Alabama angler relishes top prize

Johnny McCombs of Morris, Ala., shows one of the two largemouth bass he caught Sunday to win the FLW Tour bass tournament at Beaver Lake. McCombs fi nished the four-day event with a total weight of 47 pounds, 1 ounce.
Johnny McCombs of Morris, Ala., shows one of the two largemouth bass he caught Sunday to win the FLW Tour bass tournament at Beaver Lake. McCombs fi nished the four-day event with a total weight of 47 pounds, 1 ounce.

ROGERS -- Fishing helped save Johnny McCombs's life, and now it will help him make a living after he won the FLW tournament Sunday at Beaver Lake.

McCombs, 44, a heating and air technician from Morris, Ala., won $100,000 Sunday after catching two bass weighing 5 pounds, 4 ounces in the final round to bring his four-day total weight to 47-1.

He won by a comfortable margin over Jason Reyes of Huffman, Texas, who caught three bass Sunday weighing 5-2 to bring his final total to 44-1. Reyes won $30,000.

McCombs is six months into his second run as a pro angler after seeing success from 1999-2003 that included appearances in the Forrest Wood Cup in 1999-2000

He disappeared from fishing for more than a decade because of substance abuse problems.

"I was hooked on drugs for 12 years," McCombs said. "I'll be clean a year come Mother's Day."

McCombs said he abused almost everything, but his biggest problems were with heroin and methamphetamine.

"I was a needle junkie, man," McCombs said.

Ultimately, his love for God, his parents and fishing outweighed his love for drugs.

"I prayed to God to get me back in it," McCombs said. "I loved it so much, and He did. It's positive to get back out here and do what I love again."

McCombs said the money will enable him to keep fishing. He doesn't have any major sponsors, so he been operating on a shoestring budget. He said his windfall won't tempt him to relapse.

"The drug deal to me is like it didn't even happen," McCombs said. "I don't want it. I don't crave it, and if I ever did it again, it would probably kill me. I'm blessed big time."

McCombs used a simple, traditional approach to catch Beaver Lake's tight-lipped bass after storms wracked Northwest Arkansas for the entire tournament, unlike most of the anglers that made the top 20 and ultimately the top 10 in this tournament.

As the lake rose 13 feet, McCombs followed the new shoreline and fished a buzzbait over lawn grass inside of flooded bushes.

"I had two pockets where I could have blown this thing out, but I just couldn't hook them up," McCombs said. "I guess I was too jacked up. Maybe I was jerking too fast. It worked out anyway."

Saturday was the sweet spot for McCombs' pattern, allowing him to catch 18 pounds, 15 ounces to vault into the lead. He said he should have caught 14-16 pounds on Sunday.

By Sunday afternoon, with the lake filled with rafts of trash and floating logs and water level rising to the bottom of the Highway 12 Bridge, the upper part of the lake was inaccessible.

Those conditions reduced most anglers to chasing small Kentucky bass and little smallmouths in the clear part of the lower lake.

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The key to his pattern, McCombs said, was to bring the bait through little gaps and keep it there as long as possible.

"I just tried to find a way to the bank where I could see where grass growing on a lawn, in front of a yard or in front of boat docks," McCombs said. "I just ran and pounded. If I saw something that looked good, I stopped and fish it then went to the next place."

He used a chartreuse/white, double-bladed War Eagle buzzbait, a 7-foot, 2-inch Shimano rod and a fast-retrieve Shimano reel and 25-pound test Seaguar line.

"I weighed in one fish I caught on a jig, but mostly I just make a lot of casts and threw that buzzbait in yards," McCombs said. "That's about it."

Sports on 05/01/2017

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