During a phone conversation with Keith Combs just now, he said he feels “very fortunate” to be leading the Bassmaster Elite Series event on Georgia’s West Point Lake.

“I’m chalking most of my bites up to luck, but hopefully I found a little something and I can do it again,” said Combs, who already owns an Elite Series trophy this season, earned on Lake Amistad, and a berth into the 2014 Bassmaster Classic.

Of his excellent day, Combs shared that he is “pretty stoked about it” but noted that his bites were “very random”.

“I don’t know what changed. The weather didn’t warm up. I didn’t change. But I couldn’t get it going this morning then I got 8 bites after 1:30. I saw some very big cruising fish in practice so I know I’m around them. I’m just going to try and keep a bait in areas where I know there are big fish.”

As for tomorrow: “I’m going to try something different in the morning. I need to get an early bite going. I have no idea where I’m going to start.”

Although a lot of competitors saw bedding bass in practice, Combs said sight fishing was made tough by current conditions. “The rising water has dingied-up the areas where you need to look. and this isn’t the first wave of spawning fish, so they are already pretty smart. With this many targets in the water they can be anywhere and if you don’t see them in time to sneak up on them, you scare them pretty easily when you get right up on them. We had really dark skies today and that made it even tougher to see.”