Fred scared, but not to death

Last Friday Aimee went to go do something with Sam and upon walking out the front walk saw that the little boy fishing statue we have by the pond had fallen in. She then found what she describes on her blog as a trout laying in the bark dust on the other side of the walk. It quickly dawned on her that it was Fred, our oldest Koi, and luckily found that he was still alive, slurping to breathe. You can read the rest of her details on her blog. It was very lucky for him that it was wet and rainy out instead of full sun.

Anywho... Fred wasn't doing too well after Aimee put him back in the pond, and was just kinda floating at the top against the side... I could see that he was still "breathing" and moving his fins around. I decided he may need some help after the trauma of being out of the pond so I went out and gently cradled him and moved him back and forth in the water to see if I could force some water through his gills and get him revived a little better. That seemed to have worked and he was doing much better for the rest of the day.

So I have been keeping an eye on him all weekend and would see him from time to time swimming around, but he has been kinda keeping to the deep. We haven't seen any other fish in the pond either as of this morning and I hadn't seen Fred yesterday and this morning at all. I assumed the worst; that whatever had gotten him out of the pond had come back to finish the job. So I decided that since the pond needed some fresh water anyways I would drain it a little to see who all was still there.

Lo and behold, Fred and several of the other fish, of 7 goldfish and two other Koi, are still in there, but they are all very shy now. I don't know what got after them, but it taught them a lesson about mortality I think. We had a blue heron take off with our original fish from the pond the fall after we bought the house in 2006; of which Fred is the sole survivor. So Fred is the war veteran who may have tried to sacrifice himself fighting off whatever it was. Evidently he was successful. We won't know for sure if the other two Koi, Barney and Wilma, made it until they decide to come to the surface again, but hopefully at least they made it. I could easily replace the gold fish, but am fond of them and how big they had gotten.

Fred seems to be doing fine, but keeping a low profile. Fred is one lucky/brave fish; he may be part catfish with 7 lives left.

To act as some kind of defense, I put up fishing line from the gutters to stakes in the ground around the pond and from gutter to gutter in the corner where the pond is. That should discourage any herons, but may be of little deterrent if it ends up being a raccoon or dog that got in there. I need to get the camera for the front yard installed so we can monitor what comes around the pond.

Anywho... will give an update on who exactly is left in the pond when they decide it is safe to come to the surface or we drain it enough to be able to tell.