The first 4 years of Bryan Thrift's pro career were primarily composed of a series of peaks and higher peaks. In 2011, for the first time, there were a few valleys mixed in.

The 2010 FLW Tour Angler of the Year (AOY) got the campaign off to a rousing start in defense of his crown as he won the first Major at Beaver Lake. He followed that up with a 5th at Table Rock and shortly thereafter he ascended to the top of the BassFan World Rankings, becoming the first angler other than Kevin VanDam or Skeet Reese to occupy that position in several years.



He then went on a run of three straight events in which he finished no better than 54th, falling out of serious contention for his second straight AOY and out of the top slot in the Rankings. He staged a mini-rally during the second half of the season, though, and ended up 8th on the former list and 5th on the latter.

"I can't really call it a bad year because I won a tournament and had two other Top 5s (he was also 5th at the Guntersville FLW Tour Open last month) and I had a Top-10 finish in the points," he said. "I had three or four events that were really frustrating, but I think it was just the normal stuff that happens in fishing.

"You're not going to put it together in every event. Something's going to get you sooner or later."

Fun in the Springtime

Thrift took over the No. 1 spot in the Rankings after his consecutive single-digit finishes to open the season and held it for 2 weeks before surrendering it to VanDam. He snatched it one more time late in the month and kept it until mid-April, when VanDam took it back again and put his current stranglehold on it.

"I was happy to be there for just a little while," he said. "All my buddies were calling and making friendly jokes about it, and when I'd go to a local tournament guys would say, 'Uh oh, the No. 1 angler in the world is here. What are we going to do?'

"On the Tour, I still fished he same way I always do, but it was a little more frustrating when I didn't perform like I wanted to."

His biggest disappointments occurred at Chickamauga in April (65th) and the Red River in May (79th).

"At Chickamauga I had a couple places where I could catch fish on every cast, but they were only 2 1/2- to 3-pounders. They were starting to spawn when we were there and what I should've done was caught a quick limit and then tried for one or two big ones fishing down the bank. I thought if I stayed with those fish I'd eventually catch a 4 1/2-pounder, but it never did happen.

"At the Red River I was making a really long run – about 85 miles one way. The first day it worked out good because even though I didn't have much time to fish, the bites I was getting were above average and I was in the Top 20. Then the next day I ran all the way back down there and caught a bunch of short fish and only two keepers, so I locked back up and tried to scratch out the rest of my limit.

"I should've stayed down there and beaten it out," he concluded. "I'd already committed myself by going down there, but in the end I didn't really commit to it."

Those events showed him that there's still a weakness in his game that he must try to rectify.

"It seems to me that when I start out by making a bad decision, there's no correcting it. If I get started on the right track it's going to be a good tournament, but if that first decision is bad, I'm in trouble."

A Singular Focus

Even during the off-season, Thrift – who doesn't hunt and has no other time-consuming hobbies – never goes more than a few days without getting on the water. He competes in a local event just about every weekend and tries to get out at least once or twice during the week.

Fishing is all he does and all he wants to do, and his only concrete goal is to earn enough money each year to support his family and do it all again the following year.

"As long as I can make a living at it, I'm happy," he said. "The way I look at it is if I practice as hard as I can for every tournament and learn something, then things are going to come together whether I've set any goals or not.

"If (another AOY) happens, it happens. If you get stressed over it you can end up messing yourself up, like I did in 2008 when I was leading (the points race) going into the second day of the last tournament and ended up only catching three fish at Lake Erie.

"After that I quit worrying – now I just practice hard and try to find fish, and then just settle down and fish for them," he added. "When you hook a big one you can't be thinking that you can't lose him because thinking like that, you're going to lose a lot of them."

Notable

> Thrift and good friend Matt Arey, a fellow FLW pro, helped the Gardner-Webb University fishing program with its tournament this past weekend. Both have given seminars and conducted question-and-answer sessions at the school this year.

> As for the 2012 Tour and Open schedule, he said the only drawback is there are no venues he hasn't been to before. "I like going to new places because it's so much fun to try to figure things out," he said. "But I like the schedule – I like fishing anywhere."