CO-ANGLER OF THE YEAR
BRYANNEW
NEW’S
CROWNING
ACHIEVEMENT
O
by Kyle Wood
nce Bryan New of Belmont, N.C., stepped onto the
Walmart FLW Tour stage as a co-angler back in 2012,
it didn’t take long for his peers or fishing fans to real-
ize that this Tarheel angler was the real deal. Indeed, success
has characterized New’s short career in the Tour ranks.
In five seasons as a co-angler, New earned a regular-sea-
son Tour win at Lake Eufaula in 2013, claimed the Forrest
Wood Cup title in 2014 and capped it off this year with the
2016 Co-angler of the Year award – along with the Ranger
Z518C and 200-hp outboard that comes with it.
Climbing the Ladder
62
While New aspired to a career in fishing at a young age,
his obsession started out as a simple desire to have a fish –
any fish – stretch his line.
“I’ve lived on [Lake] Wylie my whole life and have always
loved to fish,” says New. “It didn’t matter if it was a crappie
or a catfish, I just wanted to catch something. Back then just
catching one fish in a day was a huge reward. Then, after a
few years, I’d catch six or seven fish in a day and thought that
it’d be cool to make a living catching fish.”
As New grew older he started frequenting a nearby tackle
shop and pestering local sticks to take him fishing. That’s also
when he started to focus on targeting bass.
At age 16, New entered his first FLW Bass Fishing League
derby as a co-angler.
“The first tournament I entered was on Lake Norman [in
2006], and I got 20th place and I thought that was pretty dang
good,” recalls New, now 26. “Not long after that I met Roger
Pope, who is a legend in the Carolinas, and he took me under
his wing and taught me so much about bass fishing.”
New soon expanded to fish both the North Carolina and
South Carolina divisions of the BFL, and in 2011 he won the
North Carolina Division’s co-angler points race. The win
spurred him to take the next step, so he signed up to fish the
Walmart FLW Tour as a co-angler in 2012.
His first season on Tour resulted in a solid 13th-place fin-
ish in the Co-angler of the Year standings. More impressively,
New qualified for the Cup, where he finished fifth. The next
year he wound up 12th in the Tour standings and qualified
for his second Cup, where he finished fourth.
In 2014, New moved to third in the COY standings and
won the Forrest Wood Cup on Lake Murray. He followed the
win with a runner-up finish in the 2015 Cup at Lake Ouachita,
the last Cup to include co-anglers.
Rung by rung, New has climbed the ladder to the pinnacle
of the co-angler realm.
The Best Teachers
It’s no surprise that New has evolved so quickly in his
short tenure in competitive fishing, considering the caliber of
angler he gets to hang around with in North Carolina and as
he travels with the Tour.
“I met Matt [Arey] at a BFL on High Rock Lake a few
years ago,” says New. “We became pretty good friends, and
I traveled with him my first year on Tour. After that, I met
Bryan [Thrift], and we’ve been traveling together ever since.
Bryan and I just get along real well because we are both so
FLWFISHING.COM I AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2016