I never sleep on the plane much , today was no exception . Large amounts of red wine , and even some sleeping tablets diddnt change that fact ! So 12 hours later im through customs and meeting our agent , feeling a little flakey to say the list . It was then on to various packed train train rides through Tokyo , then onwards to Niigata on the bullet train , getting more and more tired along the way . We then finally arrived at Nagaoka , and the hire care was picked up , this diddnt improve my mood any , its was bloody pink !!!! ( well really a red mauve kind of pink , but it gave me a chance to have a moan , which the agent seemed to find funnier as the day went on ! ) Quick sandwich in the 7-11 , and we were off to our first breeder , Kaneko koi farm .
We were told the breeder would be half an hour , and please feel free to start catching koi . We rung him back to confirm prices , and started catching koi . I know this time of year , koi can be much cheaper , but the quality and varieties can be low and hard to find . So i was pleased to be able to find some interesting varieties such as tancho , doitsu kujaku , beni kumonryu , aigoromo , budo goromo , beni and ki kikokoryu , and the quality was nice , and the price very fair . This year , we have done quite a lot of business with Kaneko , sometimes in the past I have struggled at the farm , his nisai are getting up to 50cm , so expensive to ship , as less in a box . Now I always make sure I look that little bit harder , there are always some nice koi to be found here . We finished in the better quality pond , and looked in the other pond , we did struggle there a little bit , but with 11 nisai , male and female , I was happy . I moved to look through the sansei pond , in the Autumn , this pond is one of my favourites , stunning examples of shiro , kujaku , tancho showa and many many more , today I bowled a really nice aigormo , stunning skin quality , I really liked it , but she wasn't cheap , so decided to think about it , have a look below at the video , the skin quality is stunning !
While I was at the farm , I kept walking passed a pond with some very high quality small koi , it has the usual sold sign on it . But amoung the smaller high grade koi , there was a lot bigger , and sometimes it pays to ask . All bigger koi sold , and we could select through the smaller koi if we wanted . It was getting hot in the fish house , and I was tired , and the thought of chasing 16-30cm koi around in a pond did really not appeal to me . So I was surprised when the breeder offered to net the pond , he did and I started selecting away . I soon had a bowl of very nice koi , doitsu kujaku , various kikokoryu , gin rin shiro usturi , ginga , matsukawabake , gin rin matsukawabake and a few goshiki and many others ! I made my final selection of 23 , and if im honest , I struggled , the koi I had selected were really good , and it was hard to leave the others behind , these small nisai were very nice indeed !
Nisai around 40cm
Nisai around 35cm
We then drove past Otsuka , who we could see was in the fish house , so we stopped and had a look . He always has some interesting varieties , and we soon had two male sansai , kage hi and shiro utsuri in the bowl . Soon joined by a nice female asagi , and female aka matsuba . Prices were agreed , and all were purchased . I then couldn't help myself and bowled a 75cm kage hi usturi , that was more than fairly priced , so that was purchased as well , as I wrote down yosai , the breeder said no Gary san , only yonsai , she will really will become a big fish ! The light wasn't so good for videos , and she would behave for a photo either .
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