Texas’ Keith Combs has an impressive resume with more than $960,000 in earnings and a 78 percent in-the-money ratio. He’s won two events, including the 2017 Toyota Bassmaster Angler of the Year Championship on Mille Lacs Lake.
He placed second in AOY points in 2016 and was ninth last year.
When he shows up for a Bassmaster Elite Series event, he means business.
But this year, things derailed early — and he was on the outside looking in until the last regular-season event, when he moved from 60th to 46th in the points to eek into the 2018 AOY event.
“It started out bad, that’s the bottom line,” Combs said of his 2018 season.
The season opener at Lake Martin just wasn’t in his wheelhouse, but when he arrived for practice he was pleasantly surprised. He was confident he would bag valuable AOY points even though the fishery didn’t fit his style.
Then he lost two fish — a 3-pounder and a 2 1/2-pound bass — on a lake where there’s not a lot of make-up room.
“They weren’t game changers, but they were points changers,” Combs said. “Those two fish that came off cost me 30 points.”
Instead of salvaging a tournament, he finished 98th putting him behind early.
Grand Lake, a fishery he loves, turned out to be pretty much a repeat. After a decent practice, he lost a 6-pounder and a 3-pounder on the second day of the event.
“I don’t know what happened,” Combs said. “They just came off.”
The loss couldn’t be made up, and he closed out the event in 87th.
So he stopped looking at the AOY race, choosing instead to focus on fishing hard and making up ground.
A month later, the seven-year Elite Series veteran put in a 30th-place performance on Kentucky Lake.
And then he had a breakout performance at Texas Fest, logging a fourth-place finish. Combs said the event shaped up to be the kind of tournament at which he excels.
“The weights weren’t huge, but for Travis it was a slug fest,” Combs said. “There’s a certain kind of tournament I excel at fishing, and that’s it.”
The top five finish moved him into 55th in terms of AOY points and infused him with fresh enthusiasm.
“That was one of the ones that got me back in there,” Combs said. “You’re back in it; you kind of get rejuvenated.
“It was a big deal.”
The celebration was short lived, with the Sabine River stop ending with an 85th-place finish.
That was the story of the season.
“It was up and down,” Combs said. “One good one; one bad one. A good one, and then a bad one.”
It was a season the likes of which he hadn’t had to contend.
“A bad (finish) doesn’t scare me,” Combs said. “But I usually only have one bad one a year — until this year.”
He redeemed himself a bit at the Mississippi River before faltering again on Lake Oahe, but he was confident going into the final two events. He was sitting in 60th in the points, so two good finishes would have been huge.
“You go into the Chesapeake (Bay) and have a Top 20, and you’re probably locked in the (2019 Bassmaster) Classic,” Combs said.
The cancelation of that stop because of dangerous water conditions hurt. Even logging eighth place in the season finale on the St. Lawrence River wasn’t enough to put him into the Classic.
“I still have some work ahead of me,” he said.
Combs said he’s approaching the Angler of the Year championship this month knowing he has to hit a home run.
“It doesn’t look like there will be as many double-qualifiers (for the Classic),” he said. “I’d like to be sitting in 39th or 40th after the AOY.”
But that’s a tall order on a venue he doesn’t expect to produce big sacks of bass, combined with the fact that there are fewer anglers in the field.
“You don’t have a lot of room to make up points because there are just 50 guys,” Combs explained. “And the Top 25 aren’t even players; you can’t do anything to them. So you only have 25 points to play with.
“It’s a tough one to make points up in.”
That means he has to really swing for the fence.
“I have to try to do well,” he said. “This is pretty much the most meaningful AOY I’ve fished, other than the one Gerald Swindle won (in which Combs placed second). This year, I’ve really got to go try to do something.”
Fortunately, Combs isn’t timid by nature.
“I never fish conservatively,” he said. “I practice to win them all. Sometimes that comes back to bite me: When fishing changes and conditions get tough, I find I don’t have any fish. But I know I have to have a top 10 in this event.
“I just know a top 15 won’t do any good.”