Shintaro nisai Showa harvested.....

.....well one pond anyway.

Today's original plan was the harvest of the large Shintaro pond in Kawaguchi which contains sansai - http://www.niigata-nishikigoi.com/node/397.

At 8.30am Saito san called to advise the pond had too much water so one of the ponds of nisai Showa was going to be harvested instead. If you follow this link you'll find out a whole load of history about these Showa back to their first cull last year - http://www.niigata-nishikigoi.com/node/399

I arrived in Mushigame at 10.30am as arranged and we headed to the mudpond in the valley below, as you can see it was a glorious day. Many readers will know Alan Coogan from the UK, he is here with a friend Jordan, together they assisted with the harvest.

Keeping himself fit at 80+ Shousuke Saito carrying Koi up the bank of the pond.

These 2 Koi below can be seen here http://www.niigata-nishikigoi.com/node/398 back in May when released in the mud pond.

First up the Koi which nearly stole the mantle as my number 1 tosai, probably with little question the number 1 nisai hosted today.  Absolutely beautiful!

I first photographed this Showa back in September when it was just 4 months or so old - http://yamakoshi.blogspot.com/2008/09/end.html. 

The quality of this Koi is superb, I really would love to be able to see its continued development having photographed it so young.  Please send donations to.........