Thrift Wins First FLW Tour Event on Home Lake Norman

3/27/2010 7:32:17 PM

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Pro Bryan Thrift of Shelby, N.C., caught a five-bass limit weighing 12 pounds, 11 ounces Saturday to win $127,500 at the FLW Tour event presented by National Guard on Lake Norman with a four-day catch of 20-bass weighing 58-5.

The catch gave him his first FLW Tour win by a huge 8-pound, 14-ounce margin over Rusty Salewske of Alpine, Calif., who caught a total of 20 bass weighing 49-7 and earned $38,879.

“This feels really good,” Thrift said. “It’s like I’ve got a big weight lifted off my shoulders. I’ve not been doing this a real long time, but I’ve had several opportunities at a win but I myself have done something wrong to beat myself. To finally pull it off is really nice.”

Thrift said he fished all over Lake Norman and burned almost two tanks of gas each day. He started the final day of competition on the south end of the lake and caught a quick fish on a crankbait and then two keepers on back-to-back casts off a jig on a brushpile.

“I knew then I had three pound-and-a-half fish, and if I could go up the river and get two big bites it would be game over,” Thrift said. “We ran up to a little place and pulled in there and the first one I caught was a big one. I put in the livewell and the very next cast I caught my fifth keeper. This was all before nine o’clock. I was thinking, ‘Hey, this is going to be a good day. We’re going to bust 16 pounds again.’ But after that, I think I had three bites all day long and they were short fish.”

Thrift said the bite was slower Saturday than the first three days of competition, but he stuck with what had gotten him to the final round.

“A big thing here for a pre-spawn deal is, of course, a crankbait and a jig,” Thrift said. “I caught a lot of my bigger fish on a crankbait.

“When I caught that big fish … I was still kind of hesitant because I thought I only had 10 1/2 pounds,” said Thrift. “I didn’t think it was that big, because I just threw it in the livewell. I knew the second-place guy’s going to need 15 (pounds), and the way they were biting today, that’s going to be hard to do.”

Thrift opened the tournament in ninth place Wednesday with five bass weighing 13-1. On Thursday he added another five bass weighing 16-9 to capture the lead. He then caught five bass weighing 16 pounds even Friday to make the crucial top-5 cut in first place.

“I was really only catching big ones in two areas,” Selewske said. “I struggled with which one to go to, but I must have made a decent choice, because on my fifth or sixth cast I caught what I thought was about a 3-pounder. That’s a good start, obviously, and the best part was that he had it choked. You couldn’t even see the crankbait. That’s when you know you’re doing the right thing.”

Salewske said he caught “15 or so” keepers Saturday but had fewer big bites than days two and three. Salewske said he caught the majority of his fish in two creeks in the dirtiest water he could find. Salewske’s go-to bait was a shallow-running shad-colored Lucky Craft crankbait.

“I didn’t catch too many after I reeled it too far,” Salewske said. “Most of them, it was two or three cranks and they ate it.”

The remaining top-5 pros finished the tournament in:

3rd: Andy Montgomery, Blacksburg, S.C., 20 bass, 49-3, $29,146
4th: Brian Travis, Conover, N.C., 20 bass, 44-5, $19,413
5th: Rusty Trancygier, Hahira, Ga., 17 bass, 43-0, $17,466

A complete list of results can be found at FLWOutdoors.com.