FLYGUY Creations: Christmas On Christmas Island

Christmas Island Outfitters
Hosted by: Desert Fly Angler-Dale Broughton
Fishermen-Dale Broughton, Dennis Broughton, Brian Bowden, Paul Waters, Jeff Peace, Tomme Towne, Tim Opitz, Walt Bammann and Kyle Kolodziejske
December 3rd-10th, 2013
Hotel/Camp-The Shark Place, Tiim
Guides: Peter(Biita), Mowana, TJ, Michael, Andrew

I thought of a couple of titles for this post and one was casting to shadows which I found out after a couple of days of fishing was not right. Bonefish, the primary target for sight casting don't have shadows because they hang right on the coral ocean floor and the fish that really does cast a shadow is a Milk fish which will not take a fly. So, the song from Leon Redbone, Christmas on Christmas Island came to mind and since we were the last group before the Christmas Closure of the camp it made sense.

Welcome to Christmas Island!!! HippieD

Hanging at neighbors.... Dale, Dennis and Brian

After months of preparation, buying special clothes, boots, rod cases, flies and leaders, food and such, December 2 came around and our flight to Hawaii took off. The group included my brother Dale who was our host, Brian Bowden, another repeat offender of the island, and the rookies, Tomme Towne, Tim Opitz, Jeff Peace and myself. There were three others in the group, Paul who had been there a few times, Walt first time, and Kyle, a guide who works in Alaska on the Kenai river. We spent the first night at the Outrigger hotel near the airport. It worked out really well because we really just needed a place to sleep because our flight took off mid dayish for Christmas Island. We spent that evening at a sports bar watching the Seahawks on Monday Night football and then crashed for the night.

Next day a good breakfast and off we headed to the airport. One piece of luggage each, along with a good size carry-on with all of the rods and reels that we were taking. My carry-on included 4 rods, 7, 8 and 9 weights along with three reels, a box and good selection of flies size 4, 6 and 8's in beadhead and dumbbells, leaders and a good amount of leaders because as I found out you don't always want to be tying tippet on with these fish and the conditions. Needless to say my carry-on was probably more valuable to me than my actual luggage so it stayed close by as did most of the other guys carry-on.

We boarded the Fiji Airlines 737 for the 1300 mile leg down to the island. It was a great flight and they even served real food not just a bag of nuts or pretzel mix. As we descended down to Christmas Island in the Republic of Kirtibiti, the colors of the water were amazing with coral atolls everywhere. Emerald, deep blue and coral white made up most of the landscape along with some small islands with some vegetation on them. We landed with a bump and a hammering of the brakes and then coasted towards a couple of rusted metal roofed buildings with a funky painted sign, Christmas Island. As we off-loaded, the first rush of heat hit us and as we came out of the plane, reality really hit. Another thing you saw was that the locals had come out to greet the plane, it is a once a week event and something that is pretty important to the Island. We all paraded through the incoming building where you bought you fishing license, cleared immigration and they checked your incoming baggage. All of this is done manually, hand written because the infrastructure is just not there to do it any other way.

Christmas Island Fishing License $50.00 US

We were greeted by the fish camp host Tiim pronounced Sim and Peter pronounced Biita and many of the other guides that we would be working with over the next 6 days. We all received a cold drink of coconut milk and a flower ring like configuration was placed on our heads in greeting and welcoming to the island. We all jumped up into these flatbed Dory style trucks for the trek to Shark Place where we would be staying. The roads were a bit rough and the landscape mostly coconut palms and other vegetation. Christmas Island is one of the largest coral atolls in the world with people living on it so there were no hills; it was all level ground. Huts and buildings with few windows or doors were alongside the road and after awhile you realized these were the islander's homes. After 30-40 minutes we turned off the road and came to a row of cinder block like huts which would be home for the next 6 days. We all paired off and took a hut. My friend Tim Opitz and I were settled into our hut, unpacked some and just laughed a bit about where we were at because it was a bit surreal.

Home for the next 6 days!!

Breadfruit Plants just in front of our Huts....

Deep Fried Breadfruit and Ahi Sashimi Appetizer Served Every Night...

We all readied ourselves for the next day of fishing as well - set our rods up, packed our packs with goodies and extra gear for the day. By the time we finished it was time for us to meet the camp owner along with the guides and talk more about the week. We all headed to the central place where there was a bar and a kitchen. It was just a short walk, we did a meet an greet then a formal welcome was offered by the owner Sim (his given name was James and Tiim). We also met Biiter (I think his given name was Peter) who was the main guide for the week. We talked about the kind of fishing we wanted to do the first day and he aligned his guides up with folks. Jeff and I, as rookies, ended up with Mowana who was one of the most senior guides in the group which was exciting. We then had appetizers which included deep fried breadfruit and raw beautiful tuna and then we had dinner, which included fish, rice, some vegetable or a bit of salad and then a pretty good dessert. After a couple of cocktails we all retired for the evening. We went back to the huts and made sure the bugs were not too bad and then we took some slept aids and crashed. Tim woke up and his fan had shut off and he was getting eaten up by bugs so he slapped on some repellent, turned the fan on and went back to sleep.
At a little before 5 our wake-up call was Dale saying coffee was ready so we got ready and headed out with some level of excitement to start our day. Coffee was in this large hut with some nice patio furniture to sit on.

Where we had coffee every morning at around 5AM

Several of us had bought some Bailey's at the duty free and it tasted so good with the coffee which also was great. 6ish we went to have breakfast and it was usually scrambled eggs with fried spam or maybe some sausage, and tang orange juice mix. Breakfast went pretty fast because we were headed for the boats at 6:30.

Cowboy T First morning!!!

Headed to the boats, 12 speed bumps later we were there

The trek to the boats was a bit long down to the the tip of the island. We traveled by many homes, community centers and church sponsored centers. It was a 12 speed bump trip and many people were already up and about around their homes. It was pretty common to see the family pig tied to a tree at the home along with the occasional chicken and male dog. The Island does not allow anything but male dogs on the island so that keeps the population down. We got to the boat's dock and that was the first time seeing what we would be working with over the next many days. They were very long, maybe 30 foot ponga like boats with outriggers and a 40 horse outboard engine. They had covered benches where most of us sat for the ride out.

Getting the boats readied for the day of fishing...

Two groups headed out

They separated the group some so that they could match guides up with clients and also they often time went to other locations from one another so that there was some diversity in the fishing. Dale, Brian, Jeff and I were on the boat.

Mowana our "GPS" unit keeping us out of the reefs and getting us to where we were headed to fish!!

Landing on the first beach of our fishing adventure was pretty exciting and also a bit of cause for anxiousness in that nether Jeff or I had ever done anything like this before. I grabbed my 8wt that I had built for the trip, called Christmas Island Special and we got off the boat onto the shore. We walked with Mowana to a flowing point where he gave both of us a bit of a casting and stripping lesson. We learned that most of our cast would not be long and often times covered by a simple roll cast. Stripping was two long slow strips to get the fish's attention and then followed up with short 1-6 inch slow strips and if the fish is on the fly it will take it, then a strip tug, "no trout sets" where you raise the rod to the sky. Keep the tip close to the water when you set the hook and then get your fingers out of the way because the fish will run hard with the line and the reel will start to sing as it takes more and more line. So, now we are ready to fish and Mowana set Jeff up on a site and then we walk around the point where he and I start sighting fish. This was where I learned very quickly about shadows and the type of fish we were after. I would get real excited as a school of large fish would approach and the word Milk would come out of Mowana and you could see the shadows that they cast because they were off the bottom and often times very close to the surface. Then Mowana said bone, 20 ft, 3 o'clock right near the shore line. Seeing the moving shape I cast in the direction not exactly in front of the fish and Mowana says good. We wait and then Mowana says, "long strip" and I do, OK another long, and I see the fish move towards the shrimp like fly, OK short, short, short and the fish grabs the fly and runs. Wow my first fish but the Tibor reel is not working well and is impossible to reel in so now we are hand lining it in... So, first lesson, test stuff before you get going. After releasing the fish we work on the reel for a long while and get it working well and I say Mowana you need to work with Jeff and he agrees and heads off around the point. So, now it is me sighting fish and doing all of the cast and set alone. My first fish is great and I just saw out loud, " I can do this!!!" I had a great time at this spot catching a good dozen fish and then I move over and catch a few more. Mowana checks on me and is happy that I am catching fish so we head back towards where Jeff is fishing. While we are waiting for the boat to move to another location I am working hard on the sighting thing. I see a nice Bone to my right and cast the fly just right and strip just as Mowana had taught me and with a hard hit the line screams from the reel. Mowana just says, you got it, you will have no problem this week. I had a great first day with 18 fish total, one silver Trevally, one Goat fish, one snapper and a bunch of bonefish. Saw some sand sharks, puffer fish, rays, and sand eels between the open shore that I fished and the pancake atoll we fished. We fished down near an area they called submarine island and also 9 mile flat. It was hot and the wind not bad with some rolling clouds. The birds were pretty amazing as well. Booby birds everywhere which really mess with the fish. When they see a bird shadow they take off.

All in all I had a great day and an excellent start to the fishing adventure.

Day 2, Walt and Paul, Dennis and Tim on one boat and we were targeting bonefish for the day while the other boat did some bonefish and Giant Trevally fishing. The wind was blowing a bit harder and I was still fishing with my 8 wt but knew if this kept up I was going to have to move up to my 9 so that I could get some more backbone in the wind. Matt was Tim's and my guide for the day.

Matt and Tim fishing the shoreline... Matt is carrying the spare/Trevally rod

Matt having sighted a fish is giving T some coaching...

Thereyago a nice bone on the Saltwater CowboyT....

The morning was a bit slow but we did pick up a few fish - lots of moving around to get to them. I ended up with a few nice fish. We then moved to a spot near the 9 mile and Matt and I went off together while Tim fished with someone else for a while. We were fishing a hard coral shelf that dropped into some deeper water. I learned quick to keep the line up because the coral was both sharp and liked to snag the line. As we started to walk we sighted a very large, probably 11-12lb bone, but even with the best of cast the fish seemed uninterested in my fly and just kept moving towards the open water. Not long after this fish we saw five that were in the 4-5lb class and I picked up one of them.

Nice bone on my "Christmas Island Special" 8wt with Tibor reel....

Nice Golden banded Trevalley... caught two in the same area... aggressive suckers!!!

This was probably the first chance that I had to see some smaller Travally close to shore and Matt taught me the technique to get their attention which is a very fast strip technique. They are very aggressive and are looking for something that jumps out at them. I caught one and later one followed my fly right to the shore and I thought it had taken the fly so I pulled and the fly came out of the water behind me and I never stopped the movement and flicked the fly out again and by chance it landed on the surface near the fish and it grabbed it and just screamed out towards the open water. Both Matt and I were laughing so hard!! We had a great day together and he was a very personable guide who got me to some great fish. This ended up being one of our really long days because we got caught out on the flats with the tide going out to the point where the boat could not navigate the channel back. I had another great day of fishing with my numbers still up there but I decided it was no longer important to count, I was very satisfied just catching the unique and sizeable fish because they were so strong and got to my backing most of the time and we had some great laughs together that day!!! We didn't get back to camp till early evening and talk about tired...

Day Three and this was my day to fish with my brother Dale and our guide was TJ. We headed out to the "Y" side of the islands where there were some beautiful all coral white beaches. Dale got set up on a point where he could fish a couple of sides without having to walk much. He was still recovering from back surgery and in a bit of pain. TJ and I walked down a curved beachline where the water went deep pretty fast compared to other places I had fished. TJ would watch the deep water looking for bonefish to come in towards shore which seemed to be the pattern. I also was picking up some fish that cruised the shoreline. I picked up a couple of small bones before I hooked into a nice fish that took me to the backing with ease and not just one time. Bro Dale got to see me catch this fish and got a couple of great pictures.

Dale and a nice Bone... killer waters....

TJ sighting fish and me ready to throw, fishing the 9wt Xi2 Le' Boner

OK that will do... One of my favorite beaches over in the "Y" site... all corral

TJ and I with a great bone... several runs at the backing....

N I C E Christmas Island Special in it's mouth

I had switched up rods for the day because it was blowing more so I went with my 9wt Sage Xi2 that I built a few years back and it is called the "Le Boner'" and it was working exceptionally well for me. We fished this coral beach area for the better part of the morning and then caught the boat to try something different. We ate lunch and moved to a "Flowing" coral atoll that was huge. These flowing covered islands are really interesting to fish. The tide as it moves across the island created almost stream/river like waters that you can fish like you do rivers. The fish move in and out of the current feeding. They are a bit harder to see in these waters but once you get the "eye" it works out well. I caught several fish but lost several to the coral along with my fly. These fish would grab the fly and just scream across the coral beads and then my line would go limp. Pulling it in I could tell the fly was gone. I also had a challenge with smaller fish. I would sight a large bone and cast towards it and a small fish would come out of nowhere and grab the fly. By the time I got it in and released the larger fish was gone. This happened more times than I really wanted it to. All in all it was a great day of fishing again.

We headed back to camp a little earlier but were good with that. We kept wanting to enjoy where we were staying as well. The camp was located on the deep water side of the island and had crashing waves and beautiful waters and sunsets. That night we had our usual raw Ahi for appetizer and then fish and some octopus as well. Dinner was served with both white rice and dirty rice every night. A few drinks after dinner and we were all ready to crash. Tomorrow was going to be a different day because we were going to fish Giant Trevally.

Kyle, Tomme, HippieD, Jeff, Brian and Dale

There is the opportunity to go Deep Sea fishing as well on Christmas Island. Dale, Brian and Kyle all went out one day and they caught some great fish which ended up being dinners for a couple of evenings as well.

Brian and one of his deep sea catches

Can you say W A H O O!!!!

Mowana with the beauty

Can you say Dinner.... Kyle

Kyle with that night's Sashimi...... Nice and fresh....

Deep Sea fishing is out of a glass boat and the wave action is at the level where you lose sight of the land and other things around you. They picked up some tuna and wahoo so we had very fresh fish that night for dinner.

Day 4, with a great deal of anticipation we headed out to do something different for the day. We had scheduled some time in the day to go after Giant Trevally which is touted as one of the great fighting fish in the area and after catching a few small ones on the shore I knew how aggressive they were. So, the boat heads out with the group and it takes people to the nine mile area and you get dropped off by yourself or in pairs like Tomme and I to shore fish for bones while the guides go and net some milk fish to be used for GT chum bait. Dale stayed on the boat to take a few pictures of the netting process which was cool.

Tomme and I walked a coral ledge beach with a muddy bottom. We picked up a few bonefish that morning. The coral ledge is something you learn quickly will cut into your fly line and wear on your leader very fast. So the key is keeping the line up off the coral and at the same time having line available to throw when you sight a fish.

Michael, Andrew and Mowana netting Milk Fish

Sorting the Milk Fish

Andrew dropping the catch

Soon to be chummm........

Michael making up chum and snacking at the same time

Ok here is the deal on the GT fishing and I know some of the traditional fly fisherman will probably cringe some but you fish these with bait!!!! So you take a 12 weight rod and put a big ass hook on the 100/120lb leader and then add some of the milk fish chum to the hook and give it a cast out into the water. I know it's not a fly but who gives a hoot when you get one of these guys; the whole thought kind of just goes away as you hold on for dear life.

So, after shore fishing for bones while the boat comes back to load the whole group up and off we head for a very specific flowing atoll where the GT's like to hang out. We ease over one of these islands and they drive a large galvanized pipe into the group and tie off to that. As we gather this monster gear and prepare to drop into the water which is everything from knee high to chest high, Mowana is out throwing the chum into the water to get some attention. When you get out of the boat you see all fish darting all over the place. Many are big ass bonefish along with some others that are difficult to define. When the Trevally's come in Mowana gets very animated and the excitement grows in his voice. And when you first see one you go wholly crap those are big, aggressive, and damn fast.
I think Jeff was the first one to hook up with a fish and once you get one on you have to walk them over to another place on the island where it is easier to bring them in without tying up with the coral.

Jeff Peace and Andrew after a GT

Nice GT Jeff

That's what I am talking about.....

Right after Jeff brought his fish in Tomme hooked up on something big. I saw firsthand what happens when you don't have some really good gear in that Tomme's reel did not have a drag that would allow for the right tension to wear the big fish out and it was going to take all of the line he had and just keep going so they loaded him up in the boat and headed out after the fish. They did get a chance to see it before it got wrapped around the bow of the boat and the 100# plus leader gave way. It was a big fish in the 80/90 lb class.

Tomme doing battle off the boat after the fish took too much line from shore... big dude!!!

Big Fish!!!! just after this the leader broke....

After throwing this 12 weight for quite some time I hooked up with a fish. It is interesting how you do the hook up. They really don't "hit" the bait so what you do is let them take the bait in and let them slowly run with it. So to do that you have a bunch of loose line in front of you stripped off the reel. When the line starts to head out towards the deep water you just let it go with no set. Then you give it a tug and get ready for some torpedo like action. My first fish ended up being a trigger fish which is a coral eater with some pretty significant teeth on it that allows it to crush coral to get it's food.

Coral eating Trigger Fish... keep the fingers away!!!!

After catching the trigger fish we moved to another atoll where we started the whole process all over again. After a short while we started to get some fish action including fish all around our legs. I was watching my line and all of a sudden my line started to move out towards the deeper water and I let it go. Then the "Tug" kicked into high gear and I was to the backing in what seemed like seconds and it just kept going. I liken it to a good tug-a-war challenge. I would pull and the fish would pull harder taking more line. After awhile I started to gain on the fish some and then we started walking to the other side to bring the fish in.

That is a 12 weight rod with a good bend... GT running....

Michael was the guide who helped coach bringing the fish in and was walking with me as I fought to keep it going in the same direction that we were walking. Then we were at the place where I could just let the fish play the give and take game until it tired and I could bring it in. It was a great fish 35/40 lb class and I had my first GT experience.

Nice "first" GT for me!!!!

Now that is a big mouth!!!

A lick to go.... back to the water until our next meeting!!!

Kyle and Cowboy T also caught a couple of great GT's along with Tomme picking up several over the couple of days that he fished for them.

Kyle huggin' the big one!!! Epic!!!

Tomme and a great GT....Nice

Cowboy T and his nice GT

Day 5, some good wind along with clouds have moved into the area. Both are not your friend when you are fly fishing. The clouds make "sighting" fish impossible so we end up having to do "blind casting" for them. We fished in the "Y" area with Matt as our guide. I caught another nice bonefish off a point with a blind cast using a #4 Christmas Island Special fly.

Blind Cast Bonefish....

After the one bone it was tough to pick up more fish with the clouds and the wind. The clouds impact in a couple of ways. One it makes it impossible to sight the fish and two if they are moving fast the cloud shadow itself scares the fish looking like the shadow of a bird overhead. We moved to another couple of small dry islands where I saw a couple of great blue trevallys but could not get them to move towards the fly. Saw them a couple of times on the walk around the island but they were not tricked.... It was so tough fishing that the guides decided to take us to another interesting location back towards town where the boats dock which is an area called London. Several of the small townships have names like London, Paris, Poland and so on. I am sure there is a story about the names.

We stopped on this flooded atoll which was waist deep and deeper for vertically challenged guys like CowboyT; it was chest high at times. I decided to to take a break from this adventure but the guys did pretty well here and it was all blind casting. Walt picked up a dozen bonefish in this spot.

Off in the distance you see CowboyT better than waist high or better...

Day 6 and the last day of fishing. Several of us had arranged for this to be a half day so that we could both enjoy the place we were staying at and also get things organized for the long day ahead of us with our flight home. We headed out of the docks and went to a place that was fairly close called Riggs Island which was also a bird sanctuary. It was Tomme and I along with Dale and Brian. Andrew was the guide for Tomme and I for the morning and Mowana ended up paired with Brian. Dale ended up on nice flowing point... It was again windy and overcast so sight fishing was out of the question and we did more blind casting for the bones. We set off on a coral island that was covered with hard sand and coral beaches. Ended up catching 3 or 4 nice fish with good fight before we headed back into the docks. It was a good day to make a half day with the weather conditions.

Got back to camp and took a shower so to speak as there is very little water pressure and it was the time of year where conserving water was important. It sure didn't take much time to dry off with the warmth and the wind; just walking around some had HippieD's hair dry. Collected some shells and things to bring home from in front of the camp. There was a lot to choose from. Took some pictures and then started the task of packing for the trip home.

The last night the Shark Place owner throws a celebration of sorts with all of the guides and their families along with the clients. The owner, Sim, kicks the event off by letting everyone know that having spent a week there with his family and the crew that we had become in some ways part of the Christmas Island and Shark Place extended family and this meal and celebration was not a goodbye but more of a farewell until the next time we came back to be part of the family again. Jeff became our speaker and let Sim know how much we all enjoyed our time with everyone and Jeff also thanked the families of the guides for the time away from family to be with us all. Sim introduced a couple of local ladies to do some traditional island dancing.

Then the festivities quieted and Sim got up and opened the meal to his guests. There was a roasted pig, clams, lobster, salads, and many other local foods. It was a huge spread and after food was served dancing continued and later all settled down and we had time to talk with one another. I had made the decision to give away one of my custom Christmas Island 9 weights and I wanted to give it to someone who had made my trip and fishing adventure exciting. Matt was that guide because of his personality and attitude along with his ability to help me get into some great fish. I delivered the rod and he was pretty shocked and I told him that when I returned in the future that I would like for he and I to fish together with him using this new rod.... he was of course more than OK with that. It kind of ended the evening on a great note and we all crashed early because the call for coffee was going to be 4:30 AM with a departure from the camp at a little after 5. Our return flight was just after 7AM and most of the departure process was handwritten and manual so it required a bit of time.

Most of the guides and camp folks were there in the morning so we said our farewel's and headed off to the airport. It had been a great week of fishing....