Who wants to go Goldfishing?

[Shady]

[Paddle4fish]

fileted and friend in cornbread or just steamed with crab stuffing or sushi Golden Roll ...lmao! someone let their pet loose..

[quikdrive]

I have actually seen decent size gold fish or small koi swimming around the docks at Bladensburg...couldn't get them to hook up though. Wonder what he was using?

[Redfish12]

There are some monster ones in the Potomac.

[Shady]

Yea, I've seen koi in streams before, and saw one at mattawoman to, but never seen that kind of goldfish.

[bignose]

Common misconception:
Koi are carp, bred to have highlighted colors. Like natural carp they can achieve some pretty hefty proportions, and live for a very long time.
Goldfish are, well, goldfish. Different species. In the wild, in Asia, native goldfish are sort of a drab olive green color. Five hundred plus years of selective inbreeding mutants has resulted in some incredibly wild color and body shapes. (I have 300+ gallons of these fish at home.)
A common goldfish, orange or not, can easily grow to 15-18 inches depending on food availability, water temperature, etc. And they can be very prolific. They will eventually revert back to the natural state and color. Natural selection takes over.
Like carp, they probably aren't the most edible of fish.
The Potomac and several local pond here in Columbia have healthy populations of both.
I figure that 3 pounder would give a pretty good account of himself on a light fly rod.
(No, I don't practice in my tanks!).

[jet]

i caught a large gold fish like that in my neighborhood creek when i was a kid. all the neighbor hood kids tried to catch it for weeks as it was in the same place under a small bridge. one kid was able to snag it with a treble, but after weeks of trying, i finally got it to bite a piece of cheese.

[BareBones]

I have a few koi in the 2 foot size, a blue heron got all my 12 to 16 inch gold fish last spring.He is now on my endangered species list.

[frettr00]

This is what happens when you flush your pet goldfish down the toilet and it goes to goldfish heaven.

[donkey fish]

there are some big gold fish in the potomac this is one i shot last year while bow fishing for snakeheads size 11 boot for reference

[chex]

When I was a kid, we had a big goldfish in an aquarium. I would fish for him using sewing thread and a piece of worm on a bent sewing needle. I caught him many times. I eventually released him in the C&O canal. I wonder if this is my long-lost beloved pet.

[M_Duong60]

Wow i didnt realize that this is actually more common than it seems.