Are koi vegetarians? Why do women catch the biggest salmon?

Another very interesting question came from Carol McKnight. Here it is ... Mr. Roocroft, Our koi are eating the roots to our floating plants. We have seen a local pet store place cut zucchini or orange halves into the aquariums of koi. Do you know if this is safe for the fish to eat? Also, I would like to thank-you for you're reply to another question we had earlier about the red worms.

Koi are evolved carp; and carp are definitely vegetarians, in fact they are omnivores. There is a special kind of carp sometimes used in larger lakes to clear the lakes of weed growth. They are called grass carp and they grow quite big.

Back to zucchini and oranges. Many koi keepers feed oranges to their koi ... I used to sell by the way an orange flavoured koi food.

They also feed them cabbage, lettuce and most other vegetables.

Like most things feeding such items is best done in moderation. It is safe to do this.

Koi are great destroyers of pond plants for this simple reason and it often pays to cover the top of plant pots with stones to prevent severe attacks.

Carp fishermen are well known for their "secret" baits which they swear buy. The principle is based upon smell normally since carp and koi have tremendous ability to pick up small traces of odour in water. This leads onto another story.

The biggest salmon ever caught in the UK was caught by a fisherwoman and there have been many other instances of large salmon having been caught by women. The theory (I find it hard to believe personally but why spoil a good story) is that women catch bigger salmon because of the pheromones (scent chemicals) unique to the female of the species and it is these pheromones that attract the fish.