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Loren E
01-07-2007, 10:44 PM
recently arrived home from a great week at christmas island, staying at the villages. it was super windy and very clowdy all week, so we (my dad and i) had to work for our fish. The bonefishing was very good. we caught a lot of nice fish in the 3-5 pound class, with my big boy for the week being about a 7 pounder, i cast to a bigger bone one day but lost him in the glare. the tides wern't great for the big trevally, but i managed to catch a fair amount of GT's in the 5-15 pound class, and bluefins in the 4-8 pound class. Seeing those trevally annihilate my popper was such a rush. i hooked up one about 25 pounds but was only connected for a second, my mistake was that the bigger fish have very strong jaws so they will bite down on a hard popper, doubling over your rod, but if the hook is not set well enough to pull the popper's hook into the lip they will spit it from their grip. we also went offshore for the morning on two days. i made a point to fish legit fly setups, no weights or lures, but never the less we were trolling, since the punts they use down there have no safe place to cast from in rolling seas and the fish are always on the move. we caught plenty of skipjack, hooked some yellowfin tuna (once my dad and i doubled up and the fish just kept going down and down hundreds of yards into the backing so we kept gradually tightening our drags, eventually snapped off before we were spooled, when we checked the drags we couldn't believe how much drag those fish were taking line against), some cudas, had a wahoo pull a drive-by on my popper, and a nice guy by the name of john we fished with boated a fat dorado. usually i am strictly a fly fisherman, but chasing the schools of birds, and having all 3 fly rods start screaming simultaneously was pretty cool. on my last day i was dropped off with tenake, one of the villages guides, at 7:30 in the morning, planning on meeting the boat at around 5 or 6 in the evening. we caught some great bonefish and trevally, but mr./mrs. murphy of the ole "murphy's law" had an even better day. i was fixed on getting a monster GT, having not even seen one all week. at one point i was retying my whole bonefish setup, adding tippet with hemos in my hand and a fly in my mouth, and of course that was when the two 80 pounders cruised by at 15 feet. i fumbled to get off a shot but was too late, all i wanted was a 40 pounder but these two were absolute giants! that evening i tried for the elusive golden trevally to get a super grand slam for the day (golden, bluefin and giant trevally plus a bonefish, yes i kind of made this one up) i spotted a tailer way off. tenake and i stalked the fish, but finally lost track of it. at this point murphy's law revisited me, as i took the break in the hunt to tie on a new fly since the one i had on was coming unraveled. i cut off the fly and right at that moment the golden's tail sloppily splashed out of the water about 10 feet infront of me!!! oh well, i ended up getting one good shot that evening at a golden trevally straight into one hell of a wind, and the cast drifted a little too far infront of the fish, which never saw the fly. when we plotted our course on the map back at the lodge it looked as if we walked 13 or 14 miles that day, one of the longest and most rewarding days of fly fishing i have had. anyways, it was a phenomal trip with pops. the villages was a nice place, though still learning the ropes having recently opened. my biggest complaint would be that athough the rustic old outriggers they use are neat, with the tiny engines they have on them some days it felt like we spent as much time in the boat as we did fishing, and that was one of the benefits of being dropped off early and picked up late like we did on the last day, not spending so much time in transit. a lot of the island was made up of the picturesque white sand edges dropping off into turquoise water that you see in some of the brochures, but definitely not all of the flats were like this. anyways, enjoy the photos, and thanks to everyone who helped in giving me pre-trip advice. i will be back in search of the huge GT. by the way, sorry about the blur in a few of the pics, had some water in on the lens after messing around with the underwater feature on my new camera.
http://s131.photobucket.com/albums/p295/lorenelliott/

sculpin
01-07-2007, 11:38 PM
Great report Loren . I love reading reports from warm places when it is cold , raining and the local river is blown here in Oregon .

Mark

01-08-2007, 12:24 AM
Hey Loren - fabulous report & great fish pictures from CI. I wanna go there! :D

- Mark

Bill Kiene semi-retired
01-08-2007, 10:22 AM
Thanks Loren

You are bringing back lots of memories for me. We started going there in 1985 shortly after the fishing operation started there. The only accommodations then was the old Captain Cook Hotel which is an old RAF barracks. We had trips there for many years taken lots of friends and customers with us. We usually went in February to get out of the fog and cold here. Now I hear there are 4 different choices of fish camps there now.

I went with groups 13 times so I have seen it a lot and love the place and the people dearly. I have not been in some years now but you are getting me excited about going back.

I have been "spooled" while wading for large Bonefish in deeper flats there, which is really wild.

The Bonefishing there is 100% wading which is very cool. I love to get off by myself and stock my own fish too.

I have also had those big 50-100 Giant Trevally come up on a flats by us at high tide and thrash through schools of Bonefish and Milkfish.

My wife, Marilyn, had her best day maybe 15 years ago where she landed over 30 Bonefish in one day with one over 10 pounds. Her favorite guides are Tyrone and Simon.

Over the years I have been there during a drought cycle and also in wet cycles. Today I think I would go in mid-summer to stay away from the clouds and rain they have some winters.

It is a powerful and beautiful ecosystem and I would hope that everyone would be able to go there some day.

http://www.kiene.com/images/billkiene-small.jpg

mems
01-08-2007, 02:42 PM
Aloha Loren, nice report and pics. I will be going there in July for a week, and maybe even this march. I have a friend who is going in march and needs some help with his fly fishing, so I might go on that trip as well.
I was guiding a client a couple of weeks ago, who had just returned from there, and he said that orange was the color for the bonefish. Do you agree with this, or would they take other colors. When you were offshore, did you try and fish with wire bite guard? I think the ono would have stayed around a little longer with that? What color worked best on the ulua? I heard blue over white was best. Glad you had a good time, those look like some very nice fish. Mems.

Loren E
01-08-2007, 05:53 PM
glad everyone's been enjoying the report, Mems, for bonefish there were two hot flies, the first had a pale pink body with a white tale and tan wing, and the second was made entirely of this shrimpish colored crystal flash, kind of like the pearl color with some brown infused. i was surprised at how extremely sparse these flies were tied. we really never fished much orange. i fished with wire for the wahoo. when i said drive-by i meant a quick hookup that came unbuttoned, the fish didn't cut me off. i had 50 pound wire going down to a big billfish popper with blue over pink and tandem 6/0 hooks and line started screaming off the real and i saw a splash back there but the fish was gone after about a second. the ulua wern't too picky, i fished some blue over silver streamers (im sure white would have been just as good) but what seemed to make the difference was getting their attention, not color so much, so i fished mostly with poppers, blue over white and green over yellow. thanks for all the kind words everyone, it is a destination i would definitely reccomend.

01-09-2007, 01:05 AM
:D You sure know how to get a bloke excited :lol: I am also heading there in july for a week,and cannot wait :wink:

Bill Kiene semi-retired
01-09-2007, 01:43 AM
Most use very sparse "Charlies" in different sizes and sink rates.

Our favorite color is "pearl orange" in Flashabou and/or Krystal Flash.

Second use to be "metallic gold".

Some like "copper" too.

Anne Vitale
01-10-2007, 03:04 PM
WOW...Loren. That is one major fishing report 8) 8) 8) . My only complaint is that it could have used a few paragraph breaks now and again :? . I kept getting lost....so I mostly drooled over the pictures =P~ . Messed up my keyboard big time. You've got the touch young man....good work.......Anne

Loren E
01-10-2007, 04:45 PM
thanks anne!