2018 FLW Tour Lake Cumberland Day 3: Bryan Thrift Jumps into Lead by Ounces over Andy Morgan

Chris Johnston 10th

FLW PRESS RELEASE
All FLW Tour events are exciting, but this week’s tournament has been exceptional thanks to a showdown among A-list pros who are flat out smashing fish on Lake Cumberland. We’re on the cusp of what could be one of the greatest Sunday slugfests in FLW Live history on the final day of the season’s fourth Tour stop, which is presented by General Tire.

Morning smallmouth key to Thrift pattern.
(Photo: FLW)

Bryan Thrift is in the lead with 51 pounds, 8 ounces, but Andy Morgan is only 7 ounces back, Allen Boyd is a pound and 2 ounces back, and Greg Bohannan is 1-15 back. The entire top 10 is within 6 pounds of Thrift’s lead. With many in the top 10 catching 30 or more fish a day – and a lot of good ones – there’s no predicting the outcome, except to guarantee that Sunday at Cumberland will be one to remember.

Aside from the pro showdown, there’s also a very interesting species showdown going on. The main patterns are targeting staging and spawning smallmouths with swimbaits, and targeting staging and spawning largemouths with spinnerbaits. The two patterns seem to be producing at about an equal rate.

Thrift is in the smallmouth camp. He’s weighed in 15 brown bass, and brought in 18-11 today for his 52nd consecutive limit in FLW Tour competition, extending the record that he broke yesterday.

“Today was fun,” Thrift says. “The first two days were a little bit of a struggle, but I caught a lot of fish today.

“You can’t feel safe with Morgan behind you,” he adds. “Hopefully they bite again tomorrow. I caught a lot of them, so we’ll see.”

The fact that he caught so many today is the only thing that worries Thrift. He’s simply not sure if his “home area” can last for another day.

All three days he’s fished a variety of targets in his area, from the main lake to primary and secondary points to some of the lead-in banks in pockets. About the only thing he’s not fishing is the backs of the pockets where other pros are targeting largemouths.
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