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Shelby, N.C. – What would the reigning FLW Tour Rookie of the Year Bryan Thrift do to follow up his 2007 Rookie of the Year performance? A 5th place finish at the 2007 Forrest Wood Cup would create a nice bookend.
That is precisely what the 28-year-old Thrift was able to pull off last week at Lake Ouachita in his first trip to the FLW Tour Championship event at Hot Springs, Ark.
Thrift spent his inaugural year on the FLW Tour in a fashion that most Rookie do, up and down the standings, but the final result was a 28th place finish in the FLW Tour standings and the Rookie of the Year trophy firmly in his grasp. “I don’t know what to say about this year, other than it is an awesome thing,” said the Shelby, N.C. pro. “I feel really fortunate because you can build a long career in this game, but there is only one rookie year; you only get one chance to do this.”
Thrift said that he owed the majority of his Rookie of the Year title to his use of a Chatterbait and a Shooter Lures jig. “My primary strength as a fisherman is using a jig,” Thrift said. “I used the Shooter Lures jig to finish second at Travis and tenth at Norman, and used the Chatterbait to cash checks at the Potomac and Detroit River.”
Fast forward to August 2, 2007 and the Forrest Wood Cup and the rookie has found a solid topwater pattern with which to get one or two quality bites a day, and a deep water pattern using a plastic worm around deep grass lines. “I was using a topwater prop bait over grass flats in the morning, then moved to deeper water after 10 or 11 o’clock,” Thrift said. “I was getting one or two decent bites on top, then get keeper bites on the grass lines.”
On the first day of the Forrest Wood Cup, Thrift’s deep water bite changed. Instead of getting only keeper bites, the quality improved. “I had landed a couple of three pounders on my flats, and after getting a couple of two pound keepers, I told my co angler that if I was able to get a six
pounder, I would be able to have a chance in this tournament; five minutes later, I caught a six and a half
pounder, and I knew I had a chance to make the cut.”
He was able to follow up that big fish, with two four pounders on day two and a five pounder on the last day of the tournament.
Thrift said that his two patterns consisted of using a seven foot medium heavy Fenwick Techna AV rod with an Abu Garcia Revo STX and 15-pound Trilene Big Game line for his prop bait and the same outfit with 17-pound fluorocarbon and a ½-ounce
Tru-Tungsten worm weight with his Texas rigged Zoom Ultra Vibe Speed Worm. |
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He worked the prop bait erratically over grassy flats and stroked the worm along the grass lines until contacting the individual clumps of grass, and then he would slow the retrieve down. Strikes occurred as the worm would fall next to the grass clumps.
The fifth place finish at Ouachita came as sort of a wedding present for Thrift, he said that he and his girlfriend of more than four and a half years, Allison were married on July, 21 and after spending a three day honeymoon he went to Ouachita. “Allison had to stay home, but she flew in on Saturday when I made the cut.”
As for next year, Thrift will continue to focus on his career, and will set his sights on re-qualifying for the Forrest Wood Cup, but he has no specific plans as to how he will go about it. “I’m really going to just wing it,” Thrift said. “I will just try to go fishing and do the best that I can.”
Thrift will spend his off season working part time and competing in the Stren Series Championship as well as the two remaining FLW Series Eastern Division events. “This has been a good year; I just hope I can keep it up.”
Thrift’s sponsors include: Chatterbait www.radlures.com
Great Outdoors in Cherryville, N.C. www.greatoutdoorsnc.com
and Shooter Lures www.shooterlures.com.
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