The "Walters" of our pond

[BettaMomma]

There's a huge pond in the courtyard outside our apartment:

In this pond, there are several thousand (probably like 20 - 30 thousand) goldfish that survive winters in Wisconsin, which in and of itself is pretty amazing to me.
BUT...
We have a couple of "Walters" in our pond, and I'm so excited - we spotted themfor the first time last night.
Here's the gynormous goldfish-ish carp guy: (It's probably hard to tell by the photo, but he's probably in the range of 2 feet long:

This is the clearest images I can get of him. He is very elusive and our pond is longer than a football field so to even spot him is pretty rare.
Also, we snuck up on this guy who was digging around on the bank - he was also about 2 feet long.

Just wanted to share

 

[Cat]

wow big pond
Thanx for showing us the pond, it looks lovely were you live,I'd have a chair next to it and sit there all day

 

[BettaMomma]

I do love sitting out there in the summertime.
Especially on really warm days when I can go sit on the dock at one end of the pond and watch the goldfish swim by under the dock.

 

[WILDER]

Sounds lovely and relaxing.

 

[Stagette]

It looks lovely, thanks for sharing the pictures

 

[WILDER]

It looks lovely, thanks for sharing the pictures

Long time no see.

 

[Stagette]

It looks lovely, thanks for sharing the pictures

Long time no see.

Ive come out of hiding

 

[BettaMomma]

Okay, time for more pictures!
It was almost 80 degrees here for the first time in a while yesterday, so I thought I'd go out and take pics from the end of the dock. And I took a LOAD of pics.
Armed with 2 loaves of bread.. lol

Here's the view from the dock where I got sit indian style for hours on end and just watch the fish down below.

And here is some of the stuff I see off the dock:
Here's the life of a piece of bread in the water:

And here's just the goldfish hanging out waiting for more bread:

And some closeups of them:

And an albino one that we spotted:

and the race is on:

The bullhead won by a longshot - he just opened his mouth and sucked the whole piece of bread in
and some koi and goldfish eating bread: I am pretty sure they're koi???

How about these faces??

AND... last but not least....
Can anyone identify these fish:

Are they just carp?

 

[Opcn]

Look like just plain carp, Great pics, lets ave more

 

[BettaMomma]

I'll post some more soon.
On days when it's really hot outside - like in the upper 90's, there are humongous swarms of goldfish flopping around at the top of the water.

One thing that just disturbs me slightly is that we have this guy that lives across the pond from us - and one hot summer day last summer, he stipped down to his skivvies, hopped in the pond and did a few laps back and forth.

Uuuuugh - just gives me the creepy crawlies thinking about it.

 

[ryan]

Nice pictures. The last few pictures are of Common Carp and the other Carp are Ghost Koi, nice to see a Bullhead to.

 

[BettaMomma]

Cool!
Thanks for identifying.

 

[Opcn]

Does someone own the pond? Could said owner airate in the summer (because I'llbet you anything some of the larger fish die in the extreem heat) also said owner could keep skivy man out, that or a summer with 50-60 pirahnas

 

[BettaMomma]

We do have a fountain in the middle of the pond that they try to keep running all year long, so that keeps it somewhat aerated.

The pond is on the apartment complex property.
It is so disgusting and nasty with all the crap that people throw into it, it makes me sick. We walk around the pond picking up things like beer cans and crap like that and throw it away - but I can't even imagine what's in there that we can't see.

And yeah... we should put up a sign that says "no skivvy diving, PLEASE"
lol

 

[WILDER]

Lovely pictures thanks for sharing them with us.