September has seemingly flown by, what with the nights drawing in, we’ll be rolling the clocks back sooner than you perhaps think.
It’s been a fairly quiet month on the committee given some holiday, our next committee meeting takes place into October.
The highlight of the month, for me anyway, was exhibiting and being awarded Best Non Go Sanke at the All England Koi Show. There is usually a fairly busy build up to the show, and given this is my local Koi Club, I do what I can to support.
I’ve owned this fish from Tosai (26cm), she was bred by Koshiji Kase and is now seven years old (76cm).
She is a show fish; she looks great swimming around my pond and has been a pleasure to watch grow and develop.
What pleases me most are the comments other people make when they see her; that enjoyment from others is great to see and hear. You don’t see many Size 7 Goshiki’s, which got me thinking about the Koromo show class and its appearance at koi shows over the years.
As some of you may guess, nothing from this show class has ever won a major award at either the BKKS National or All England Koi Shows - well that changed a couple of weekends ago!
The only history, or I guess story, relates to the 2003 BKKS National Koi Show, where Bill Oakley exhibited a Goshiki (82cm) bred by Toshio Sakai (Matsunosuke, via Peter Waddington).
A conversation ensued with Liam Bess (World of Nishikigoi) and unbeknownst to me, Liam had taken a photo of said fish at INC (Isawa Nishikigoi Centre, Japan).
Looking at the image and considering this is some 20+ years ago; Bill's Goshiki was mameshibori (lighter ground/base colour) unlike my fish, Bill's fish was a little bigger and perhaps slightly more imposing.
Anyway, what struck me when I checked the KoiKichi website for further details, were the similarity in comments from the general public about both fish - people clearly continue to be impressed by this variety especially when at a larger size.
Bill/Peter’s fish didn’t win a major that year, if you're interested in reading more, you can find Peter's comments on KoiKichi
As always thanks to Liam at World of Nishikigoi for allowing me to use these copy-written pictures.
If you want to check out the other results from the All England Koi Show, you can find them in Liam's Blog.
That’s it from me this month, whatever you’re up to, stay safe and enjoy the hobby.
Feel free to get in touch via chairman@bkks.co.uk
