First appointment this morning , was at one of my favourite go sanke breeders Kazuto. Always known for his high end koi , and some would say high end prices to match ! We have been dealing with this guy for some time now on and off , but the last two years we have started buying a lot of his tosai , and suddenly prices seem reasonable , or at least affordable ! Last year we purchased around 60 jumbo tosai , this sold very well and were around 25cm , some smaller and some larger , one even went on to win baby champion at the South east koi clubs new spring show . On arrival , this grade of koi were already sold to one customer ,a problem that seems common now with the Asian market growing rapidly . We were shown another pond but these were three or four times the price of the ones we purchased last year , but around 30cm and way better quality ! After working out how much they were landed , I decided to pass and was taken to another pond , these were nice tosai , and around 18-22cm , so I selected through these around 30 nice go sanke and was very happy as these were very affordable for the quality . I took a last look at the Jumbo tosai before we left , I was a a little miffed to be honest at being pipped at the ones we selected through last year if I was honest , these grew very well only be fed three times a day , so we started talking to the breeder and after a while a new price was agreed on , but only for picking three boxes , I was over the moon , this new level of tosai was really where I wanted to be , the price was still very high , and they will sell for way more than last year , but are way better as well . The whole pond was netted , and soon we had selected around 50 pieces , and we selected through these to make my final selection , The skin quality was awesome , and the patterns suited to shows in the uk . Most were around 30cm , some bigger and some a little smaller . Feeling pretty happy I returned to the car after doing all the pics and videos , I know if I had worked out what I had spent landed in the uk I wouldn’t sleep tonight , so i diddnt think about it again , wont be looking at the buying file for a couple of days lol ! After this we went and had lunch with Maruhiro , and then selected some tosai at his place in Kawaguchi , some nice examples of go snake and unusual non go sanke including orenji ogons , very clean and one or two gin rin ones as well . We the returned to his main facility , the night before we had found 4 very nice sansai showa , they looked really good , but the light was bad so we needed to see them again .On bowling them up they were nice , but not at the level we were looking for , not the breeders fault , this time of year the koi have been selected through and through , and even Maruhiro runs out , but a good reminder of why we don’t buy later in the day when the light gets bad . We then spent the rest of the day visiting various breeders , but diddnt really see what caught my eye , Marasaka had some nice sansai , but again not what I needed , same at Hirashin . A quick coffee at Hasegawa and we were shown some amazing Kohaku , but bearing in mind what I had bought that morning we decided to pass . Although only buying at one breeder , it was a very successful day , which ended on a great night spent with Hosakai at a French resteraunt in Ojiya , after returning to my room around 11 I was ocver come with the need to sleep , so very sorry but everything will be running late on getting the koi on the website . pics to follow .