Kick starting the bright and sunny morning our first stop of the day was Ikarashi Toshinobu. Wanting to select from one his better ponds in his new fish house we could tell he was slightly reluctant to sell these. Two words of warning when you listen to the Japanese speak. Takai which means expensive, And Tategoi which are of course the ones he wants to keep. Both of these words came out of Toshinobu’s mouth. Oh dear. We pointed out a handful of Koi, retail these would have set you back over £5,000.00. Jumbo Tosai and very special as you can imagine. A bit of a no go we moved on.
Visiting Marudo we eyed up Tosai, primarily female Sanke and Kohaku. The prices were OK, yet the Koi that were netted up didn’t seem to represent the quality I was after.
Driving out further we took a trip to Oofuchi which is a good half an hour drive up through the mountains. Another very hot day yet the snow from Winter still evident here with large snow drifts. Amazing that the snow just refuses to melt even in the exposed sun and 30c temperature.
At Oofuchi we visited the koi houses by the house in search for nice Nisai and anything else that catches our eye. With many cheaper Koi for sale, there really wasn’t anything of interest unfortunately. A first for us at Oofuchi as we always seem to get good value nice Koi here.
Were we going to strike any luck ? Finding quality koi is easy, finding quality Koi for the UK market at a reasonable price is not.
With breeders lacking in Koi and most at the Koi show we drove to the show to see how our Koi had faired in the stiff competition.
Arriving at the show ground the awards ceremony was taking place. As is the case at most shows in Japan the Asian’s really do dominate. I believe all of the major awards and Kokugyo awards were to people from Asia.
Finding our 14 Koi among 1800 was going to be a tricky task so we set off looking at the vats systematically working along each row. I failed to calculate how many vats there were, possibly 150.
Eventually we started to locate our Koi. Some really nice prizes for us and our customers.
The Gold Prize winning Beni Kikokuryu was also nominated for Grand Champion B with 4 other Koi which is very impressive. The breeder Aoki was pleased for us, and even apologised that it didn’t do better ! We were pleased for an award, what more can we ask!
In total we managed 8 awards, 2 x Gold, 1 x silver, 5 x Bronze. A nice result ! The koi with Marcus Burton, Lee Bailey, Chris Walsh and Mike Hughes on them are still for sale. Details on website soon.
A handful of downers for the day, the pick me up at the show was very much welcomed.
Leaving the show we went back to Odakan to make our final selections and confirm purchases that we had chosen yesterday and the day prior.
Odakan came up trumps and a deal was done.
Ending a day on a high always boosts moral!
Tosai and Jumbo Tosai, half male, half female. Really pleased with these. A handful of these will go into our Tosai growing pond for the summer. If you want to view please contact prior.
Numerous good Koi for Koi Shows too.
All soon to be on the website with details.
Breeders include, Maruyama, Sakai Fish Farm, Momotaro, Beppu, Omosako, Isa and Dainichi,.
