Bruce,
My fruit and vegetable conditioning were as you describe, as long as it went in the water daily I caught as many fish as I wanted. When I stopped that conditioning they stopped biting with wild abandon.
Regarding the reaction of the hooked fish spooking the others, again conditioning might play a role. The pacu have always been spooky, when it was just them and the tilapia during feeding time there would be a boil and pacu would fly in all directions, who knows what frightened them, themselves? In the beginning everyone would stop eating for several minutes, but after a while the tilapia would continue regardless of what happened around them. As I said before if a fish is caught the pacu get out of Dodge.
One other thing I have noticed, catch a fish and there are many that chase the caught fish and if you get a bait in the water many times you will get a strike. It is almost like a feeding frenzy. Think about a school of tuna. I have seen LMB act in a similar fashion.
Regarding the hungry fish biting better, works for me if I want to catch dinner I skip a feeding and am assured a catch.
Last of my windy post,it's been raining for a week so forgive me, when I was a kid we used to fish below a series of dams on the Colorado river and I was a BG guy cause they were fun and easy, same spot, same group of fish until my dad said we had enough. Not a hook shy one in the bunch. They scattered when I caught one, but were back and ready before I was.
