Koi
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Fat Albert (goshiki) The first koi ever given to me. I was at Karen's pond during a club meeting, who has a beautiful collection of show koi. They were asking her who her favorite koi was, and commenting on how beautiful they all were. I saw a short, fat koi with a mutt goshiki pattern and commented that it was the best looking koi she had. She said "you know, it spawned and I have a smaller one", then asked me if I would like to have it and I said SURE!! Her kids went swimming in her pond, which is about 5k gallons, and after a while finally caught her.
The father is names Thomas, and karen says the other koi treat him like a big fat floating football, and push him around all the time.
Madonna (aka bekko)On the 2nd trip, to my first rescue pond, the mud was too soft and too far out to get close enough with my cast net, so I used my daughter's barbie fishing rod. I had restrung it with 40 lb test line and had a dough ball on a tiny hook. I caught this koi with others, my daughters just fell in love and we decided to keep it. Called it Madonna, then about a week later had a female koi the same tank, and found out for sure that this koi is a boy.
Daisy (kigoi - or Lemon Koi)On my 3rd trip to my first rescue pond, I was still having trouble getting close enough to use my cast net. Using the barbie fishing rod some more, I hooked a koi and was bringing it in, but the line broke. The bobber was still floating, and it was cylinder shaped, almost like a minature of the barrel from the movie Jaws. The bobber would move around and sometimes dive underwater, just like in the movie. As soon as the bobber came close enough, I tossed my net around it and landed this koi. Daughters named it Daisy, but is a boy.
Cow (tancho doitsu shiro bekko)This is my one real japanese show koi. My wife named her Cow, as in Jersey Cow -- all the shiro bekkos look like Jersey cows to her. The original owner flew to japan and purchased her for $400, along with some others. He had to move, decided that he was going to take a break from koi for a while and dumped them all at a local petshop, who gave him store credit which he didn't use before moving. The kid working at the shop said he couldn't tell what was good koi and what was bad, but had some japanese buyers coming up from Tucson that comming weekend. Those same buyers had come up 2 weeks before and had really irritated the kid, so he wanted me to get one of the show koi to keep it from them - because he knew I didn't show koi and only keep them as pets. I was returning an $8 koi I purchased the day before (and had died), for $10 more he gave me this koi. Doubt I'll ever show her, but she sure is nice.
Kendra (doitsu mutt)This is a rescue koi, came from a rental house that had a small 150 gallon shallow pond and the birds were eating the other koi and goldfish, and the owners wanted to close out the pond for liability issues. All the fish in the pond were stunted growth. This one was rather dull grey looking at first, but I saw a hint of red and kept her for a while. She has really started to grow and I think is neat looking now.
Jack (kujaku)This is a koi I got from a rescue, the pattern is too poor to be anything resembling a show kujaku. He was in a tiny pond, was being starved, all the other koi in that pond were eaten by herons. Since I added him to my collection, he has started to grow.
Spock (total mutt)I was coming back from a pond club meeting with Nancy and we stopped at a petsmart. Of all people, it it totally illogical for me to purchase koi - but I spotted this one, and just couldn't leave without it. Had a very odd look to it, and wanted to raise it to see what would turn out like. This is a picture after some growth, she has a lot of blue coloring which I like.
Long Tail 2 (sarassa comet)I did a rescue at a hotel and caught this beautiful sarassa comet.