Christmas Island Feb 2012

Sorry for the long delay in getting a report up.  I came home to a huge deadline and have been working long days since I returned.  Anyways, here's the report ...

The scenery of the Christmas Island is absolutely amazing.  Our first glimpse of it was this.  It's a long journey to Christmas Island, one that involved an overnight layover in Honolulu.  Come the next morning, it's 3 hour hop down to Christmas.



It wasn't long before we were on the ground.  Those rooms behind the chainlink is customs.





It wasn't long before we were unpacking the kayaks we had shipped down.  We've been shipping brand new kayaks down since November.  Our arsenal included a couple of Ocean Kayak Trident 13's, a Hobie Adventure, and a couple of Diablo Adios SUPyaks.  We also were equipped with Kokatat Bahia Tour PFD's, and Werner paddles.  Lots of unpacking and rigging.  But soon enough we'd be doing this!



Had a few lures to unpack too.  We had a few lures from Ocean Tackle International, Big Hammer, Brad's Bay Bombers, Williamson, and Yozuri.   We were to do a lot of different fishing styles this week.  We spent a lot of time tossing big 6", 4 ounce poppers for Giant Trevally (Ulua).  But we also jigged for an assortment of snappers and groupers, tossed flies for bonefish, troller rapalas for Bluefin Trevally (Omilu) and Papios, ripping Big Hammers for more Uluas, fishing damashi/sabiki for assorted reef fish, tossing swimmer across the reef for whatever would bit.



The excitement was high and we could hardly wait until the next morning.

-Alllen

We had a lot of exploring to do.  Kayaks were something new on this island.  Many locals had never seen them, but they did use a lot of these outrigger canoes.  The locals would launch from the beach and paddle about 1/4 mile offshore.  They would tie off to buoys and fish the traditional method of wrapping chum/rocks in leaves, and sinking them down before yanking the lines to release the chum with a hook in a chunk of fish.



We watched them pull in a few of these.



We had a few options available to us.  Some days we load some kayaks on lager motorized outriggers and other days we'd load the kayaks on trucks to get to other launch points.





Trolling the reef edge we'd get into all sorts of fish including these beautiful bluefin trevally.



-Allen

It wasn't all fun and play though.  The first week we spent a lot of time working a story for Hemispheres Magazine.  Hemispheres is the inflight magazine for United/Continental.  They have a readership of 13M people per month.  The article should come out early this summer.  Because of the article we spent a lot of time posing for picture.  Sometimes it seemed like we spent more time setting up for photos than actually fishing.  Not all bad considering the scenery.









-Allen

It may look calm in many of these pictures, however the week we were there, the wind was up, blowing a pretty steady 15-18.  We had a couple of days early in the week when the swell was pumping too (see the previous surf fishing picture).  We'd have some windows of good weather in the lee, but often times we had to resort to fishing from the outrigger, or pulling up on a flat and wade fishing.  We didn't get much time to fish offshore much, but we were able to concentrate on quite a few good Ulua, unfortunately not as much off the kayaks as we would have liked.  Some days we're fishing until your arms fell off days and we probably got 70-80 or more Ulua over 2 weeks.









We did see a number of brutes though.



We dubbed this particular spot the Pancake Flat.

-Allen

wow, nice GT

Awesome.

If the last shot doesnt get ya , ya gotta be brain dead. Thanks Chief!

Wow them talakitoks make the best sinigang!  Were you allowed to eat them or is it all C&R?

Rey

Wow them talakitoks make the best sinigang!  Were you allowed to eat them or is it all C&R?

Rey

Inside the lagoon is C&R for Ulua and bonefish.  But even outside, we were encouraged to release the larger trevally.

No worries though.  We feasted on lapu lapu and snappers.   

-Allen

Aloha Gang....

I am finally back home and am recuperated from a great trip to an awesome place. Christmas island is an area loaded with fishing options. In the 2 weeks I was at the atoll I just scratched the surfaces of the possibilities of the kayak fishing here. If you want to hook into big Giant Trevally's on a kayak this is the place for you. We caught upwards of 70 ulua in 2 weeks. All of these fish caught in the lagoon were released as part of their conservation policy to protect there sport fishery. We only kept 2 out of the 70 GT's because we could not revive them. There are a ton of bone fish at Christmas if that's your thing. The fly fishing is excellent here. There are so many flats and ponds in Christmas island it would take a life time to learn them all. Our local guides were very knowledgeable and had 30 years of experience fishing the atoll. They always put us in the right place and took good care of us. so inside of the atoll is a lot of fun.

The damashi and jigging in the off shore waters did very well as Allen said. Anywhere between 30-100 feet deep, we caught us a lot of bottom fish species all of which were excellent eating. We caught lots of good eating snappers and groupers as well as some massive goat fish. During the first week with Allen we got to do some kayak fishing but were obligated to a kite board story which cut into our fishing time. However we did have some fun times kayak fishing together.

In the following week I had some clients who fell in love with an area we called Ulua Pancake. This small round flat in the middle of the lagoon offered great GT fishing. In the end my clients just wanted to go here everyday to nail the GT's. so again i barely got to fish the off shore waters around the atoll.

So we know the lagoon is loaded with GT's and Bone fish... off shore jigging also worked very well.. we also discovered they have off shore ahi koa's (tuna houses) just off shore about 200 yards.. these are mooring balls anchored to the bottom so the local canoe fisherman can tie up to them and fish.. they moorings range anywhere from about 100 feet deep to 300 feet deep, right where the atoll drops into the abyss. These local canoe fisherman are building reef and training fish in the ancient style called dropping stone. What they do is take a whole milk fish and cut it up into chunks. They take the chunks of chum and wrap them up in a leaf with a piece of rock. Then they take a handline with a hook and put a piece of milk fish on it. They then wrap the handline with the hook around the leaf with the rock and chum in it.  Then they drop the package overboard. When they feel they are at the depth of the tuna they pop the line releasing the leaf with the chum and the rock away from the hand line with the bait on it. This ancient old school style knocked down a couple of big tunas in the 70 pound range while we were out there. When local angler drop stone they build the koa (home) from years of dropping stones in the same spot. they build reef structure every time they drop a rock. To this rock pile is an anchor chain and a ball with lots of growth for baitfish to dwell on. These are very similar but even better than a FAD (fish aggravation device). The constant chumming keeps the tuna at the koas. So from my experience in Hawaii these ahi koa are loaded with fish. We however did not get a lot of time to explore this area. I did try some trolling in this area and saw 2 yellow fin tuna in the 50 pound range surface in front of my kayak in about 60 feet of water. So I am looking forward to more off shore kayak fishing in this area next time.

We also went to another off shore are called Ono alley. This area had a really fishy feeling and again we caught some stuff bottom jigging. I lost something really big jigging from the kayak. Allen had a decent surface strike that we felt was an Ono strike but it came unhooked. Unfortunately we did not stay here long. So for off shore fishing we didn't do as well as we had hoped to but then again we did not spend much time off shore fishing..

Most of our time between both trips was focused around the Ulua Pancake inside of the lagoon.. I catered to what my clients wanted to do and this was it. All day battling GT's. Here at Ulua Pancake we can just about guarantee Christmas island GT sleigh rides. It is very consistant and will make traveling anglers happy.

I am planning a return trip on May 22nd-29th if any one is intrested in coming down get in touch with me asap. The trip is just about filled up and we are looking for 1 or possibly 2 kayak anglers to join us. the price for the week is $1,400. This includes 7 nights at the lodge, 6 days of fishing, all meals, 1 guide per 2 anglers, a truck to get around, all the kayak gear, and lots of fun. Contact me ASAP if you are intrested in kayak fishing Christmas island at boogied@hawaii.rr.com

We are still waiting for our professional photographers pictures from the first trip. When I get them I will post them here with a few more reports. Aloha

more

a few more

Amazing.

Finally got a bonefish picture.  We have one opening (4 spots already booked) for a May 22-29 trip if anyone is interested.

-Allen

Amazing!  Maybe next year.  this year I plan to return to Alaska.  Thanks for the great reports and pictures guys.