I
LOOKING
THROUGH
THE SMOKE
By Sean Ostruszka
What makes FLW Cup champ
Bryan Thrift the best angler in the
sport (and maybe in its history)
t’s like any other morning at
the FLW Cup, though it certain-
ly isn’t the prettiest.
A humid fog clings to the south-
ern end of Lake Hamilton, pinned
there by a blanket of clouds above.
Flags barely flicker, begging for a
hint of breeze. This morning is still,
with everything cast in a grey
ambient light and covered in just
enough moisture to make a per-
son feel annoyingly sticky.
There’s energy in the air,
though. Hundreds of spectators
line the shoreline and docks. The
lights from the television cameras
cast a blinding glare under their
tents. And people constantly
bounce in, out and around a
small flotilla of boats, particularly
the 10 beached on shore.
Sitting in one of those boats,
Bryan Thrift seems his usual self.
Thrift knows the drill, this
being the 67th top 10 of his FLW
career. His 14 rods are meticu-
lously arranged on his front deck;
reels all aligned in perfect sym-
metry, as always. He checks and
rechecks compartments, mostly
as a way to release pent-up ener-
gy. He’s already done his inter-
views for the morning; talked
about what it’s like to be leading
going into the final day; what it’d
be like to finally win an FLW Cup.
Now he just waits until he can
finally do what he does better
than anyone in the world.
Thrift doesn’t know it, but in
less than 12 hours, he’ll be
crowned FLW Cup champion,
something everyone figured was
inevitable based on his greatness
as an angler. But for now, he sits in
his boat and focuses on something
he honestly believes before every
tournament and every takeoff.
“I’m going to bomb.”
54
Smoke and mirrors
It seems impossible for someone
as accomplished as Thrift to ever
think he’ll do poorly, and especially to
think he’ll do poorly every time. After
all, greatness and confidence often
go hand-in-hand. And, make no mis-
take, Thrift is great.
Even before winning the FLW Cup
at Lake Hamilton back in August,
Thrift had accomplished more than
most of the final 10 anglers com-
bined: two FLW Tour Angler of the
Year titles, 11 FLW tournament wins,
FLW Tour Rookie of the Year, nine top
10s at the Cup and $2.7 million in
career earnings. He holds records for
most consecutive limits across any
professional tournament trail and
most top-10 finishes on the FLW
Tour, among many others.
Basically, Thrift is one of the
favorites in almost every tournament
he enters, regardless of the location,
and if he hung it up tomorrow, he’d
still go down as one of the most
accomplished anglers in the sport’s
history.
So how can a guy like that always
feel he’s on the verge of utter failure?
“He probably doesn’t want me to
tell anyone this, but it’s a mind game
he plays with himself,” says Bryan
New, a longtime friend and practice
partner of Thrift’s. “I mean, he knows
he’s going to be fine, but he makes
himself believe he’s going to bomb.
And he really does believe it.
“It probably wouldn’t work for any-
one else, but it works for him. It
makes him work harder.”
On the final morning of the 2016
FLW Tour event on Kentucky Lake,
Thrift, Jason Lambert and Terry
Bolton all started on the same ledge.
Lambert was on one side, Bolton on
the other, with Thrift sandwiched in
FLWFISHING.com I FALL 2019