We got up early today and at 6.45 am and started to harvest the second spawning that we did of Shiro Utsuri. We decided before they went in to the mud pond not to do the pre-cull as we felt that we didn't really have time and that the mud pond could easily cope with the number of fry that we had.

The hot weather we have had lately has meant that they have grown really quickly and even though they only went out into the mud ponds three weeks ago, we decided that they were ready for first selection.

This is the second Shiro Utsuri spawning that we have done this year, the first was one of the early spawnings and the results were not as good as we would have liked and we have kept very few. I really wanted to do a good Shiro Utsuri spawning this year though and so we bought ourselves a new female brood fish bred by Ofuchi, we crossed her with an Omosako male (also new to us this year).

We are really pleased with the results this time and the standard produced by this set of parents is outstanding, the skin quality is amazing and the overall general high standard of the fry is remarkable.

We are not selecting for pattern at this stage as this is still developing but with 3000 'keepers' second selection should be very interesting!