Catching big koi a bigger surprise
It’s no fish tale – the Japanese koi fish has been found at Boundary Dam.
A few days after this year’s fishing season opened, Chelsea Greening and Landon Polk of Estevan were at the dam near the hot water return when they spotted some potential targets.
“When we saw these fish we thought they were either carp or some type of sucker fish, so we got all excited,” Greening said. “We came back with our bow, which is attached to our fishing gear.”
Although the couple is new to bow fishing, Polk was able to shoot one of the large fish.
“We got it out of the water and were pretty surprised to see what we did and we (had) never seen a fish that looked like (that),” Greening said. “It looked like a pond fish. We didn’t think it could be a pond fish.”
Polk, an avid fisherman and bow hunter, has been fishing since he was a child. He said the koi is by far the most unusual fish he’s caught.
The couple took a photo of the fish to a local conservation officer, who sent it off to Saskatchewan Fisheries and confirmed that it was a koi.
“When we caught that first one we were pretty surprised, because you don’t hear about koi fish being in Saskatchewan lakes,” Polk said.
“The conservation officer said someone must have released them. They must have been their pond fish and they just got too big and so they released them thinking they could survive in Boundary because it’s heated.”
Greening said people who have fished in the dam for the past 40 to 50 years can’t believe the fish are there and surviving.
She said that a lot of people are speculating about how the fish got into the dam and how long they’ve been there.
Jennifer Merkowsky, a fishery biologist for the area with the Ministry of the Environment, said the fish were first sighted in the dam in May 2010, then again last month.
“Both times they were observed congregating around the warm water effluent,” she said. “That’s probably allowing them to (survive) over winter in Saskatchewan.”
Merkowsky said the koi have not made an observable impact on the environment so far.
“Whether or not there will be one, we really can’t predict,” she said.
At the present time, there is no feasible method to eradicate the koi, so the province is encouraging anglers to target the fish whenever possible.
“People should not release their aquarium pets, plants or water into our lakes, rivers or wetlands because it can have an impact that they may not have thought about,” Merkowsky said.
Polk was out on the water Thursday; he said he was seeing a lot less of the unusual fish.
Although people are encouraged to catch the koi, he figures he’s the only one who has done it so far.
The koi are not edible, but they do make good fish bait, he said.