Page 79 - Koi Net - On-Line Koi Magazine - Issue 30

as the tougher of the two categories; and at other pronounced volume around the shoulders. And, the
Shows, the Best Gosanke usually ends up as Grand growth has been pretty good too.”
Champion.
I’d strongly suspect that ‘Map Of England 2’s’ lovely
The Byer Koi Kohaku, exhibited by Tony Thompson, body shape with strong volume was a key aspect in
won Best Gosanke! No other Koi beat this Kohaku. The her Show success in 2020!
Show allowed Koi up to Size 6 to enter (i.e. up to 75cm
– a very substantial size), and was entered by a total of Tony has this picture of her from the recent Show:
65 separate Koi.
THE LOVELY
Tony’s Kohaku, was in Size 4 at the upper end of that
size as I understand it from Tony. So mid 50’s cm. It BODY SHAPE
comes from the 2017 spawning of our Lava Rosa
Kohaku line, and was actually the first spawning from WITH STRONG
her. It has a pattern style that we call ‘Map Of England’, VOLUME WAS
because of the way the pattern weaves across the Koi’s
IT HAS A back making shapes like the English coastline. This A KEY ASPECT
PATTERN Kohaku is nicknamed ‘Map Of England 2’, as it’s the IN HER SHOW
second Koi we bred with that style of pattern. The first
STYLE THAT ‘Map Of England’ was from our Sharkey line a year SUCCESS
earlier.
WE CALL
The ‘Map Of England 2’ Kohaku was made available for
‘MAP OF sale at Nisai in spring 2019 as one of the top 3 Kohaku
ENGLAND’ produced, female, priced at £750. But she didn’t sell.
All the qualities you’d want from a Kohaku were there;
the body, skin and colour were fantastic. And a brilliant
unique pattern. But, the Koi was on the smaller side for
the spawning, and I can’t find the record of its length at
that time, but from memory, around 40cm.

I kept her here at Byer Koi Farm summer ’19 after
which she reached Sansai, at which point Tony
Thompson bought her. And this autumn, she had
completed her 4th summer and become Yonsai and
Tony entered her into the Show.
I looked back at my blog from 2017 for information
about the spawning she came from and I described it
on my blog at the time as the ‘May#1’ spawning; and
a few months after the spawning, I said this in my
blog about them when they would have been a few
inches long:
“This batch of fish are particularly intriguing. Because,
the body shapes coming through on some of the better
ones are different to what we’ve seen before. There’s a

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