bass tournament he could, moving up to the more high-profile circuits and making a good second income with his winnings.
“But to take the next step, I knew I had to focus strictly on fishing,” he said. So he quit his job, loaded his truck and moved to Del Rio, where he guided anglers on lakes Amistad and Falcon (where he landed his heaviest largemouths, a pair of 14-pounders) when he wasn’t on the road fishing bass tournaments on waters from California to Canada.
“I learned a lot,” Combs said. “The thing I like about bass is they are such a challenge to figure out. There are so many variables — weather, water conditions, time of year. And bass are different between lakes; they even bite different. It’s figuring it out that’s the challenge.”
Combs figured it out pretty well. He has competed in the Bass Elite Series circuit since 2011 and qualified for five Bassmaster Classics, finishing ninth in the 2016 event on Oklahoma’s Grand Lake. And he has won or finished “in the money” in dozens of other tournaments.
But the reason he’s seen as one of the favorites for the 2017 Bassmaster Classic is his performance in the Texas Bass Classics. Combs, who now lives in Huntington near Sam Rayburn Reservoir, has fished in seven of these contests that match the highestranking professional anglers in the nation. He won three of them. Two of them were on Lake Conroe.
(The other was on Lake Fork, where Combs’ 15 bass — a five-fish limit each day of the contest — averaged more than 7 pounds apiece. Many bass anglers have never landed a single 7-pound largemouth.)
“I’ve done well on this lake,” Combs said. “But those tournaments were during the fall. The Classic is in March. Things will be different.
“One thing I’m sure of: There’ll be some really heavy catches in the Classic. Conroe has a really good fishery. Not a tremendous number of fish, but the average size on this lake is good. I think it’ll take at least 65-70 pounds to win and it very easily could be more. It’s going to be something to see.”
‘A great compliment’
Comb’s said he isn’t bothered by the pressure of being tapped as a favorite to win the contest or by being shadowed by non-tournament anglers anytime he’s on the water. (This happened while Combs was scouting Conroe this past week.)
“That’s something that comes with the territory,” he said while scouting Conroe this past week. “I don’t mind the pressure. It doesn’t distract me. It helps me focus. It’s really a great compliment.
“I don’t know how things will go in the Classic, but I think I have a chance to be right up there,” he said.
Seems a lot of people who follow the high-profile professional bass fishing tournaments believe that, too.