Chicago Killifish Association Annual Show March 2010

By Frank Carriglitto

This years annual show was no different than those of the past few years in many ways, but there were a couple important differences, the biggest being the location. It was held at the Holiday Inn Naperville and this change yielded more elbow room in the display area, but more importantly, there was considerably more room for the box sales and presentations by the speakers. The hotel itself was in good shape with clean rooms, a large lobby area and bar, and was in a very convenient location with access from major highways.

There were 229 entries for judging, and 271 entries in the auction. John Boyle was the guest speaker. He held everyones’ attention with his description of collecting in Panama for the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. The Rivs that John Boylan brought in for the auction did very well.  More surprisingly, some of the livebearers brought very good prices (Did Jim Gasiors' animated comments during the auction have something to do with that?). ChiKA tried something new for the auction when they had a rack built that “hung” the bags of auction fish in a vertical display so that the fish could be viewed without rummaging through piles of bags. This keeps the bag handling down so the fish are less disturbed, and therefore show off their coloration a little better. One rack was used and was deemed a success. They plan to have more racks for next years show, eventually using enough racks to display all fish entered in the auction.

Dave Koran made a presentation on killifish habitats that enlightened everybody on the great variation from wet to dry seasons in quite a few different locations. The surprise being that the “wet” season was nowhere near as wet as one presumes when thinking of monsoon areas, and even more surprising was that the “dry” season was not the sandy, deserty type of dry area one thinks about when picturing some poor killie baking in the hot sun and the eggs getting ready to be turned so they’d be “over easy”.

As usual, ChiKA drew hobbyists from wide and varied geographic parts of the country. AKA Chairman Jack Heller came up from St.Louis, MO as did Charles Harrison and his wife, Dave Koran made it in from Maryland, Bob Young from Clinton, AR. Regional clubs made their appearance in numbers, with a contingent from the MKKA, several from the Michiana group, and of course, the WAKO presence was substantial. On top of this, we had proxy bids from as far away as Massachusetts, New York, and Puerto Rico, even though we didn’t have KilliTalk to spread the word!

After the judging, the pizza and draft beer showed up. Chicago lived up to its’ reputation by serving some very tasty pizza, but the event suffered from cramped quarters. Hopefully, they will figure out a roomier way to do this next year.

Awards, as in the last couple years, were original paintings provided by Ken McKeighen. Unfortunately, Ken had an accident and did not get all the paintings finished in time for the show, but he promised them as soon as he recovers. All in all, it was another good show, one that ChiKA can be proud of.

For more information on the Chicago Killifish Association and results of the show, visit this site: http://www.aka.org/chika/