Day 3 proved to be our busiest day yet. I'm still not sure how we managed to cram everything in!! Today's blog post will be split into a few parts.
High on the priority list for today was of course Isa Koi Farm. In Spring we selected nearly 80 high quality Tosai from Isa. A number of these were part of our Grow and Show competition. Mitsunori Isa was curious as to how our customers were getting on with the Tosai. Seeing as a few customers have been sending me updated photos of these koi, I showed Mitsunori the photos. He was very pleased with the results to far, and is looking forward to judging the results next year.
We proceeded to net from numerous ponds in their main koi house by their office. Here we selected seven special male Showa's, all Nisai and 51cm to 54cm. Seriously good quality koi, and exceptional male koi. In terms of body conformation, at Isa it can be very hard to tell which ponds contain male koi, or female koi. Some of you may remember the Male Isa Showa that we purchased from the All Japan Young Koi Show dream oi exhibition. A proper power house !
Here are the seven male Nisai we selected. All with fantastic sumi quality, beni type and bodies.
After selecting the seven male koi, we dipped our nets into one of the Nisai female ponds. Here we pulled up three koi. Absolutely blinding skin quality on these. Mitsunori advised to keep one as Azukari. When a breeder invites you to leave a koi with them, you very very rarely turn them down. Having seen the size and quality of his Sansai it was a no brainer.
This koi is Female, 55cm and will be staying in Japan for the next year at least.
The Maruten Showa and Tancho Showa will be coming back to the UK. This Sumi type Mitsunori thinks it is well suited to our UK water, and will get very good, if not better results keeping these in the UK rather than Japan.
The Maruten Showa is also 55cm, Nisai and Female, the Tancho Showa is 52cm, Nisai and Female. As you can see very high quality Koi. The skin quality on the Maruten Showa is best viewed in the flesh, very special.
Huge thanks to the boss Mitsunori Isa, head staff of the farm Hide Hirasawa (also owner of Maruhide Koi Farm) and staff members for their hospitality. These two are really good company and have all the time in the world for you. Thanks for the T-Shirt !
Day 3 continued shortly....
