ray's mud pond koi harvest

Every Fall Ray Abell of Nishikigoi of Niigata seines his large mud ponds in Midlothian, Virginia. The growth of conformation on these fish is nothing short of spectacular and it is a site to behold. I have visited Ray for the last 3 mud pulls and enjoyed it very much
Nov 2007
I once again made the trek down to Virginia for the harvest. Unlike last year when we were in shorts, it was actually quite cool

I brought my newly purchased Canon XTI and shot over 700 pictures, some of the better ones pictured below


Nov. 2005
Ray has several mud ponds on his property, the larger 2 holding about 500,000 gallons of water each. They measure over 130 feet long by 40+ feet wide and 10 feet in depth

Fish are grown on in these ponds from May until November each year. They put on astounding length and girth in this timeframe - up to 10 inches for the tosai

Download a free video of the 2005 Harvest on our Videos Page

  • First the pond are drained down...
  • a seine net is utilized to drag the pond
  • A nice showa is being netted
  • A fantastic start to any koi collection featuring "The big 4"
  • The fish are placed into a floating dingy
  • Fish are efficiently bagged and moved up to holding tanks for observation
  • WOW
  • A shot of one of the 11 tanks in Ray's 2nd. Greenhouse
  • 3 incredible sanke