Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Catching Koi

OK, one of the local hilljacks up here tells me his buddy has a pond just North of town that is "filled" with Koi that he sells. Says the guy catches em with cherry tomatoes. Anyone ever hear of such a thing? Bob-O

Wouldn't surprise me Bob. I've heard of catching Grass Carp on cherry tomatoes.

I've caught and released several on a flyrod in an ornamental pond on top of Wachusett Mountain in Massachusetts. In retrospect I'm sure it was a big no no but I didn't know any better back then. (Wasn't a pond owner yet).

Well, koi are nothing but fancy colored common carp and they will eat plant matter. I know of a couple places where mulberry trees hang over water. When they are dropping their fruit, the carp are happily waiting to suck up the fruit. Put a mulberry on a hook or tie a "mulberry pattern" fly and you're in the money!

When I was a kid I would do just that. Put a mulberry on a hook throw it out and carp would take it as soon as it hit the water.

Thank you guys, I have several Mulberry trees and they are ripe so I'll give that a try.

I've got a big beautiful koi in my pond. He/She is like a pet and will follow me around the pond. If we are fishing with bobbers, it will swim all around the bobber. Over the past five summers it has never once attempted to eat any bait we've thrown in. I've hooked my grass carp a number of times on dough balls.

Ken

I think a koi or two in a fishing pond would be nice, but any more than one or two an acre is asking for a mess... What color is your koi Ken? I had an orange and black one in our deer watering hole for 6 years before it died this past winter. Amazing that thing survived in a 10 feet by 10 feet 3 foot deep hole! I just put a couple albino channel cats in there with some rosey reds. We'll see how they do...

Amazing you weren't feeding a Great Blue Heron CJ.

Catman, I agree that they are a pretty cool fish but think CJ is right about limiting them. I have two real concerns, 1 that they may reproduce and overrun the pond and 2 I'm going to try to establish some vegetation and am afraid they will derail that attempt. Don't know why I did'nt think about doughballs but I'm gonna make some up with Mullberries and try to chum em into one corner of my pond with the can of corn trick. We're supposed to get rain today and night so I'll put the hooks and corn where the field drains into the pond. Hopefully I can get em out and give em to a neighbor who has some and enjoys em.

The water hole is deep in a heavily wood hillside with the next closest BOW at least a third a mile away. It would take a lucky chance for a heron to find it. Its the reason we put the water hole in, the deer were having to go long way to get water... I did find bear tracks around it several times, I wonder if the bear saw the bright orange koi and was thinking how can I catch that bugger?