When Major League Fishing announced the location of REDCREST as Lake Norman in North Carolina, all eyes turned to Bryan Thrift. While he's won all over the country, Norman is his home lake and he has won big here multiple times while fishing the FLW Tour. He was the odds-on favorite when the event was announced and still is right before the event.
He'll be the first to tell you that he doesn't fish Norman as much as he used to in his younger years when climbing the ranks of professional fishing, but he knows it as well as anyone in the field except for maybe Andy Montgomery. The two paired up for team events in their early years and have garnered plenty of attention in the weeks and months leading up to this event.
We checked in with Thrift after practice for REDCREST to get his feel for the lake and how he plans to attack it.
Lake Norman has changed
All lakes go through different cycles and change over the years and that happens even more when one bass species becomes more dominant. That has happened on Lake Norman, as the spotted bass population has exploded and they've become more of a threat to win tournaments. Instead of just being limit-fillers to go with some big largemouth, it's possible to focus on them and win, according to Thrift.
"There are a lot of fish biting right now on Norman," Thrift said after practice had wrapped up. "The problem is, finding good ones is really hard. There will be a lot of fish caught during the tournament and you can catch them just about any way you want to right now."
When asked to describe the current conditions, Thrift called it a "potluck" and said it would be a free for all with anglers doing many different things. This may sound like fun fishing, but Thrift was hoping for more of the opposite. If things got tough, a challenging bite would play into his hands as a local.
"This wasn't what I wanted for the bite, and I feel like a lot of my local knowledge has gone away because guys are going to catch plenty of fish," he said.
What Thrift is rigging up
Thrift uses quite a few baits in a day as an angler known for a rapid-fire approach, casting at targets and moving quickly. This will again be true on Lake Norman; he will have his many different rods lined up perfectly on the front deck of his Ranger.
Among his picks for this week are jigs, swimbaits, crankbaits, and jerkbaits. He also plans to mix in some finesse with shaky heads and wacky rigs, which are perfect for the many docks on the lake.
"You are going to see a lot of finesse fishing this week," he said. "I like to fish all my spinning techniques with Spin-X braid, which was made specifically for spinning reels and finesse setups. I use all of the pound tests, but 16-pound is a really good place to start, and I use it a lot."
He likes the Spin-X fluorocarbon for leader material and will have 9 and 11-pound tests rigged up this week for fishing around docks for these spring bass that are inching closer to the bank to spawn.
Thrift is one of the best in the world at skipping docks with jigs and Lake Norman is the reason why. Reaching places that others can't leads to more bites and he'll be fishing docks this week with a 20-pound test P-Line 100% fluorocarbon and will use that same line for swimbaits.
"It's the original version in the blue box, and I like it over Tactical for certain techniques," he said. "The 100% doesn't have as much stretch in it as the Tactical does and that's important for these baits where you want the best hookset you can get."
The amount of stretch in a line, even if it's very minimal, is a small detail that professional anglers like Thrift watch closely. It's okay, as he prefers a little more stretch for certain baits, such as those with a treble hook. At REDCREST, he'll be fishing his crankbaits and jerkbaits with P-Line Tactical fluorocarbon.
"There's a little more stretch and it's more forgiving for hooking fish with treble hooks," he said. "I like 10-pound for my jerkbaits and will be cranking with 12-pound. Having that tiny bit more stretch lets the fish get the bait and you don't lose near as many fish."
Thrift has been looking forward to this event since it was announced and he's glad the wait is finally over. He knows this lake better than anyone and if the predicted foul weather comes into play near the end of the event, it could play right into his hands and he may be the one hoisting the trophy when the dust settles.
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