Welcher Rides the Bronco Bug to the Record Books
Following on the heels of his 2023 Bassmaster Elite Series Angler of the Year title, and then his 2024 National Professional Fishing League Angler of the Year title, it would be hard for Kyle Welcher’s success to shock the fishing world. Nevertheless, with his dominating Elite win at the Pasquotank River, he left in his wake a series of slack jaws, raised eyebrows and rushed movements to amend the record book.
Over four days of competition, Welcher relied almost exclusively on a CrushCity™ Bronco Bug® to amass 118 pounds, 12 ounces of North Carolina bass. Not only did he lead from wire-to-wire, but he caught the biggest bag of each day of competition and extended the margin over second place each day. He ended up with a gap of over 45 pounds between him and the next closest competitor.
“I didn’t get a chance to think about the records at all during the tournament,” he said as he drove to his next event. “As competitors, we don’t have time to think about those things while we’re competing. I just wanted a blue trophy. But in some respects, this is better than a regular trophy because once people started talking about the weight records, the number of people watching skyrocketed.”
Indeed, nothing about Welcher’s demeanor, ability to close out a derby, or his tools will remain a secret much longer.
River Systems Fit His Style
Welcher, who financed his initial foray into professional fishing as a poker player, has earned seven Elite Series top ten finishes in his brief career, and five of them have come on river systems – Florida’s St. Johns, New York’s St. Lawrence, twice on the Sabine in Texas, and now the Pasquotank in North Carolina.
“Because of where I grew up, I’m very comfortable when I get on a river where I don’t have any history,” he said. “They make sense to me. I understand why fish get where they can get. Rivers can be overwhelming at times, but even if they’re 60 miles long, once you figure it out, it gets small. I’m a power fisherman, so I like to make a lot of specific casts on specific types of cover.”
Despite that comfort level, in some ways the Pasquotank “fished more like a lake.” There wasn’t much river current or tidal influence, but the wind created a great deal of current. Indeed, while many competitors made long runs through back-breaking waves, Welcher hunkered down in one key area and eked out bites surgically. He only burned a fraction of a tank of gas over all four days.
“I was targeting any kind of hard cover on flatter banks,” he explained. “It could be cypress trees or laydowns or stumps or hard sand spots. The second week of April, with the water in the sixties, they had to at least be thinking about spawning.”
That’s why he could return to specific stumps where he caught big fish and catch more big ones. On the third day, he caught a 10-8 giant that turned out not only to be the tournament lunker, but also his personal best.
“I had heard some stories about 10 pounders down there, and someone claimed to have caught a 12 or a 13,” he said. “I knew we’d catch some 7-pounders, but I didn’t expect anyone to catch a 10. You go to Fork and Okeechobee sometimes, and no one catches a 10.” The fish bit three times, and only on the third opportunity did Welcher manage to keep it hooked and get it in the boat. When things are going right, sometimes even your mistakes don’t prove to be costly.
Bronco Bug Superiority
While Welcher did bring one fish to the scales that ate a glide bait, 19 of his 20 tournament-winning fish came on a CrushCity Bronco Bug in one of two similar colors – Black Blue Flake and Black N Blue.
“I used the ones with flake in them until I ran out, and then I switched to Black N Blue,” he said. “I caught the 10 on Black N Blue. I base the color selection on water color and in this case, it was obvious. Check out Welchers 10lb. catch here. A few weeks earlier, I won a big team tournament on Clarks Hill with 26.64 pounds. I used a Bronco Bug, but the water was clearer, so I chose Green Pumpkin.”
He’s been fishing the Bronco bug for the better part of a year, using it to punch mats, on the back of a jig, or even swimming it, but it is particularly deadly when a giant female bass is on the bed.
“There’s something about it,” he explained. “When you pitch it in there, you’ll catch that female 90 percent of the time. I don’t know how much it has to do with the action and how much is the fact that they’ve never seen anything like it, but there’s something special about it. There are a lot of other bulky creature baits, but the unique legs and the way it’s sort of hinged make it different. It swims down naturally, and when you’re shaking it in the bed, it can allow the legs to move.”
He pegged his quarter ounce weight to make sure that the Bronco Bug and the sinker stayed together. What he was feeling at any given moment reflected the exact location of the bait. Otherwise, sometimes the weight slides off a stump or root and hits the soft bottom, which leads an angler to reel it in, while the lure can still be sitting in the prime strike zone above. He only used the quarter-ounce weight because he was fishing exceptionally shallow and wanted it to swim down slowly into the bed. He said that the Bronco Bug “has a dolphin swim to it,” which is made possible by not overweighting the lure.
On three of the four days the wind did not impact his presentation, but on the third day when it blew in his area, he had to maintain precise boat position to get the lure in the strike zone and to be able to feel what it was doing without a bow in his line.
Welcher explained that a 4/0 hook is a perfect match for the lure, the biggest size it can handle comfortably because “anything bigger negatively impacts that hinge. That’s where the movement comes from.”
With his name firmly etched in a number of categories in the record book, Welcher was philosophical about stressing the importance of process over any one result.
“The goal is always the same for me,” he concluded. “To continue to learn and improve and make good decisions. There are certain things you can’t control, but you have to control the ones you can and put as much effort into the process as possible.”
