Anybody who thought Bryan Thrift was going to change a lot after winning the 2010 FLW Tour Angler of the Year award was badly mistaken. Just last week he was back doing manual labor for the company – which installs and services gas-station canopies – that he worked for prior to turning pro.
"I help them out if they get in a bind – I've worked 4 days this week," he said last Thursday. "I do anything that's needed from the ground up."
The unassuming way he goes about the business of fishing will also no doubt be the same when the new season gets under way in January. There will be one big difference for him, though – he became a father just last month, and that sort of thing alters just about anybody's perspective on a lot of issues.
The boy's name, Wylie, is the same as one of his favorite places.
"I've fished Lake Wylie a lot, but I'd hate to say that he was named after the lake," he said with a chuckle. "Both of us (he and his wife) just liked the name. His middle name, Thomas, is after my father.
"We thought about naming him Wylie Norman, but that might've been going a little too far."
Running Mate Gone
One other thing that'll be different for Thrift next year is he won't have his longtime pal Andy Montgomery around – at least for the six Tour Majors. Montgomery qualified for the Bassmaster Classic and the Elite Series through the Southern Opens and opted to go that route along with other Tour "young guns" such as Ott DeFoe and Keith Combs.
"We were just talking about that because now neither one of us is going to have anybody to stay with (on the road)," he said. "It was usually me, Andy, Chris Baumgardner and Todd Auten traveling together, and Chris and Todd would be in one room and me and Andy in another.
"I don't know what I'm going to do now. I guess I'll just be by myself."
He was all alone at the top of the points standings at the end of the last Tour season as he won the title by a hefty 51 points over runner-up Andy Morgan. It'll be hard to repeat that, but he'd sure like to pull it off now that the crown is accompanied by a $100,000 prize.
"It definitely seems like everything fell into place. Everywhere I went, even if I didn't have the greatest practice, something would usually work out and end up being a lot stronger than I thought it was going to be."
An example of that was the Table Rock event, which ended up being the season opener after the stop at the Red River was canceled due to dangerous conditions. He ended up 4th there, and then won the next outing at the lake that he'd briefly considered for his infant son's middle name.
"I didn't catch a keeper for the first 2 days of practice at Table Rock, and then on the third day at about 3:30 I found one little deal (points with trees in 15 to 30 feet of water up the White River) and I got two 5-pound bites back to back. Then from 3:30 to 5:30 I kept looking for other places like that, and I got several more bites."
Staying Sharp on the Water
Thrift will have competed in a considerable number of local tournaments before the off-season has concluded. He and Montgomery logged an 8th in a recent team event and he plans to enter derbies each weekend from now until Christmas.
He's also doing quite a bit of fun-fishing on days when he's not called into work.
"It keeps me thinking about stuff because every day on the water is a different situation," he said. "I go mainly for the learning experience so I can teach myself to do different stuff and things like that.
"Me and one of my buddies have been doing a lot of crappie fishing and we've been catching a lot of bass while we're doing it. I've figured out a way to catch bass on crappie jigs that just might come in handy sometime."
Notable
> When Thrift looks at the 10-event schedule for next year, the only stop that gives him pause is the one at the Red River. "I don't like river-fishing," he said. "It seems like it always comes down to who's the craziest and who'll go through the most trouble to get somewhere to catch a fish."
> He said he never sets specific goals for himself prior to a new season. "I just want to make a living so I can stay in the sport. As long as I'm making some money, I'm happy."
