Maruju triple strength protection...

It was a fabulous spring day again today and, having spent most of yesterday indoors working, today headed out for a drive in the mountains.

First stop heading out of Ojiya was the Torazo mudponds featured over the last few days, http://www.niigata-nishikigoi.com/node/368 and http://www.niigata-nishikigoi.com/node/370.

As I pulled up several of the larger Koi swam past. 

In the nisai pond all the Koi could be found gathered in one corner.  As an angler I would often hear recommendations to fish into a new wind.  Interestingly in both ponds the Koi were gathered in the windward corner.  Whether they were enjoy a small amount of natural food drifting in that direction I'm not sure.

The other day Tsuyoshi san pointed out a small 'road' that runs beneath the mud ponds and explained it went all the way to Utogi, home to Marusaka Koi Farm.  Always keen to try new roads I headed along it.  It really was more of a dirt track along which I had serious doubts of ever reaching Utogi.  The picture below was taking almost at the point of reaching Utogi, although I didn't know it at the time.  The road had wound beneath the mountains to the left hand side.  I think the peak you can see in the background to the right is Asahi Yama, the mountain that can be accessed from Route 291 just before you reach Torazo.  An interesting and rather remote drive across country which eventually dropped me in just by Marusaka.

As I was in the mood for driving I decided to head across to Mushigame and then up into the mountains above Katsurya.

The picture below shows in the foreground ponds of Marusada.  Those in the distance in the centre above the tree line are Shintaro's fry ponds.  Others in the valley also belong to Shintaro and Maruju.

A couple more scenes on the drive through the mountains.  These ponds are actually just out of the top of Mushigame, although from where this picture was taken still a long drive away.

I passed ponds belonging to Kazuto before eventually arriving back at some more of Maruju's ponds where they'd clearly been busy.  On one of them I found Shigeyoshi waist deep in water which his father and youngest brother Mitsu assisted from the sidelines.  They were installing what, as you can see, is not insignificant predator protection.

Vertical nets of around 30" high around the perimeter.  Attached to that a ring of horizontal netting of around 6-8ft.

Shigeyoshi explained that last year they were concerned that predators may have scared their Koi, if not being able to get at them.  Of course Koi scared are not Koi that readily feed.  This year they are very confident in the quality of the tosai that will be going into these ponds and as such don't want to take any chances. 

With the sun dipping there was no time to add the 3rd layer of protection to this pond, the one below has it, gold, silver and red reflective tape stretched across the entire area of the pond.