Fly Paper: Christmas Island Trip Report

A report from New Zealander, Guy Gardiner on his recent Christmas Island trip. Guy is an old friend having traveled twice to the Seychelles with me, once to Farquhar Atoll and once to Providence Atoll. Guy has gone to Christmas Island with us a couple times and here is his report from his most recent visit:

Guy with a GT on Providence Atoll, Seychelles

Dan and I had a great trip however there were some things you should know. The hot water was down at Crystal Beach and there was not quite the same service focus that Dad and I found in 2010, but that could be because Tim, the owner, was away. The only other niggle we had was that the food was not served truly hot. However we didn’t have any tummy troubles so once again a minor quibble. [We at AD will make sure these issues are discussed.]

The guiding and general ambience were wonderful as before and therefore I have a party of 5 including me who wish to fish there from New Zealand in August or September 2014. Scott, I was wondering it you could check to see which were the best weeks for fishing. I was thinking the neap tide weeks with an incoming tide in the morning i.e. 3 days after the quarter moon. [We are on this and should have then best tides calculated asap. The tides Guy mentions will be better for bonefishing and not quite as good for GTs as they seem to be more prevalent on spring tides].

One of the wahoos was caught on conventional gear after Dan broke my #10 weight fly rod. The sail and the other wahoo and tuna were all caught with fly gear, harling like we did in the Seychelles… so in some ways we did better off shore at Xmas than at Providence in the Seychelles. The sail was one of two which were batting the fly with their bills. When Moana got the boatman to cut the motor, the one I caught wolfed my fly down before I could do a lift cast then it was all on with four full blown tailwalks etc.

The bone fishing was very good coming in spurts as we were in the full moon tides and my best one was caught at Paris # 1 flat. Overall, I would rate the fishing per se as good, if not better than the Seychelles outer atolls, but of course the experiences are not really comparable.

[Editors note: Note to Guy: I don't know if Christmas was better than the Seychelles after looking back through my photos of you from both our Farquhar and Providence trips. We did pretty well! Lets's just say you've had some pretty good fishing on some pretty incredible atolls!]