Today we aimed to buy in quantity with Nisai and Sansai ranging from £150 or so up to £500. Lets see if we could succeed!
Having an appointment at Yamazaki first thing we were greeted by Manabu Yamazaki. Probably one of the happiest breeders in Japan, he has a great personality that always entertains. Manabu-san breeders many varieties including go-sanke, Asagi, Goshiki, Platina, Yamabuki, Goromo and very nice Karashigoi, Doitsu and scaled. Viewing each of the ponds for sale, Manabu-san and his staff turned the air off to the pond and covered the pump returns with koi socks to reduce the water disturbance.
We knew we were going to have some fun here, so many koi to choose from, all varying in price and proved great value. Mainly Non-Go Sanke with the odd Kohaku here and there.
Over the next 2 hours we had well over a 100 fish in bowls from nearly every pond in the koi house. Narrowing it down to 47 koi we asked Manabu-san if we could photograph each Koi one by one, he laughed and said it's his bed time (it was only 11am). Negotiating with Manabu-san on the price, he grabbed a piece of paper and pencil. Totalling the price up, his maths was questionable. Making a correction we discussed a price for all 47 fish. Using the rubber on the pencil, we erased his price and wrote down an offer. Manabu quickly erased our price, then went even higher than the initial price, laughing as he wrote it. This went back and forth a few times with much laughter in between. After some friendly pushing and shoving, we came to an agreement.
Here are the selections from Yamazaki. These start from £195.00 and prove superb value.
From Yamazaki Koi Farm, we went back to Marusei to select some more cheaper Koi. Masses of Hi Utsuri, Yamabuki and single coloured varieties. Picking a scoop of koi up at a time, it was impossible to go for one koi at a time as there were so many in the ponds. Grading through the bowls, more Koi went back to the pond than we kept. Happy with the selections we aimed to catch more Yamabuki, nearly every time we pulled the net through the pond, the Yamabuki’s somehow escaped. There must have been over a hundred Yamabuki in here alone, a very quick and agile variety they are known to be tricky to catch! In this particular pond there were around 400 fish, on numerous occasions some how we caught the same koi multiple times, we were baffled.
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Finalising the selection, these are £150.00 each and are available on the website shortly.
Leaving Marusei we did the rounds in the local area, popping in to farms such as Miyatora, Choguro and Tsuna, unfortunately nothing was of interest apart from big 80cm fish at Miyatora, maybe not today!
Making some phonecalls, we made an appointment at Nogami for the following morning as well as Takahashi in the Koide area.
