Japan Live - Day VI

Today a change of scenery. Driving out of Nagaoka, past Ojiya and down the highway to the Koide region. Here you can find breeders such as Sekiguchi, Murata, Kobayashi, Wada, Takahashi and a couple of others. Today we wanted to get to Sekiguchi for his Showa, Wada for his Asagi and his new variety “Kirin”.

Getting to Sekiguchi for 9am he toured us around the various Koi houses showing us Koi for sale. Quite slim on the ground with Koi, he had one pond of higher quality Nisai left for sale. Only around 20 koi in the pond, we were only going to manage a handful that made the quality we were after. Sekiguchi Showa are really known for their Beni and sumi quality first and foremost. There tends to be a big variation in bodies, from long head shapes, to stockier fuller koi. Bowling up the ones that caught my eye, a Beautiful Kindai Showa stood out. All of these had serious skin and colour quality. Finalising 3 females and 1 koi that Sekiguchi has been struggling to tell the sex on, I checked and couldn’t tell if it was Male of female. In its Appearance it looked Male, but the oiboshi and vent I just couldn’t confirm.

Photos and videos done, it was a relatively quick trip to Sekiguchi which is always refreshing as some times at breeders time can drag on waiting around for prices etc. Sekiguchi is a no nonsense type of guy so the price was quoted on the box, done.

A quick stop off at Wada and Tanaka, unfortunately nothing of interest here. All the ones I wanted at Wada were his Tategoi Nisai which meant far too expensive, or simply just not for sale. Tanaka I found one cracking Kin Showa, funnily enough it was already sold.

On the way to our next stop we saw a huge temple set on top of the hillside, making a slight diversion we drove towards the temple. Getting closer and closer, it was getting bigger and bigger. The top of the temple must have been a good 25metres high. The Shinto gate next to it around 10 metres. The beautiful blue skies and surrounding mountain ranges were breathtaking.

Next stop was Koshiji Koi Farm, AKA Kase. Breeder of Shiro Utsuri, Showa, Goshiki and a couple of Doitsu varieties. Again the koi I really did like were sold. Serious Doitsu Showa stood out in the sold pond, best ones I’d seen in a long time. Maybe later in the trip he has harvested more so we may get back there. I had a customer order for a box of Nisai Showa. Prices really reasonable, we could have picked a lot more for ourself but time was against us.

Moving on from Kase our next appointment was at Ikarashi Ozumi. Breeder of weird and wonderful varieties. Beni Kikokuryu, Goshiki, Ochiba, Kumonryu and associated varieties. Straight away I saw a Beni Kikokuryu that really appealed. Spending 15-20 minutes netting Koi, we had a selection in the bowl. Some great Beni Kikokuryu that have tonnes of development to do, these could be really interesting back in UK water. Needing one more Koi to make the box, we continued to search the ponds. Suddenly out from behind a pipe we caught the glimpse of a super white head with bright orange in it. Slowly revealing itself. We were taken aback by a Gin Rin Sakura Ogon. I never label a koi as "cool", but this fish was pretty striking!

Buying 3 Beni Kikokuryu’s and the Sakura it was nice to get this kind of quality from Ozumi as usually he sells out very quick.

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Making our way back to the city we went via Maruhiro as he had called to say he has fish for us to look at. Here we go again! As we got there Maruhiro had a couple of bags with fish in. Some really nice quality small Nisai, plenty of varieties. Lovely patterns on the Go Sanke and in general really clean good looking Koi. Maruhiro said he wanted numbers. How many ? 300! Deliberating we weren’t going to waste his time. So we said we’d buy 3 more boxes, totalling 390 koi all together. Again these were too good to turn down, deals like this rarely come along. Maruhiro does it again! Yesterday over 160 fish, today 390. Very small sample below.

With a bit of time to spare, guess where we ended up for our last stop ? Yagenji of course. How can we resist that sunset. All we did here was select a few more koi to add to the previous days. Again, we’ll return to do photos and videos in good daylight.