Im not really into watching harvests , seen one net dragged through the water ive seen loads . What i do like however is arriving at the breeders premises as they are unloading as we did at Sakais the other day , watching all the new koi being brought in and sorted with out the long wait and the mozzie bites and usually get first crack at the new koi ! How ever when a breeder who you work closely with says he is going to harvest a pond with four of your koi in it , and you have customers with you of one that hasnt seen a harvest , then thats a differant matter . We arrived at Maruhiros mudpond at 8am , the water was already down and the two lads went at it and within 20 minutes it was all done and dusted . I was very pleased to see all of the koi koi coming out , as they are all owned by uk dealers .One by one they emerged and i could see th growths had been great , the new mudponds had worked its magic so off to his old facility to decide what to ship , what to leave for another year and measure and take photos . When the fish came out into cleaner water it was clear that some had grown nearly 14cm from nisai to sansai , quite impressive as they had not been big nisai . My kohaku from Senske bloodline was very nice and that is being shipped , the tancho showa had done well and the sumi had not covered the spot so we were well happy . One gin rin showa was very improved , but had a little secondary so it was decieded that would be sorted out and returned to the mudponds for another year . The biggest turn up was a gin rin kohaku , this had grown to an impressive 57cm with a stunning body shape , after much discusion it was decieded as it looked so good it would be shipped for sale in the shop . The breeder then placed the last koi in a bowl , it was a shiro usturi that i had nearly bought last year , but thought a little expensive , it had grown well but the sumi wasnt showing through as strong as i had liked , especially when told the price .He really did rate this so much that i decieded that i had to give in and listen to him , it was also relevent that i had bought a shiro form him from the same parents whose sumi was excellant . we growled over a price for a little while and settled somwhere or no where near middle ground .Hinori smiled and gave me one of his it will come good looks , and sumi up speeches and i caved in .Sometimes you just have to listen to the breeder , and he hasnt wrong footed me yet !!! At the new facility we looked around and i for once couldnt get in the swing of things here , in fact all week i had onky bought a few boxes of koi .He bowled many koi for me but i just diddnt really like anything .With a lot of people asking about smaller nisai we walked around a couple of ponds and then he took me to a pond with some yonsai and gosai and started catching up some smaller kohaku around 35cm that we hadnt seen , An awesome little three step came up , and then another two step with an inazuma pattern , now we we were talking , He then went to two or three differant ponds picking out about 20 kohaku .Four were given a very high price indeed , but its where i wanted to be so picked another few from the bowl and i was pretty pleased with myself . These koi will be on the b and c section of the nisai pages .Now we both seemed happier i asked for somthing , he said what do you mean somthing , i dont know , i just want to buy somthing . He laughed as only he could do and come back with a 64cm sadazo bloodline sanke , yonsai with very good skin quality and a pip nose head pattern , no haggling on the price on this one and i gave him a list of koi i still needed , may be tomorrow as im harvesting he told me , so hopefully that will finish us off nicely for the week . After realising we had been there all morning we went off on our way to Isa . Stunning showa in all the fish houses , but nothing for us , so we popped into Hiroi , Shinoda and Yamazaki but nothing for any of us today , i think we were all very tired and losing concentration ( or may be just i was ! ) , so at just after 4 we returned to the hotel . Tonight we have been out for a meal with Maruhiro and are going back after he has harvested again tomorrow , as he says he is sure has some of the things i am looking for . The meal as ever was very funny , he is one of the most comical guys ive ever met , and time spent with him are just so enjoyable . Before he left he had heard that we had bought some serious go sanke at sakai to leave in Japan for a few years , he laughed and said come and see me tomorrow , we will find you a few more