WG666666
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Posts posted by WG666666
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Heres the pic of Willys second koi of the day 7 pd 6 ounces
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here are my son Willys entries for the FFF....first koi was 18 pd 1 oz, a recapture from his FFF in 2007!
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here are my son Willys entries for the FFF....first koi was 18 pd 1 oz, a recapture from his FFF in 2007!
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Bill Gordon, WG666666 (online name)
Pennsylvania, I am not a junior, however I will be fishing with two juniors, my sons Willy (17) and Ben (13).
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As usual THANKS Jerome for all of your efforts! We had a great time as usual! Maybe next year I can get more of my kids out and catching! I have found a few more BIGGER koi in some new ponds...springtime may yield some new specimens for the Gordons.....
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Where do I begin? FIrst I have to say that since joining the CAG I have enjoyed fishing the FFF with my family. WIth four kids its a little tough for me to get to compete in the big CAG tournaments, so I have made it my goal to get my kids involved in the FFF. I try to be their "guide" for the day and let them do the fishing. Im sure all of the Dads out there will agree, this Dad is happy to watch as his kids do the catching! I have to admit that Jerome posting results from past years FFF's got the blood pumping a little seeing my kids with some nice fish and winning some prizes for their age groups........
Anyway, I began a baiting campaign about three weeks ago in some of the local ponds and streams with good populations of carp, with a few locations that held some koi. I didn't bait everyday, but at least every 2- 3 days I would hit each spot and chum with canned sweetcorn (my go to bait). Even though the weather had recently turned colder, I saw several koi feeding at three locations that I was baiting the week after Christmas. I baited for the last three days in a row prior to the first. I did notice that at a few locations, there were a few fish hanging around my baiting spots (always good sign!) so I was pretty positive on New Years Eve that we had a chance to score some decent fish......I never expected the following......
WIlly (my 16 year old) was first to get up around 8am. I had been up already, walked the dog and prepped all the tackle. We use VERY light line (4 pd Seaguar flour carbon) on 9' ultalight Noodle rods, size 16 hooks to hide a single kernel of corn......this light presentation is necessary to tempt the fish in our area, as they are pressured hard and very line shy. Ben (my 12 year old) decided to sleep in, and asked if he could just fish in the afternoon. Joey (my 20 year old) had his girlfriend visiting, so he decided to forgo fishing......SO Willy and I set out for the first pond. This pond is located on a college campus, and has a population of some very skittish koi. Couple that with very cold water, I didn't think we would have great success...When we arrived, a few fish could be seen close to the bank, I threw in some sweet corn, and noticed a few were eating immediately.....couple casts and Willy was hooked up with his first koi of the day!
We were pretty excited with this fish, weighed it and released it. Willy noticed another fish feeding and again in a few casts, it hit.......
Another nice koi....platinum white!
He continued fishing and hooked a couple sunnies and small goldfish, then when attempting to unhook another "goldfish" we noticed barbels......a third mini koi!
My baiting campaign paid off as the fish continued to feed. In the past we had only one time caught more then one fish from this pond, but on the 1st, the fish kept hitting. I knew that there was a warming trend through the night, and the skim ice that had formed the days prior had melted. Anyway, Here is Willy's fourth koi of the morning!
Willy had matched his previous high catch of koi on a previous FFF....that day was ridiculous in respect to koi catching as our best day EVER between any of us was TWO koi. But too get Four in a day again was pretty crazy........
There are two larger koi that inhabit this pond, and my sons Willy and Joe have caught one of the koi twice during an FFF. The other larger fish is a pretty interesting butterfly finned one that has always been really skittish. This day however, it finally bit and Willy had a pretty good fight.......Koi # 5!!!
The fish stopped hitting so I headed to another pond I had been baiting. We tried there for an hour without a hit........I then took WIlly out for lunch. We took a break, drove home and got my 12 year old Ben. We then hit a local stream that is inhabited by an interesting race of mirrors. Surprisingly they were very reluctant to hit. The weather had been turning colder, cloudy and a breeze had started. It took a few hours and after coving almost a mile of stream, WIlly finally connected on a decent mirror.
We decided to cut out losses and head two a third location. I knew we had less then an hour to fish, but I knew that the second pond we visited had some nice mirror carp and koi. I love this location. There is an inlet stream that runs underground and daylights just above the point where it enters the pond. This location is like a magnet to fish, as this is the only inlet to this several acre pond. The underground nature of this stream also tends to make the water a little warmer. There are two branches on the pond here and fish cruise in from either direction from the main pond. Its pretty exciting to see a group of fish tailing and heading towards the stream inlet.
We setup so that there are two baits in front of either branch, using a small bobber as a strike indicator. After striking out that morning WIlly connected again with a koi. It was an almost all white mirror koi!
After weighing and photographing, I decided to take a walk around the pond, when Willy yells he has another one! Here is WIlly's seventh koi of the day! Another mirror koi at that.
We fished into darkness, but decided that with the cold temps, we probably had seen our last fish of the day. All in all SEVEN koi and one mirror carp in about 8 hours of fishing on New Years Day has got to be our best FFF adventure yet! Already looking forward to next year!
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Thanks Jerome....nice pictures!
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Thanks Eric and Matt! I cant wait for shad season either!
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WOW, The Gordons are proud and honored to be inducted into the Hall of Fame as Koi Masters! Thanks Jerome for organizing this event! Congrats to all the other winners as well! Cant wait til next year........
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Thanks for the kind words everyone! Jerome thanks for posting the pics.....amazing how much weight that koi dropped.....in 2007 it was a fatty!!
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The koi that Joe caught was a recapture from the FFF a few years back.....I will have to look it up and see how much it weighed back then... I cant seem to post pics now....Jerome can you post the pics I sent you??
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I had high hopes for the FFF this year given that the weather had cooperated and stayed mild. I had chummed several spots throughout the week before, and had noted some nice koi in a local pond that seemedto greet me each morning I showed up. I went to bed around 1 AM New Years Morning, shooting to get up around 8 to get the kids out of bed and start fishing. But it was not to be as I was woken up at 2:40 AM by my oldes son who had been abandonned in Philadelphia. So I ventured out to get him home safely. After almost being sideswiped by 3 cars racing at 3AM probably pushing 100 MPH, I got to him. Needless to say, by the time I got home at 6AM, we had many adventures including calling 911 to get an amulance for a nice young man who had gotten jumped by 5 guys. He was left bloody and came over to us a pretty scary sight......a person with blood streaming out of both ears and his nose with a swollen bloody face is pretty scary at 5AM......I got him warm in my car and awaited the ambulance. What a night. I tried to go back to sleep til 8 or so, but couldnt.
We finally got out at lunchtime, and as we arrived, there were a group of carp and FIVE koi waiting to be fed! As we approached, a group of geese saw us, and came flying in.......that spooked the fish out of our swim pretty quickly. UGH!
We waited for a while and some carp came back into the swim.....My 19 year old Joe got the first fish, a 5+ pound goldfish/carp hybrid (his first!). Next my 15 year old got a 12+ pound ghost carp. Things were looking up........the fish continued to be spooky and wouldnt feed. The biggest factor became the weather, as there was an approaching cold front, and the wind had picked up, clouds rolled in and the temps dropped.
Eventually a nice koi came back into our swim, and Joey hooked it. After a pretty long fight, the koi was landed. AT 15 + pounds it was nice to get Joe on his first koi! That was it for catching for the day, but for New Years Day, we did OK!
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Colorwise, it looks like koi...if it had barbels, it is!
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My two youngest sons (Willy age 14 and Ben age 10) and I participated in the FFF in our area (Southeastern Pa). Prior to New Years Day, I had been scoping and chumming several areas that we have had success in the past. Most were completely frozen over......I therefore took it upon myself to de-ice some areas during the week prior to the FFF and of course leave some sweetcorn whne I was done. We began the FFF on the late side, not reaching our first spot til around 10 AM or so. The weather really cooperated with near 50 degree temps and some morning sun! This spot had produced some nice koi and mirrors last year. This spot I will call "the duck pond". There is a culvert at the duck pond that empties "warm water" after it travels underground for some long distance. I assisted the warm water by breaking up the ice, and by the time it was New Years day, there was a 20' hole around the discharge pipe. My corn had disappeared during the previous chummings, but no fish showed while we gave it an hour.
We then moved to the second spot, "the business park pond". This pond has some nice koi and mirrors, with a large population of smaller mirror carp. The picture shows that the fountain managed to keep some open water even during the cold snaps, but an hour of fishing where I had chummed all week produced no hits..The boys were getting a little bored and frustrated as two previously "go-to" spots were no producing....we decided to move to a small creek that has some "limestone spring" influence and therefore had remained ice-free.
When we arrived at the small creek, I noticed that my chum had dissaperaed overnight and there were some small carp feeding. This creek is only about 10-15 feet wide at its wides, with many areas that are less then 5-6 feet across...truley a small venue. The fish are in gin clear water and hooking them requires a quiet approach and 4 pd flourocarbon line.....our baits were single kernels of sweetcorn on size 16 hooks..... Willy almost immediately hooked a decent mirror at over 9 pounds. Ben then hooked and landed a ghost carp, while Willy then hooked a pretty small mirror just over 2 pounds. Ben and Willy each landed another mirror and while netting the last mirror, I noticed a koi feeding. This particular koi I had hooked in the summer, but it broke me off on a submerged log. Since that time, it never appeared to feed on my chum again, and would purposely move upstream whenever sweetcorn enetered the water!
It appeared to hev lost its fear, and was now feeding! Willy hooked it, and after a pretty long fight, landed the little koi. We then decided to try for a VERY small carp that showed up, as it was well under a pound. We gave it about an hour, but the small carp would not take, while other carp freely fed around it.....we decided to go back to the "duck pond" and try for the last hour of light. This time the duck pond produced several large goldfish, but no koi or carp showed up.
I feel like we should have stayed at the small stream as we left fish to find other fish......oh well lesson learned for next year.......as always we enjoy fishing in the FFF!
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Are you casting the baits? If so, then 8' of 200+wire will be extremely hard to cast. I'd go with 4 to 5' of wire
Yeah I now it will be hard to cast, but I gotta try something....sick of getting beat after hookups!! I dont have the huge reels so I have to stick with braid for heavy line.......I am too wimpy to swim/kayak our baits out
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Nice sharks man!! My family and I have landed some big ones over the past few years off of Kiawah SC, but we definitely lose more battles then we win......We only have spinning equip with 80 pd braid, and we are getting our line rubbed off by tails/bodies once the fish are on and hooked...I am only using 2 feet of wire......I am moving up to an 8' leader of 200+ pd mono and then the wire......any other tips for the rubbing??
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macfish here. Bill, just about a week ago I commented on a post by Ol' Captain (Horace) who has been catching small koi at very exclusive site in Georgia and mentioned both you (by name) and another koi fisherman from New Zealand and that I hadn't heard anything from either of you for awhile. As Phone mentioned, welcome back! I don't know if you've seen any of Ol' Captain's (Horace) posts on koi, but some of the fish he's caught, though small - maybe mostly 1/2 lb. or less, absolutely glow. Your posts are always very interesting. I can't want until you have some method of posting a movie of a capture or two. The one of popcorn sounds like it would have been fantastic to see! Thanks, Jonathan
Macfish, I did see that post and commented in that thread that I would be chasing a few this past weekend, and was hopeful to get one...obviously we did a little better then that! BTW Popcorn was eating like a pig this morning, literally 12 hours after it was put in my pond....these koi definitely have "memory" of being fed pellets.......some of my toughest koi captures similarly ate pellets from the surface the next day, after YEARS of NOT EATING ANYTHING I threw at them
....makes finding and catching a koi that much more interesting.... -
You could have left the "small" part out .
Small can be beautiful
......the second one that Willy caught this past weekend will grow to be an absolute beautiful fish, just give it 2-3 years and it will be just as big....thats just some of the fun of koi keeping, finding a small one and watching it grow and its patterns change......I did see one recent post by the Captain, with 3 nice (but small) koi......they were really beautiful....if I were you Captain, I would definitely make a nice pond and keep a few of your captures...did you post any other pictures?? Sorry I havent been around much, but work is really busy and spend a lot of time out of my state....makes posting tough..... -
A few weeks ago, I had a small tragedy in my koi "show pond". The combination of super hot temps, a heavy algae bloom and a tripped GFI and resulting loss of electricity to the ponds aeration and filtration resulted in the loss of my biggest and best koi (but all koi under 12-inches survived). To say the least, my family and I were heartbroken :'( :'(. At least we still had four ponds of healthy fish........ After a few days, I vowed to get some great koi back in the show pond. I started by going to a koi farm nearby that produced really nice fish and were having a buy one-get one sale. I did aquire a few really nice koi, and I would like to take this opportunity th personally thank George (GC) for helping fund some of the koi purchase
.....What can I say George but thanks and you are definitely a class act. My family is very grateful for your generosity ;D "George the koi "will always remind us of you! AFter getting a few nice koi at the farm, I decided to start chumming a few local ponds that I knew had koi. I used sweetcorn and bread several times before this past weekend to see if I could get any feeding.....Saturday eveing, my son WIlly and I tried the smaller of the two ponds. After a few minutes we spied a nice koi feeding on sweetcorn, and WIlly was able to land a nice orange white and black spoted koi. Well we both felt a little better when we added this koi to the "show" pond. The next morning we tried the larger of the ponds with no success. We then went back to the smaller pond and captured a small 12-inch koi that was similarly colored but a japanese variety called a sanke.... We definietly thought we had some nice new fish for the pond, but little did I know the biggest was capture was coming today.
On a whim while driving home from work, I decided to check out the larger of the two ponds that I had been baiting. I chummed with bread at the area where a small stream enters the pond. There were no fish present, but I chummed anyway, hoping they might show. AFter a brief walk around the pond, I came back to the chummed area to see that there were four fish feeding, two carp and two koi. I was left with one piece of stale-ish crust and I cast a small piece towards the biggest, yellow koi. It sank slightly, and as the koi approached, it saw the line and spooked away from the bait. In a few minutes, it came back, and began eating from the surface again. I recast, with similar results of sinking bread and spooky koi......I decided to chum closer to the bank so I could suspend the bread on the surface at the end of my 9-foot noodle rod. I crouched behind a tree, and when the koi came close, I lowered my bread in ront of it, and I held it at the waters surface so it appeared to float.....the koi inhaledit, and exploded across the surface when I set the hook......It was a great fighter, making three long runs to the center of the pond, but eventually the noodlerod wore the fish out. The kids have named this white and yellow koi Popcorn, and its 12-14 pound body is absolutely glowing as it swims through the "show pond".......Three koi in three days is definitely a Gordon family record.....enjoy the pics!
Pic #1 is two nice koi from the koi farm (THANKS GEORGE) ;D
Pic # 2 and # 3 is Willys first koi of the weekend
Pic #4 is the second small koi of the weekend
Pic # 5, 6 and 7 is Popcorn
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macfish here. Horace, very lovely! The colors on those fish are just saturated! Your adventures with koi have remind me of two members of the forum who have caught koi in the past. The two I'm referring to sort of focussed on them. In the case of one gentleman whose name I cannot remember he lives in New Zealand and there are evidently no carp there but they do have koi, or at least they do where he lives. In the Southern hemisphere they're in their winter right now so he may be reading stories about our catches here and we read his stories of catches during our winter. I cannot remember the name of the other gentleman either but he is a friend of Louis who has a koi pond and he goes out staking and catching koi. Was his name maybe Bill? Great job again and thanks for sharing them with us. Jonathan
Hi Macfish...it IS Bill and I am still around, just so busy at work cant seem to find much time to post pics much anymore......I have spotted and fed some koi this week, so this weekend, you may see more koi pictures (if Im lucky!!)
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THAT is a beatiful and unique koi!! Enjoy it,its a rare one!
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Very cool Lorne...What a neat looking fish....WTG
Agreed Beautiful fat fish!! Was that out of Lake Ontario??
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You actually do need to put a fish in there to cycle the tank...those bottles of stuff do not work, nothing can replace a fish pooping and the corresponding growth of amonia, nitrite and nitrate reducing bacteria....get a feeder goldfish and he will ive thru the cycling....freshwater should only take 3-4 weeks to complete...when the nitrite levels drop, its time to slowly add fish....the best tip was 50 water changes!!
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Thanks Jerome!! WIlly is very excited!!.....and congrats to all the winners and participants in the FFF, and a special thanks to Jerome who did a great job organizing, etc!!
FFF 2014 - Post ALL Carp Entries/Captures Here!
in FFF 2014
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My son Willy with a mirror carp 14 pounds 9 ounces