"92) Spot the koi carp in the old dock next to Princes Quay"

Pictures by Margot K Juby

Last year the local paper ran a piece labelled: "The ultimate Hull bucket list: 101 things to do in the city before you die"; the sort of cut and paste job they do when there's no news in June. Anyhow, apart from finding that I'm now quite ready to kick that bucket having done nigh on all the things on this list, lurking down there at number 92 is "Spot the koi carp in the old dock next to Princes Quay"... no picture accompanied this just a reassurance that "They are in there. Honest." ... like there is any difficulty getting a photo of these beasts, easy peasy you'd think. Except I've tried over the years with different cameras, different times of day, polarising filter, you name it... getting nothing that was anywhere near good enough. So when Margot said she'd have a go with our new Lumix I was not hopeful, "It'll never work", I said, "You're wasting your time ....", I said ...

So how did so many big, prize carp end up in Princes Dock? Well I've heard two stories: one was that they were taken from Queen's Gardens pond to give them more room to roam (seems unlikely). The other was to control the algal growth and flies next the to Princes Quay shopping centre (seems a bit more likely) ... what ever the reason the Council did put over 1000 fish into the old dock back in 2010 and they seem to be thriving on algae, flies and bits of naughty children thrown in by desperate parents ...