I got a phone call from Shawn McHenry, he said he had a really special fish to
talk about in our Koi discussions video this week
let's go inside and see what he has in store for us. Shawn!
Eric! Awesome to see you man. Great to see you man. I love these koi discussions. They're the best.
Okay
You told you have this amazing koi, I'm here to see it. Tell me about it.
Alright, So I have with us today
about, I think an eight-year-old Nogami Taisho Sanke
My customer, a very special customer of mine, asked for a very, very
special fish
and I have it. It's for a koi show is that right it? It is, it is. It's coming up this
weekend
and this fish is at eighty three centimeters, so around Thirty-
four inch Sanke. She's big. She's big. And not only is she big but she's beautiful.
Let's get her in a bowl! Yeah, yeah absolutely man.
She's so big, she doesn't even come close to fitting in my net
She's a monster.
Alright so, obviously she's huge right? Yeah.
We can see that. But that's not what makes her special.
What makes her special is that she's huge, and she still has
all the qualities of a young baby fish. Like her white
is pure, pure milk. I mean she's
smooth and silky, When you say just as if she was a young fish. So how old is she?
She is around 8 years old. Eight...
And her red, is that nice deep red and a lot of times older fish get sort of,
their red sort of fades away and it becomes a real, grimy orange
and we can see the black on here is
It's like ink. Yeah, it's like ink and they're still
it still coming up! So again it's as if this fish was
just a two or three year old fish, but really is
massive. It's massive.
You know from my understanding its usually three to five years maybe seven
years they might finish out.
Correct. Not the case for her. Not the case with her at all.
And that's rare right? Yeah absolutely! And the most difficult thing is to get fish
to
have that red climax, the white climax
and the black climax, all the same time and
it'll do that sometimes but it'll be when the fish is this big (hand gesture small)
right? In order to get this crescendo
to happen on a such a massive fish, its, I mean
highly unlikely. I mean it's like
one in a billion sort of chance. One in a million? One in a Billion. A BILLION!
Yeah absolutely. That's awesome. It's absolutely so rare.
Just look at the skin quality here, look at the...
it just like shines.
So obviously, she's a huge, beautiful
32 inch fish, but What makes her so
Interesting…. is, is the dynamic qualities she has, she has a
awesome pattern. There is this really interesting face pattern here and then
boom, boom, boom, nice, nice actually four steps
If you look at it actually 5 steps. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Oh yeah. It's pretty, pretty awesome to find a five-step Kohaku
right? And then put black on it and make it a Sanke.
She has absolutely perfect confirmation. Usually when Fish are this big,
you start to see little kinks their body
where... where they maybe had a bad spawning one year. Oh right...
And so, they have this long spine that get outta place.
She's absolutely perfect straight. And thats…thats... to me, when the most important
things about
caring for fish and admiring its conformation
Then… the red
the white and the black have all sort of, climaxed all the same time
and to get that to happen is a so-so
rare... and to have it happen on such a large fish it's like all these
cool things come together at the same time to make this absolutely beauty.
and do they start spawning her? At what age?
She's been spawning for them of course right? No, No, not at all!
No she's just been a show fish. No, not a show fish but
just in his mud ponds growing.
So he hasn't use this as a breeder at all. Very interesting to know.
I've actually gotten a couple guys already who have,
who have seen this fish, who are interested in, once she retires,
put out to pasture and see what kinda eggs she can produce.
So Shawn this is really interesting to me, I didn't realize
that
if the breeder sees the potential for a grand champion
they do not want to breed her, is that what you're telling me?
Oh yeah, absolutely! They don't want to breed until….
Why is that? Well, there is several things going on.
Believe it or not, a breeder
typically isn't me most beautiful fish. What we're looking for in
breeding, and every Koi breeder in Japan has different opinion oh what's a good
male-female breeder. But they're often looking for
the volume of eggs she can carry, and certain traits in their bloodline
This fish, is a show fish.
so it's…. its main purpose is complete, like
absolute beauty. So,
if you were to breed it and she were to lose some scales,
or get bruised, or get stressed, you know breeding is a pretty stressful thing
And we don't what this fish to see any stress ever.
You… You went to get this fish
You went looking for this fish! I went hunting for her. Hunting? Right! So your client
says,
I wanna be in a show, I want a chance to win. Absolutely!
Okay. And so I'm actually judging a Koi Show in Japan.
The Nagaoka Nogiosai
And….I am a judge, pretty cool right? Yeah. And we're going through here
and we go to pick our champion. Right?
I vote for this fish. This fish
and another Kohaku, end up getting
right around the same amount of votes. Right?
We go back and we have to revote, so we try to get one that has a majority,
a significant majority, and the... the breeder
Nogamison, he bred this sanke, well turns out he also
bred the Kohaku. So this guy, no matter what, is going away winning
grand champion and reserve grand champion. He's is also a judge at the show
and he's like, guys I'm gonna be honest with you.
Both my fish are gonna win. I'm a kohaku breeder.
I think that Kohaku looks better. How about you guys? Ha, Ha. And so
so of course, a couple other guys start voting for the Kohaku. Right….
And so the Kohaku actually wins grand champion. But if you ask me,
in my opinion, this snake was the best show, the best fish of the show
Right. So she took "reserve" at that big show? Yeah.
Which was great for me! Because if this was "grand champion",
she would of cost me a lot more money! Ha,Ha, Ha, Ha….
And your client right? Yeah! Absolutely, absolutely!
Wow, she's really special. Shawn this is stressing me out just seeing her in the bowl. Let's let her go,
I don't want her in the bowl anymore!
Absolutely, Absolutely!
How much does she weigh? Too much man, too much! That was AWESOME, man!!!!
I feel really honored that you called me to come and see this fish. Absolutely! I couldn't
let a fish
It's very rare that a fish like this comes to America and I knew you'd love
it,
So, I had to have you out here to check her out. You know it's like the art.
This is like the Van Gogh of the, you know of the koi.That's what we're talking
about. That's why we're doing these koi discussions videos
to expose people to the true beauty behind that.
Real, real treasure. Man thank you very much! No problem man. Have a great day.
I'll see ya…..
Wow what an amazing koi. It's not every day you get to be that close to a
Sixty Thousand Dollar Koi!
Special thanks to Shawn McHenry at Mystic Koi for having us out.
I'm Eric Triplett The Pond Digger, Thanks for watching.