Bruce may tell you more about his technique and matching the hatch, but those who know his style think that he basically 'just fishes' with a jighead tipped with a nightcrawler. While that's what he does, that isn't what he does. It took him a while to figure out the bluegill moved out into the middle of the lake to feed on mayflies hatching late in the afternoon. Once he found them, he was able to catch them. He caught all the fish using a similar technique. The 8 pound bass was caught on 4 lb test line with a jig and night crawler. So was each fish he caught. But, from his years experience fishing and his innate understanding of how fish behave, he is able to figure out how a lake works, where the fish are and how to present his favorite bait to catch the fish.
Regarding the monsters he caught, I have led the team that has spent more than five years setting the stage for folks to be able to come and fish here. Some things we have done have been fundamental and simple, but reading this lake hasn't been so easy. Some of the things we've developed over the years and I have replicated them elsewhere...some non-traditional management stratagies that I won't talk about yet...until I understand the consequences much better.
I preach four fundamentals of lake and pond management that have been used here that absolutely work. All the rest is the art of fisheries management where you have to understand the specific site and its quirks and nuances.
This lake, bar none, is the most intriguing lake I have ever had the pleasure to help develop.
The Morgan Company has spent a lot of money to get it this way and consequently, their mission is to use the lake as the basis of the King Fisher Society. It costs lots of money to come here and you get what you pay for. Bruce's pictures tell a fraction of the tale...the big fish he has caught here, but there's lots more to tell, especially the story about what it took to grow those fish. The stories about the history of the lake, the role it played during the Civil War, the Morgan family and the phenomenal fishery as well as the experience how the King Fisher staff treats its guests is intriguing. No wonder people are willing to pay big dollars to come. After all, if someone of the national renown as Bruce Condello can break so many personal records in such short time, that speaks not only of his talent, but also of the experience and quality of the fishery.
The four principles, for those of you who haven't read my passionate preachings before, are:
1) Habitat--As goes the habitat, so goes what lives in it. We spent lots of time thinking, planning and executing the habitat plan back in 2005.
2) Food Chain--Not knowing how this lake would respond, we stocked the food chain in a traditional way. After all, the lake was originally built in 1835 and drained in 2000 to rehab the dam. It stayed down until late 2005. Then it filled and we stocked it. The pH hovers around 5 and the flow rate over the spillway is tremendous. Therefore, we chose to design a feeding program.
3) Genetics--The fish in Bruce's hands attest to what we've done genetically. Sounds easy, doesn't it?
4) Harvest--We aren't to this point, yet, but it is inevitable. At some point, this fishery will level off and a critical part of my job is to figure out when that happens and what to harvest. That will be a tough job.
There's the nutshell version of the biologist's angle of the fish Bruce caught.
