The Island of Kiribati or “Christmas Island” as anglers have come to know it as, is a remote atoll 1300 miles south of Hawaii, in the South Pacific. It’s famous for its extensive flats that are full of bonefish, triggerfish, 3 different trevally and many other amazing species. Starting off filming season 7 of Wild Fish Wild Places in this remote location seemed like a fitting adventure!
Fishing all over the world, fly and conventional we tackle many different scenarios but Christmas Island was very different than anything we have ever experienced. The first day had the crew walking softly and slowly (a huge adjustment for us as we are usually 100 MPH) spotting and stalking these silver ghosts of the flats. The next few days were successful and we all caught many fish but the final day of the trip is where things changed for the better!
The last day of filming I felt comfortable with spotting my own fish and figuring out how they were moving on and across the flats so I told the lodge we didn’t want a guide for the day, just drop us off and let us fish! Over the course of the week we figured out how to use the current and sun lined up to get the best sighting conditions, how the bonefish were moving onto the flat from the deep water and where they would make their travel lanes as they fed. The first fish that was interested came out of the deep water and started up on the flat, we could see him from a long ways off and started making a cast. The fish wanted the Fulling Mill Tan Silli Charlie with the rubber legs that day and without hesitation ate the fly and had me wrapped around the coral in about 2 seconds! The next fish was a beautiful trigger fish our photographer was stalking. The lifelike Fulling Mill Flexo Crab flies that looked just like a crab is what they loved to eat the entire trip. The Trigger fish swam over to her fly (much slower than a bone) ate the fly and the fight was on! After a long battle off into the deep water Sandra landed a perfect specimen trigger fish and was all smiles.
If you are headed to the salt water to chase fish make sure you check out the full selection of Fulling Mill flies as they make everything you need for the trip including big GT flies.
Photos by: Wild Fishing Wild Places
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