Erwinsan's thread about his Tategoi Sanke reminded me of an event I would like to share, as it was a lot of fun and I still dream about it all the time.
Every year, when we go to Japan, we always contact some of our favorite breeders to find out when they are pulling Koi from certain ponds. October 2005, we went to Niigata with Mike Perret and Jeff Dunkel. Jeff really wanted to pull a mud pond, and I mean physically pull it, so we started asking. Now, I am the kind of person that loves to see what comes out of the pond, but I don't like getting in, so Kudo's to Jeff. I think he went in three or four times, on three or four different ponds. Anyway, Hosokai invited us to come and pull his #1 two year old pond. We did not really know the treat we were in for.
When we get to the pond, it is just Tadashi Hosokai, Jeff, Mike and me. Well, Mike and I take our usual spot on the bank of the mud pond so that we can just relax and watch. We are at opposite ends so that we can cover all of the action. When Jeff and Tadashi are about halfway through I start getting really excited as I am seeing very vivid colors and some amazing patterns. It doesn't take me long before I go over to Mike and say, "Did you see what is in there?" His response was what I expected, "Oh yeah!!!". Without hesitiation I told Mike, "I want to pick Koi here".
Mike and I took our next favorite positions, standing on the edge of the truck looking into the tank the Koi are put into for transport back to the green houses, and when Tadashi came up the hill, the first words out of my mouth were, "Can we pick now?". Tadashi hesitated a little, so the next thing I said was, "Please, charge me what you think it is worth, I will understand". Now, that is something you won't here me say often, but I am looking at getting to choose from a lot of nice Koi first, so I thought it was the right thing to say.
The next thing I know, Tadashi is pulling out two large blue tubs and he sets them right in front of the transport tank. Oh my, we are now entering Koi Heaven!!!
For the next 45 minutes, we are all by ourselves in the middle of Koi Mecca, picking Koi from a mud pond. When we are done,Tadashi comes over and looks into the two blue tubs with a tremendous amount of surprise. His comment was "Oh". Thinking there was a problem, I reminded him again I was willing to pay. He told me that he needed his brother Masaru, who is actually in charge now, to look at the Koi. Before we new it there was Masaru driving up. While Mike, Jeff and I stood there the two brothers spoke for about 5 minutes in Japanese (Duh!), and then Masaru drove off. I asked Tadashi if there was a problem, and he said "Little problem, there are a lot of nice Koi".
Believe it or not, we really did not know what this meant yet.
We all drove back with the Koi to Hosokai central and soon Shiochi, Masaru and Tadashi were standing around the two blue tubs talking. In about a minute, Tadashi says to me, "I am sorry, but my brother and father have said that you have picked some of our Tategoi!" Now, I new what this meant, and all we could do was watch as they quickly wisked away 9 of the 25 Koi that we were so hoping to have. With every Koi they removed from the tub I would look at Shoichi and say, "That's not really a Tategoi, is it?" hoping foolishly that it would make a difference. These Koi were gorgeous and I can't wait to see them as 3 year olds.
Just so you know, the Kohaku that won GC at the Champion Koi show a month ago, came from this Hosokai mud pond. Dinh didn't really want it, but Ann told her father that he should get it. Everyone knows Ann is the Koi expert in Dihn's family. LOL
06-18-2006
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