Jim Morgan talks about bass fishing, fine dining, Jazz music and the intimate setting at the King Fisher Society, a world class resort in Laurel Hill, which was founded by his family.
"There is this tendency to discount something that's this close, that it can't be that good," Jim Morgan, one of the founders of the society, said. "(There's the idea) that you've got to spend $4,000 going to Canada or Mexico to have world class fishing, and you don't."
Morgan spoke about the resort and what it has to offer at the Laurinburg Rotary Club meeting on Tuesday at the Clinton Inn in Laurinburg.
The King Fisher Society is a resort that serves about 15 to 20 percent of the general population, and probably less in Scotland County, according to Morgan.
"There are times when you want to go camping at Myrtle Beach and there are times when you want to go stay at a Marriott. "There are times when you want to take people in your business to a fish camp, and there are times when you want to take your business to the Ritz-Carlton," he said. "We are the Ritz-Carlton of fish camps."
The average cost for a party of four people to fish for the day is $600 per person and an additional $290 for overnight.
Morgan said that the King Fisher Society is all about outdoor sports, fishing and quail hunting, fine dinning and live jazz music.
"The lodge we have is my Uncle Morris's cabin. We turned it into a really nice upscale lodge, and we just thought he had so much jazz memorabilia we should incorporate that. We might be the first and only jazz and fishing resort in the world."
The food is prepared by chefs from Mark Elliot's restaurant, Elliot's in Pinehurst.
"Live jazz is what we do as a family. If you come here you will have a meal, and that meal will include live music," Morgan said.
The lake is small compared to others around the county, only about 120 acres, about 1.5 mile long and 3.5 miles of fishing shoreline.
Morgan said that they did not have the option to put 10 boats on the water each day because they wanted to keep the fishing "incredible."
"The only way it could work for us is to have one boat a day instead of 10, and charge 10 times the price," he said.
The King Fisher Society advertises that it's a wonderful experience for businesses and companies who can afford it because you gain exclusive use of the lake.
"When you're out on the lake there is no one else out there, no other boats. We have six boats, so we can do a lot of people at a time, but it's only one group at a time," he said. "Since we own the wildlife refuge around the lake, it is a total experience ... you go from very primitive wilderness conditions to very cultured conditions. It's almost like you're fishing and all of a sudden you're in a jazz club in New York City."
According to Morgan, while their target clientele initially was businesses, companies and universities, due to the recession many families have been taking advantage of the resources at the King Fisher Society.
"There are times when you need to impress either a customer or a client; you need to do some kind of incentive. Come to Laurel Hill, and we'll take you to King Fisher Society," Morgan said. "It's going to be at the level of the Ritz-Carlton every time."
The resort promises an amazing fishing experience. Although they cannot guarantee the amount of fish you catch, they do guarantee that fishing there will be better than a public lake.
Morgan said that they provide all the fishing gear, and match their equipment to the size of the fish. Guests only need to bring their clothes, and an overnight bag if they wish.
Morgan said that in 2005, they had very few fish in the lake, and ended up stocking it up with mostly blue gill. There are two subspecies of bass, a Florida strain that is large and docile, and a northern strain that is aggressive but doesn't grow as big. The Morgans stocked the lake with the spawn from a female Florida with a male northern, called the F1.
"They had the big characteristics of the Florida bass, but was hyper aggressive like the northern bass. Because they are hyper aggressive, they use the feeders and have grown significantly since 2005," Morgan said.
The lake does not have a natural food chain, but instead has 50 feeders on a wifi network, solar powered, that stocks the lake with 1.5 tons of food every month.
"The pellets are 9.5 mm, now we have some bigger ones because the fish are getting so big," Morgan said. "The bass gain about 1.5 pounds a year, each, and the average size fish caught is 4.5 pounds."
The King Fisher Society has become a world destination for blue gill fishing because of the size of the fish, averaging two pounds.
The lake at King Fisher Society, Richmond Mill Lake is the largest lake in Scotland County. It was dammed up first in 1835, according to documents from the Richmond County Court House.
Morgan said that the property has a great history, and his family used the lake for a long time to power textile mills. By the 1950s and 1960s, the lake was used solely for recreation. Morgan said that a lot of people from the area spent their time fishing, boating and just enjoying nature.
From 1974 to 2001, Morgan explained that his family had an arrangement with the Fish and Wildlife Service of North Carolina, where they would do some management during the year in exchange for the lake being opened. However, this created some problems in securing their property borders, among other issues.
Morgan said that the pivotal watershed came in August 2001.
"We had an old spillway from the 1920s and that spillway was a slab on the sand," he said. "Divers went down and found that the water was building a sand dun at the bottom, which meant there was going to me a massive flow out. We had to drain it."
After the flooding from Hurricane Floyd in 1999, the flood codes changed, and Morgan said that it was going to cost his family $2 million to build the lake.
"We had a family meeting, and we looked at each other and said what are we going to do? Who is going to spend this money?" he said.
Since they owned apartments under The Morgan Company, they put a mortgage on one of the properties to pay for the lake.
"On that day the paradigm of the lake changed. At that point the lake had to be part of our business. But how do you take a non-performing asset, a lake that has never made a penny, and turn it into something that can make you money?" Morgan asked.
His family conducted careful research and visited many high-end bass fishing and hunting clubs across the East Coast and Texas. He said they all were either non-profit by design, or for profit and not making any money.
The Morgans figured out how to start making profits by making the resort exclusive and expensive, giving guests an intimate experience.
For information about King Fisher Society, visit the website at www.kingfishersociety.com.
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