[dick benbow]

One of the situations i see with beginners is that often after their pond is built they invest in some 6 inch koi only to have them run and hide because they feel vulnerable.
Even the most patient koi keeper will soon be outlasted by their skiddish pets, which causes their anticipated joy of beautiful wet pets to be crushed. Ahhh, do not get exasperated....simply invest in one or two bigger fish and watch the smaller guys settle down. a fish that's 12 - 13 inches is about right!
Yamabuki, Ochiba or Chagoi are great candidates for the purpose of quick growth, friendly nature, and calming effect on their school pond mates.
Once the little guys see the bigger ones eating out of your hand, they get the idea quickly, that actually your not so bad.
With lots of love and care shortly your smallest pond koi will be big enough to be past the skittish stage.
One thing to be considered is that you need to establish one certain spot from which you feed from. There's two reasons, familarity with surroundings
and the ability to protect you koi from intruders.
Around your feeding station it pays to have a movable fence/barrior that can be placed in that spot to keep the koi out of reach from preditors. If you feed from all over, soon the koi will run to the first movement they see and become vulernable. Nothing is worse than to invest in months of quiet work to get them hand feeding only to have them picked off as a meal.
Koi keeping can be fun and relaxing when you know the ropes a head of time. Any other advice by those graduates...that might give a helping hand to those just getting started?