After crashing out twice for a grand total of 7 hours , I really did feel like taking on the world when I awoke this morning , which was just as well if I had known what was coming through out the day ! First appointment of the day was at an old favourite of ours , Yamazaki koi farm . On the way to the breeder , we were chatting away about how many fish were around , especially the nicer quality , some breeders sold out already , some with not so many left and although we had done very well this week , I did wonder how many more koi we would find ! Well , when we arrived at Yamazaki and the air was turned off , I knew we wouldnt get out of the place without spending a whole days budget ! Im serious , there were koi of every size and every quality and so many varietys it made your head spin . I started looking in a pond of sansai , asked the price and it was very fair , and ended up buying more boxes than I intended buying koi . All sansai , and the breeder sexed the koi for us as well , varietys included kohaku , hariwake , yamabuki ogons , goshiki ,goromo , hi utsuri , gin rin hi utsuri , kikisui and yamatonishiki , and that’s just what we bought ! After I had finished with the sansai , remarks were made about all the nisai tanchos swimming around with the sansai , I had just assumed they were in there because they were sold , nope , in correct , so back in with a net for another hour getting bowls of nisai out of a 30 ft long pond ! Ended up with nine very nice tancho , tancho showa , tancho sanke and even a very nice doitsu tancho sanke ! Next pond had some very serious koi in , I bowled a stunning asagi , 60cm and perfect or so I though , till I noticed a couple of small shimmies around the mouth , shame as it was of the same level as the one we bought from Yamaju in the Autumn , although tiny shimmies , I was worried that if had these in Japan how much future would the koi have in some UK waters , so back she went . A few more were bowled , but most others were a lot of money so we passed , except a friend of mine who bought an outstanding Tancho goshiki , I think ill see this at a koi show in Japan soon , it was a very serious koi , and one that will bring its new owner much pleasure . Any way , back to reality , next pond was some very nice nisai , amoungst the best ive seen at the farm . I soon had a box of serious nice nisai , doitsu sanke , aka matsuba , goromo , asagi , tancho goshiki and a stunning gin matsuba , seriously high level and suitable for koi shows ! I also got a box of gin rin platinum ogons around 35-40cm , seriously clean but as were chatting they were taken away to the nets before we had a chance to video or take pics , sorry about that , ill do it asap when the koi are in the uk . We then visited various koi houses looking at the tosai , and the breeder agreed to make up various boxes for me , and select at a higher quality ( and obviously price ) , some people don’t like doing this , may be they have had bad experience in the past , but the breeders I use , I trust to do this every year for me , and they don’t disappoint , Yamazaki tosai I think more or less sold out within a month of it coming out of quarantine and into the shop , I think that says it all ! Yamazaki joined us for lunch , and I finally got to taste the fried liver Rob had promised me all week , and oh my word , was it worth waiting for , no more curried rice in that particular establishment . Next breeder was to be Koda , usually as some very nice smaller nisai 30-40cm , but this time not many except goshiki , oh well I thought , think it would be rude to leave them for someone else , and soon had 22 goshiki and gin rin goshiki bowled and videoed . We looked in the sansai pond , there were some stunning kujaku , but time was running out and we passed and moved onto Isa . As most of you know , this is a serious koi farm , and the staff here are all very professional , but down to earth and like a laugh , as an incident with Robs car took place that I just couldn’t mention on here lol ! Any way , the fish were fantastic , and the whole pond of tosai were purchased , I think ill be having some of these , and also getting the breeder to pick me out some at a higher level as well . As the light was fading we needed to get back to Maruhiro as we had some fish there reserved for us , and he was due along with many other breeders to leave for Tokyo to help prepare the show there so needed to get back there asap . On arrival we were met with a little disappointment , the breeder said he would try and bring some 30-40cm kohaku in from his other facility , he apologised and said he had none yet available , so what do you do when you cant find small kohaku ? Yes you know , you buy bigger ones to cheer yourself up lol . So into the main pond we went , a few went into a bowl , and then a few out , then I really started seeing some koi I was seriously interested in , Hinori san must have sensed this as the bowl was lifted out of the pond with the koi on to the floor , for better viewing ,( which is no mean feat with a one metre bowl full of water and koi ) More koi went in , more koi went out , this breeder just gets better and better , and I was getting stressed now , as there were just two many koi I wanted , so we settled on five , one showa , and the rest kohaku . They will all stay in Japan this summer , unless some one wants them shipped , I mentioned earlier that we trust the breeders we work closely with , discussing the merits of each koi on the way home , it was decieded by all that the best koi by a mile , was the one the breeder recommended , when it was discussed what I was looking for , with one particular client in mind , he went back in the pond and caught it straight away, none of our group had even seen it ! Hinori asked us to join him for dinner , thinking of what I had just spent , I thought yeah why not , ive earnt it , and nowadays he can definatly afford it ! A nice end to a beautifull day. Pics in order , first 15 are sansai from Yamazaki , details on the web latter, next nine are nisai ,nxt 6 are koda nisai goshiki . THere are two aka matsuba available , lost the pic of the other one , next two are tancho mix from yamazaki , last five are of the koi we have pucahsed as at Mauhriro , to be left in Japan for the summer . Sizes are from 55-73cm . All details will be added onto the website in the next 24 hours