Can you raise a grand champion from a tosai (one year old koi)? How about, can you raise a tosai from an egg? Larry and Jean Kelly did. In fact they raised several thousand. Larry has been interested in breeding koi for several years now. This year he got serious and built a 40’ x 45’ mud pond. Earlier this spring he put several adult male and female koi into the pond and let nature take its course. And did it ever!

On Sunday, July 29th many members of the club showed up at the home of Larry and Jean Kelly to help seine the pond. What we all saw was outstanding. From the murky, muddy waters emerged at least a few thousand one to three inch koi. We couldn’t come close to catching all of them but were able to get quite a few. The overall variety and quality certainly exceeded my expectations as well as Larry’s. He had Kohaku, Sanke, Tancho Sanke, Bekko, Kujaku and others. There were at least a few, if not more than a few, very nice examples of each of the above varieties. If you weren’t there, here is what else you missed. After Larry picked out fifty or so that he definitely wanted to keep and grow out, he offered to sell fish for $1.00 each with part of the proceeds going to the club. What a deal! Needless to say, members went crazy.

Koi breeding can be a very difficult thing. I’d have to say that the Kelly’s first major attempt has thus far been a huge success. Will any of the koi Larry has bred become a grand champion someday? Possibly. There is only one grand champion per show and the competition gets tougher every year. At the very least, I’d say Larry and Jean are off to a great start in their attempt to breed some show quality potential koi. Being part of something like this adds another dimension to the hobby and is very educational. If you are into watching koi develop and interested in any and all information you can gather on the subject, an event such as this is invaluable. Hopefully the “Kelly pond seining” will become an annual event (are you listening Larry and Jean?). It will more likely be in the fall next year to give the fish more time to grow. If you have a chance to make the event next year and you’re serious about koi, you owe it to yourself not to miss it.