A slightly quieter day today as we emerged from the hotel a little later than normal due to the previous night……
Taking a drive through Ojiya into Takamachi village we visited Oofuchi Koi Farm. First time visit for us but it certainly won't be the last. The Father and Son don't speak a word of English, nor did they seem to speak much Japanese. A quiet pair that are happy in their ways. A very old school traditional koi house the walkways in the tosai koi houses were simply narrow wooden planks across ponds with polythene sheeting covering the ponds to keep the heat in. All of us were feeling a little fragile after our night out, balancing on the wooden planks was a bit touch and go. Selecting through a pond of Tosai we purchased a number of koi. A huge range of variety with plenty of interesting Koi.
https://queni-koi.wistia.com/medias/r6h9nv876l?embedType=iframe&videoWidth=720
Into the Nisai koi house we had to navigate deep snow making sure we kept on the track, who knew how deep the snow was either side of us. Thankfully the Nisai koi house had a wide concrete walkway. Eyeing up a few of the ponds we enquired with Oofuchi the ponds we could select from. Bingo. The exact ponds we had shortlisted ourselves.
Picture below shows the deep snow needed to be cleared to access the driveway of the koi house. Oofuchi-san viewing his ponds.
Oofuchi Koi Farm breeds many different varieties. Known for his Goromo, Kujaku, Beni Kikokryu's, Ochiba, Hariwake and numerous others there were some cracking examples to be found in the depths of the pond. Oofuchi seine netted the first pond for us. Metallics, Doitsu, Goromo, Sanke, Kohaku, Tanchos in every variety, we were spoilt for choice. Initially we planned on having 2 possibly 3 boxes of koi, so around 16 to 24 koi depending on size. That plan soon went out the window and the koi just kept on coming. Ending up with 42 koi from Oofuchi we were delighted with the selections made.
Following Oofuchi we had a quick visit to NND, many Sanke, Showa, Shiro Utsuri in abundance but one thing we were after here was some Tosai Kujaku. Selecting from a pond of mixed varieties we bowled a cluster of metallic beauties. Here are the Kujaku selected. Great colour, reticulation on its way, nice clean heads. Really pleased with these.
https://queni-koi.wistia.com/medias/vyw3gu5po2?embedType=iframe&videoWidth=720
More to follow soon....
