by Rob Newell
FLW PRESS RELEASE
The “numbers game.”
It’s a term that Bryan Thrift used to describe his fishing on Lake Eufaula back in 2013 when he finished runner-up to Randy Haynes in a Walmart FLW Tour event.
The method to his numbers madness was to hit as many solitary objects – stumps, brush piles, rocks, logs – on the bottom of Lake Eufaula as humanly possible in an eight-hour tournament day.
When Thrift saw that Lake Eufaula was back on the 2015 Walmart FLW Tour schedule for May of this year, he grinned that patented Bryan Thrift grin because he already knew how to crunch the numbers at Eufaula.
And Thrift is still grinning. After sacking up a final-day catch of 15 pounds, 5 ounces to top off 69-14 for the week, Thrift made the numbers work for his fourth FLW Tour win. He added another $125,000 to his bank account.
“This is my favorite lake in the country. I absolutely love it,” Thrift says. “I’ve wanted to win here so bad for so long. I’ve finished second here in two other FLW events [the 2013 Tour Major and 2010 FLW Series], so to finally get over the hump feels pretty good.”
