Keith Combs' Pattern, Baits & Gear
Keith Combs surmised that he wasted a lot of time and a lot of gas on this visit to Toledo Bend.
"On the first 3 days I spent the mornings down by the dam and then went north," he said. "I was running over 100 miles (round trip) every day.
"I wish I would've just stayed north because that's where I did all my damage at. I ended up stringing myself out too much."
He had 20 different schools of offshore fish that he visited at one time or another during the event.
"On the first day of practice I told myself I wanted to determine whether I was going to fish deep or shallow. I started deep and I was seeing a lot of bait, and that told me I needed to stay out.
"I wasn't way out in like 25 or 30 feet, but I did catch some in 20. All of those places had 12-foot close by."
On day 1 he caught at least 80 keepers and perhaps as many as 100. On three different occasions he boated 20 fish or more on the same number of casts.
"I had one day (day 3) where the biggest fish I weighed was 4-03 and the smallest was 4-01. The lack of really big fish kind of plagued me Ð I caught one 6-pounder in the tournament and that was about it."
He cranked up 18 of the 20 fish he took to the scale and caught the other two on a Carolina rig.
Cranking gear: 7' medium-action Power Tackle Keith Combs Signature Series rod, Shimano Curado casting reel (7.3:1 ratio), 15-pound Seaguar InvizX fluorocarbon line, Strike King 6XD crankbait (Tennessee shad). His two Carolina-rig fish were enticed by a Strike King Game Hawg.
