Christmas Island report by my good friend Clark Harrison...

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

This is on Dan Blanton's BB and I thought some here should read this. Clark went to Christmas Island years ago to the old Captain Cook Hotel run by the government as we did for years. Now there are maybe 4 or 5 places to stay there.

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We stayed at The Villages recently and I thought it was very well run. It's just outside of London and about 30 minutes from the airport. The transfer was done smoothly and we paid our $50 for a fishing license as we went through customs at the airport.

The Villages is on the lagoon side so it's a short walk to the boat in the morning to go fishing. Rides across the lagoon were anywhere from 30-60 min to get to the flats but the ride was comfortable. The outrigger/outboard setup doesn't beat you up in choppy water like a flats skiff or panga.

The cottages were clean and basic. There was AC but it was never really hot during our stay. There's a fridge stocked with soda and beer and they add it to your tab as they restock it. The bar had tonic and I love a refreshing gin and tonic at the end of a fishing day.

Breakfast was at 615. The coffee was very good and eggs were cooked to order. You make a sandwich from the sandwich bar for lunch. We had spam and cheese or PB and jelly. Late in the week they made some tuna fish salad which was really good and I'd request it earlier in the week when I go back.

They serve some snacks and sashimi at 6pm and dinner is at 7pm. Dinner was basic fish and rice but adequate. We did have lobster on 2 nights.

We generally left the lodge in the boats at 7am and got back around 5 to 6 pm so it was a long day on the flats and you get your fill of casting to bonefish and trevally.

After dinner I spent some time in my book and I was done for the day.

I stayed at the Captain Cook Hotel in 1998. It's on the oceanside beach so I'd have to say the ambiance is a little nicer than lagoon side, but it was nice at The Villages not to have to take a 30-40 min truck ride to London to catch the boat as was the situation when I was at Captain Cook. I met some guys on the plane who stayed at Captain Cook. They said the food and the fishing were excellent and they were happy with their trip.

At The Villages you can let them know if you want to target trevally in which case they'll target the higher tides and you walk the deeper edges of the flats looking for big fish. You can also do bluewater fishing and 2 of the guys in our group went out several days and got some tuna, wahoo, and release a couple of really big trevally.

I bonefished 6 days and had great fishing and almost daily shots at GT's. I caught small GT's and bluefin trevally on a daily basis on bonefish flies.

I'll provide some details about the fishing in my next post.

If you like to bonefish and you haven't been, or if your thinking you'd like to do a bonefishing trip, Christmas Island should be on the top of your list.

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I was very lucky to be able to go there 13 times myself and I really think everyone should consider this place to fish some quality all wading on mostly light colored firm sand flats for Bones.

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[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

Here is Clark's report on the fishing details:

Just a few observations on the bonefishing. It never got really hot but we always had winds of 10-20mph. I fished my 8wt Xi2 and then dropped down to my 7wtXi. Both rods got the job done and the guides were pretty good about keeping the wind to our backs so we'd have a downwind or across the wind shot. I used the Rio bonefish line on the 8 and the new Quickshooter bonefish line on the 7. I really like the new Quickshooter-it loads well on a short cast. Both the SA and Rio bonefish lines are great lines IMHO. Being on foot most casts were in the 30-40 foot range. I could take the longer shots but with the wind there was always the risk of getting blown off target and spooking the fish. It was not uncommon to hook a fish with only a couple of feet of flyline out of the tip of the rod.

As for leaders I tie my own with hard Mason and put a fluoro tippet on it. I like the stiffer Mason or Maxima for turnover vs the store bought leaders. There is a lot of stone sized coral rubble on the flats and some flats have short 6 inch patches of staghorn coral which are death to leaders.
4ft of 20, 2ft of 16, and 1 foot of 10# Mason followed by 2-3ft of fluoro seemed to work fine. I was using 1x 14# Seaguar fluoro tippet but the first 2 bluefin trevally I hooked on bonefish flies chafed through the leader. I then went to 01x 18# Seaguar tippet and didn't lose anymore of the trevally I hooked. We went to lighter leader and size 8 flies if the fish acted spooky which helped.
For flies the #1 and #2 go to flies are the orange Christmas Island Special in 6 and 8 with small brass dumbbell eyes and size 6 and 8 Gotchas. Not sure why but Christmas Island flies are always tied fairly sparse. I use 5-6 strands of crystal flash to tie the CI Specials and add a sparse wing of craft fur.
It's important to have sturdy footwear because of the coral rubble which would shred light neoprene booties. Important also to wear a cotton sock or a neoprene sock to protect your feet from the inevitable sand that can get in your boots and cause chafing. I used the Simms 1 or 2mm sock and it worked great. I burn so I wear long pants and I use neoprene gravel guards around the ankles to help keep the sand out.
A fanny pack is nice but all you really need is a box of flies, tippet, a spare leader, and nippers on the flats.

When wading deep for trevally were were sometimes in waist deep water and I think I'll use a waterproof fanny pack for my next trip. Mine got wet but never really soaked.
On the boat it's good to have a waterproof gear bag to keep gear dry from salt spray. I just got the Patagonia waterproof backpack and I like it although it's pricey and if I didn't find it on sale here in Reno at the outlet I wouldn't have paid full retail. The guys from Captain Cook lodge all had the Orvis waterproof backpack and had good things to say about it. A simple river rafting dry bag would also suffice.
As for numbers of fish I caught 15-20 a day and blew and broke off my fare share as well. My best fish was about 8# and I broke off a big one on the hookup that the guide thought was a 10pounder. Fish average 2-3 pounds but I saw a lot more bigger fish this trip than when I was last there in 1998. Then I was disappointed then because just about all we caught were little fish. I think it's fishing a lot better now although there is still some netting going on in the lagoon.

Dan back to the issue of the heat. I never broke a sweat and I think it never got above 80 degrees. It was much hotter my previous two trips in May and Sept. The AC worked fine so I was actually cold at night. My roommate liked the white noise from the AC to muffle my snoring.
I was lame about taking pictures but one of our guys Ryan Edde is really into video. He's working on a You Tube video and I've seen the beta and it's great. Once he's finished it I'll post the You Tube link.
When I can steal away to my computer in the next few days I'll post my observations on the trevally fishing.

Tight lines.
Clark

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJV_JYua5qI

Hi:
Take a look at Ryan Edde's You Tube video on our recent Christmas Island trip. He did a great job on it and I hope you'll enjoy it. I only took a few pictures and his video is much better than anything I could have done.
Clark