Thrift
Wins Wire to Wire
by Jody
White
FLW PRESS
RELEASE
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| Thrift Loves New York! (Photo: FLW) |
Taking
the win in wire-to-wire fashion, FLW Tour pro Bryan Thrift tallied 18 pounds, 4
ounces on the final day for an even 57-pound total in the Costa FLW Series
Northern Division event on Lake Champlain. For the win, Thrift earned $44,200
and a new Ranger boat, and it’s his 11th win with FLW. The Northern Division is
presented by Gajo Baits and the tournament was presented by Polaris.
Historically, Thrift has been
stellar throughout the south in his home state of North Carolina, Arkansas,
along the Tennessee River and everywhere else. He hasn’t, however, really kept
up his typical pace in the north country. After the last few weeks on
Champlain, it’s safe to put that trend to bed.
“I’m
not going to say it’s been my nemesis, but I’ve never really got in a
groove on this lake until 2016 when we came for the Tour and I tied for
10th and ended up 11th,” says Thrift. “It was like the lightbulb went off then
and I realized what I was doing wrong. Not that I learned what to look for, but
I learned how to practice. I think that was the biggest thing.”
Thrift
finished third in the FLW Tour season finale on Champlain just a few weeks ago
to finish out a somewhat trying season for him. This was his third Costa FLW
Series win, so he’s no stranger to them, but he says they’re all good ones.
“Man,
it feels great to win,” says the Shelby, N.C., pro. “I feel like I’ve let a
couple chances to win kind of slip through my fingers this year, and a
couple of them were my fault. If I would have got beat in this one I would have
got flat beat, and I can handle that. When I beat myself, I don’t like it.”
“I
had one spot about two miles from takeoff and I pulled in there at about
1:10, and we had to be in at 1:30,” says Thrift. “I caught a 3-10 there that
culled a 2-12. That last-minute fish won the tournament for me. I was kind
of mad when I caught it, because when I got there I caught a couple little
ones and there were like ten 3- or 4-pounders following them to the boat. So,
I’m scrambling, I’m throwing everything I’ve got tied on because I knew if I
could catch two of the bigger ones I’d win it. I ended up catching one of them,
and it was a madhouse. I had maybe two rods left on the deck with a bait tied
on it.”
Thrift
fished a lot like he did in the Tour event at the end of June. Mostly targeting
shallow offshore grass on flats in Missisquoi Bay and the Inland Sea, he leaned
hard on a Damiki Stinger[l1] (he
says he went through at least 115 of them) in the 4- and 5.5-inch sizes on a
Neko rig and a 1/4-ounce Texas rig. Day one was all largemouths, but he weighed
in two smallies on day two and three on day three. In addition to the Stinger,
he also mixed in a topwater and a small swimbait.
“The
biggest thing was making myself slow down and fish and weed through little
fish, the first day especially,” says Thrift. “I’d catch like eight or 10 fish,
not even keepers, and then I’d catch a 4-pounder. Once I saw that, it gave me
the confidence to weed through and get those bigger bites.
“There
were definitely little sweet spots,” Thrift says of his areas. “I don’t know
what was different about them than the rest of the area; maybe the grass
was a little thicker or thinner or there were more perch. But, if you went
through fishing and caught one, there’d be more around. It was kind of weird.
The main area I was in, it would be all smallmouth in the morning. Then, after
7:30 or 8 o’clock it would transition over to all largemouth.”
Top 5 Pros
1. Bryan Thrift – Shelby, N.C. –
57-0 (15) – $44,200 + Ranger Z518 with 200-horsepower outboard
2.
Edward Levin – Westerville, Ohio – 56-9 (15) – $17,300
3.
Scott Dobson – Clarkston, Mich. – 53-7 (15) – $12,850
4.
Brandt Tumberg – Moore, S.C. – 52-7 (15) – $10,750
5.
Kurt Mitchell – Milford, Del. – 52-5 (15) – $9,750
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