TAKEOFF
ANGLER PROFILE
LEARNING HOW TO BE HUMAN
J
JohnnY MccoMBs oveRcoMes cRipplinG opioid
addiction to find RedeMption in fishinG
ohnny Mccombs hoisted the $100,000
check high over his head. With the
rolling arkansas hills as a backdrop, the
champion’s boat could be seen bobbing
by the dock behind the weigh-in crowd.
the scene was suggestive of any other
award ceremony on the flW tour: a weary
angler, a weigh basket full of fish and a
giant check.
to the untrained eye, Mccombs might
have been any tour competitor, a dudley
or cox or thrift holding up his winner’s
trophy for photos. But keen observers
would have noticed something different
about Mccombs; specifically, about his
boat. only a handful of rods rested on
the deck, and behind the windshield, no
sophisticated electronics cluttered the
console.
indeed, when he won the 2017 flW
tour event at Beaver lake, Mccombs
didn’t have any electronics. and he only
owned a small handful of rods. some said
the win, a major tour victory with equip-
ment hardly befitting championship sta-
tus, was a veritable miracle.
they didn’t know how right they were.
Walking Home
After battling the demons of addiction
for 15 years, pro Johnny McCombs is
back on Tour, thanks largely to the
support of his parents, Tyler McCombs
and Diann Hays.
twelve months before his triumphant
moment at Beaver lake, Mccombs could
barely walk. in april 2016, the 43-year-old
found himself hobbling down the side of
an alabama highway, shivering uncontrol-
lably in 90-degree weather. he’d shuffle 50
feet or so, and topple over. then he’d pick
himself back up and limp along the shoul-
der a bit farther. traffic passed him by with-
out slowing down. some of the cars and
trucks held friends and family, but they
couldn’t recognize the haggard skeleton
that used to be Johnny Mccombs.
the various drugs flowing through his
veins had turned Mccombs’ bloodstream
into a lethal cocktail of debilitating numb-
ness. for more than 15 years he’d piped a
pharmacist’s vault of opioids into his sys-
tem. When a relationship went south for
him at age 29, oxycontin, percocet and
lortab led to real-deal heroin to ease the
pain. But the drugs also turned Mccombs
into a walking corpse.
By Joe Sills
photos by chris irwin
By the time the once-rising angler
found himself crawling alongside that
alabama highway in 2016, a decade and
a half had blown by in a blur of drug
houses and drunk tanks. his body had
become a 150-pound husk draped on a
5-11 frame. he was used up, without ever
having accomplished anything other than
almost destroying himself.
as Mccombs struggled along the road,
he dropped to his knees. he had hit bot-
tom and he knew it. he prayed to God for
the strength to continue, to make it the four
miles down the road to his mother’s house.
it was Mother’s day, the day it all
changed. somehow, he found the strength
to finish the walk to the home of his moth-
er, diann hays.
“i lay in my mother’s house for months,”
Mccombs says. “it seemed like i was freez-
ing to death. that’s what the detox process
felt like after years of taking that stuff. i had
to learn to be human again. Most people
go to the doctor to recover, but i did it cold
turkey. My mom and dad didn’t trust me to
go anywhere, because they thought i’d go
get drugs, and they were probably right.”
as he competes in the 2018 flW tour
season, he’s still struggling to cope with
the phantoms of his past. the notoriously
tight-lipped Mccombs is talking now,
telling his tale to help others. he makes
no bones about it. as an opioid crisis con-
tinues to sweep through american towns,
contributing to a significant portion of the
estimated 64,000 drug overdose deaths
in 2016, Mccombs stands as a survivor
who made it through. two years after his
detoxification, he’s built himself up to 220
pounds. he’s got abs for the first time in
his life, and, at 45, he feels ready to claim
his place among flW’s top competitors.
Mccombs wants to win the forrest
Wood cup, to write his name in the tourna-
ment record books for years to come. he
rattles off the names of aging stars such as
denny Brauer, Rick clunn and shaw Grigsby
who are still competing at high levels well
into their careers. someday, Mccombs
would like to join that list. to get there, how-
ever, he has to go back to the beginning, to
the introduction of opioids into his life.
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