Today I woke up with a little bit of half glass empty syndrome again Going through in my mind about costs of shipping and he price of fish , its very frustrating as im seeing what I think are very fair prices at the breeders , possibly the best ive seen in a long time , but as a lot of you will know , with the present exchange rate , its doesn't translate to that when the koi get home . So with this in mind we set off up the other side of Ojiya city to one of our favourite breeders Hosokai . This is one of my favourite farms , the breeder is so friendly and his fish are great and once again the prices are fair , even on the better quality koi . On arrival we saw that there wasn't a lot of koi  , the best pond downstairs had some nice goromo , and they were big for nisai 45-50cm , but I struggled a little with the landed price in the uk , so I passed and decided to wait until next week when he is harvesting a lot more nisai . We then went up to the higher quality nisai fish house , where once again I couldn't find anything I really liked , I wasn't too down about this , as the harvest have only just started , and im sure he will have plenty next week , and we have to revisit to see the two azuakri shiro utsuri we left with him this summer . On leaving the farm , I started to think about the koi ,  and really started to worry that this would this be a difficult trip , as I cant remember ever  leaving Hosokai without buying a single koi . Mulling this over on our way to Kaneko I was wondering if Kaneko was the best place to go , Athough I like the farm and the breeder , sometimes its a little hit and miss , you have to get the timing right , I really needed to go somewhere , where I could just get some koi in numbers , that always cheers me up ( Im a little fickle like that lol ).

So when we arrived at the farm , Kaneko greeted us at the door and I put on  my biggest Gary is happy smile . I don't know if he saw through this , but his first question was , how is business in the uk ? My little Japanese understood the response from the agent , which I cant reply on here , Kaneko said he had watched the news , and understood that it was hard for us to buy this year , then stunned me by saying , buy as much as you can , ill give you a discount to help you out . What ??? Offered a discount before we even ask , too good to be true , I wondered if we were going to be treated to elevated prices , and then discounted to normal lol ! So we went round looking at the nisai , the quality wasn't too bad at all , and a great range of varieties . He then gave us the prices , and again I was stunned , these were very fair and cheaper than the last time , he then added , bowl up the fish and ill sort the price out for you , I thought the prices he had quoted were discounted , happy days ! The cheaper pond we missed out on and started bowling between the other ponds , the first thing that really grabbed me , was the ogons , he had a round a dozen 40-45cm , and I thought I heard him say Izumiya blood line , that will do for me , until the agent laughed and said , your Japanese isn't that good yet , he said these are not Izuniya bloodline , they ARE Izumiya ogons , he bought them as tosai , quarantined them and then grew them on ! So I got the net and soon had five very nice and clean Izumiya ogons , nisai and 40-45cm ! The price was so good I didn't want to start sexing them , but had to ask , he looked and said no guarantee , but these four I think are female , this one is definitely male , " back " he asked , I said if he didn't mind , another one was caught and replaced the male one . Very happy with the five I ended up with . I am also growing a lot on from summer back in the forge  , so have a range of Izumiya ogons 35-45cm now !!!!! After that I started looking through some nice quality nisai , ending up with two gin rin matsukawabake m two nice kujaku , a really quirky gin rin kohaku , and a super rare tancho kikisui ! , the last fish might not be up to everyones taste , but I kept looking at it , and before I knew it I had bought a doitsu aka matsuba , even rarer ! By now you've probably relalised all my worries had disappeared and that yes I am very fickle , two boxes of koi can really does lift the spirit lol , so now im in the mood and we moved onto a little more expensive pond , two doitsu ochibas , a show quality beni kikokoryu , a doitsu kuajku , another better gin rin matsukawabake , a little showa with great beni and little sumi ( Kaneko sold me on it by saying Dainichi bloodline lol ) and last and not least a very nice kohaku with Momotaro bloodline , really like this ! A great end to he morning , very pleased with the koi purchased , so with that it was off to 7-11 for lunch , and then after  Maruhdo koi farm !

Yamabuki ogons from Izumiya

Nisai from Kaneko

  Last few visits at Marudo koi farm , has resulted in us getting some very good quality sanke at sensible prices , and of course plenty of Chagoi ! We started with the chagoi , this time some gin rin and normal ones around 45-50cm , very reasonable prices as well , they are mixed sex and sold as unsexed ! As we walked by some of the tanks , we saw some very high grade nisai , I looked in and just thought pass , too expensive , so we went over the other fish house , there we met our old friend from Holland Jeroen . We looked at some very big kawari goi , and I bought a 79cm doitsu chagoi , 71cm doitsu karashigoi and a 65cm yamabuki . We went back to the other fish house as I wanted to look over the go sanke we saw earlier , may be just buy one ! Jeroen came back over with us as he was looking for a male parent fish , so we both started bowling up the snake and kohaku . First kohaku came out and it was male , and what a male it was , great body shape , superb skin quality , and nice ni dan pattern . The beni was really deep and I think was by far the best koi in the pond . We got a price and it was so bad , so I carried on and soon had five very good koi in the bowl around 50-55cm . Jeroen and myself both started looking at another kohaku , it was caught up and we started arguing over ownership , Jeroen is a great friend of mine so he said " look , ill make a deal with you , if its male its mine , if its female then its yours " I laughed and told him it was fine . The breeder was called over and asked , he laughed and said female , Jeroen shook his head and then shaked my hand and said congratulations , nice koi ! A price was agreed for all six koi , and then I had bought three males and three females , by far the best koi we have purchased this week ! It was getting late , and we were all tired , so we decieded to go to Isa , and see how my two Azukari koi had come out of the mudpond , we rang as always to check if it was ok , and then went over . When we got there , the place was rammed packed with dealers from all round the world , so we made an appointment for the following day , it was getting late , and I was feeling tired , so it was time to head back to the hotel ! But as some of you have heard , that's where it all went wrong ........

Marudo chagoi 45-50cm and nisai

Doitsu chagoi , Marudo , female , gosai and 79cm

71cm doitsu karashigoi , yonsai and female

65cm yamabuki ogon , sansai and female

Male kohaku , very high quality nisai

Very high quality male nisai sanke

Marudo nisai Female kohkau NB marks by the left of the dorsal is a rub from the harvest

Female Marudo kohkau

Female Marudo kohaku

Male Marudo kohaku