Tails from the Road: Christmas Island

A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to take a hosted trip with eight of our customers to Christmas Island. The trip was truly incredible and unlike anything I’ve done before. Wade fishing the endless sand and coral flats, there seemed to be fish everywhere and anywhere you looked. If you had multiple setups rigged and ready, you were able to catch a multitude of species each day. Our group caught many “trophy fish,” but the coolest thing was we caught 25 different fish species, and there could be even more that we didn’t keep track of. Although many of these are reef fish, it shows just how diverse the ecosystem is at Christmas Island.

Before I dive into the fly fishing experience on the island, I’d like to let you know that we have spots available for next year’s trip to Christmas Island Lodge. We’ll be going March 30-April 7th, 2026, so if you’re looking for a trip of a lifetime, look no further!

I could talk endlessly about this trip, but I'll do my best not to because it would be far too long of a read. I won’t keep you waiting any longer, so let’s get to the trip!

There’s only one flight a week to Christmas Island (Kiritimati, Kiribati) which makes traveling slightly difficult. In the grand scheme of things it really isn’t that difficult, but it is much more time consuming than going to somewhere like Mexico or Belize. The flight heading to the island leaves midday on Tuesday, and since there’s no flights early enough to get you to Honolulu in a timely manner, booking a night in a hotel is a necessity. Although this seems to be an inconvenience, it gives a great opportunity for anglers to spend time with their family or friends on the island for a few days beforehand. Five in our group went this route, and the other three chose to spend some time with their family on the island after the trip. I was the only one who didn’t spend extra time on the island, because unfortunately, I didn’t have the time. But, I hope to make some plans next year!

Before the trip, I arranged a dinner for everyone on the trip to meet each other over a casual dinner and drinks. Although this did come together properly, I was not able to make it. I got food poisoning and was in fear of missing out on the entire trip. As you can tell by this blog - this didn’t happen, but it was a legitimate fear of mine at the time. Luckily, this was the only misfortune to happen the entire trip and thankfully it was me and not someone else. The last thing I wanted was for someone to lose their luggage or get sick like me. Last year, two of our group members (Todd and Tyler) had all of their luggage lost in the Honolulu airport which left them stuck without any extra clothes or fishing gear for the entire week. With that in mind, I advised everyone to pack their fishing gear, a change of clothes, and wading boots with their cary-ons. Again, nothing came of it though which is a good thing!

Arrival day on the island, everyone was anxious to be out on the water. As we put together our rods and debated as to what flies to tie on, we all talked eagerly about what species we wanted to catch, what our goals were, gear selection, etc. We were like a bunch of kids on Christmas Eve talking to our siblings and cousins about what presents we wanted to get. To say the least, not many of us slept great that night in anticipation of what was to come.

Day 1 we were set to fish the inner lagoon, one of the three distinct areas to fish on the island, the other two being the Huff Dam (aka backcountry) and the Korean Wreck. The inner lagoon was essentially an endless series of pancake flats that held primarily bonefish and triggerfish, with the odd shot at some trevally. We took off in two boats and everyone was dropped at their own pancake flat. I was the last to be dropped off, and immediately after being dropped off we spooked a surge wrasse off the edge of the flat. Just past the wrasse was a happily feeding peachface triggerfish, could my luck really be this good? Turns out no, but it was exciting to get a shot at such a special fish right off the bat. Multiple casts with no luck finally turned into a cast that landed too close. Swing and a miss! Downward the flat we go.

I spent the next 45 minutes or so focusing on hunting triggerfish, and luckily had another couple shots at some fish. Again, nothing came of it but I was getting more than I could ask for. I felt spoiled and felt like it was bound to happen if I kept at it. As we walked down and around the flat, the triggerfish habitat dried up and it was time to get the bonefish rod in hand. Here I found out how difficult it was to trick the Indo-Pacific bonefish. The necessary stripping cadence is different between each fish, but the fly pattern is very important. After a couple of fly changes, we finally found a tiny Christmas Island Special (go-figure) tied in bone-tan was the ticket. I think this was one of two days that this fly was appropriate, but I’ll get to that more later.

We ran our time up on this flat after an hour and a half or so and it was time for the next flat. Walking this flat wasn’t fantastic, it seemed like there were more sharks cruising than anything. I’ve never taken a cast at a shark before, so I took a whirl with my GT setup and surprisingly had a chase! The blacktip shark saw my fly, followed it aggressively and turned on the jets before rejecting it when bumping it with his nose. Oh well, that was cool to see a 40-50lb blacktip chase my fly in a couple feet of water. 

We continued to walk the flat and it was clear that this was a triggerfish flat. There were lots of triggerfish around! We walked down the flat and ran into a large titan triggerfish, so we slowly creeped up to it until we got about 50 feet away. The first cast was short and luckily didn’t spook him. The second was 6 feet to the left of him, perfect, if he turns the way that it looks like he will. Triggerfish nearly stand up straight when they’re tailing, making it difficult to properly present a fly to them. Additionally, you cannot place the fly close to them. Anything closer than 6 feet your likelihood of spooking them is nearly 100%, spooky devils. Luckily this fish looked like it was leaning left and after tailing it turned that way. I waited to strip my fly until he got closer, slow strip, slow strip, he’s biting it.

Never strip-set when this happens, if a trigger sees your fly and likes it they will always bite it. Triggerfish try to rip apart the crab instead of eating it in one go, so if they like your fly this is what they’ll always do. Well, after three strips of him biting and the consistency of the tension remaining the same, I sure as hell knew I had this fish. Again, I didn’t strip-set to not pull it out of his teeth, instead I kept all my tension in the line and slowly lifted the rod to increase the tension without being explosive. Sure enough, after a few worrying, hard fought minutes, we landed my first triggerfish! Funny enough, I never hooked the fish. He actually bit my hook point completely off and the fly was jammed in between his teeth, talk about flossing.

The rest of the first day resulted in a few more bonefish, a giant bonefish that disappeared in thin air, and blown shots at triggers. Awesome first day!!

Day 2 everyone went to the Korean Wreck, which is a general area on the island that offers incredibly unique fishing throughout the entire day regardless of the tides. At low tide there are no flats to be fished, instead you spend your time fishing the channels that lay within the giant coral reef that you’re standing on. In these channels you can catch an endless number of reef species, both little and large! Over the course of the trip our group caught a total of 25 different fish species, with the vast majority of them being pulled up during low tide at the Wreck. 

At high tide the Korean Wreck turns into one of the most prolific and healthy flats fisheries any of us had ever seen. Nothing in Central America or the Caribbean can compare to this place. As the water pushes through the channels and onto the flat, a once lifeless ecosystem is bustling with bonefish, five different trevally species, sharks, parrotfish, sweetlips, and so much more. The schools of bonefish are so impressive they’ll make your jaw drop. Unlike other areas of the world where schools of bonefish generally means smaller 2-4 pound fish, at the Wreck you’ll see fish anywhere from 2-12 pounds all in the same group. Getting the larger fish to commit is much more difficult than their smaller siblings, but if you can pick them out of the group be ready for an incredible fish! These fish will run you all over the flat, oftentimes getting your fly line or leader caught up in some of the larger coral chunks. Unfortunately, I missed out on the monster bonefish, but I was still lucky enough to get a few fish that measured 19-20” from nose to their inner tail fork. 

The Wreck was by far the fan favorite of the island! Everyone was in love with the everchanging fishing it offered and the plethora of species that came with it. Several anglers and myself spent a total of four days at the Wreck because we enjoyed it that much. The wonderful part of Christmas Island Lodge is they were willing to take anglers to the Wreck every day of the trip, as long as there were enough anglers to fill a truck. No other lodge is willing to accommodate this and will only offer one day to the Wreck, if they offer it at all. Good on Christmas Island Lodge; it’s unfortunate that anglers going to other lodges don’t get to experience this wonderful place to the full capacity that we did. 

Like I said before, we caught so many fish and so many fish species that it’s hard to say what fish was truly my favorite. If I had to make a short list of my most memorable or favorite fish caught it would probably be my bohar snapper, ~20lb bluefin trevally, triggerfish, or the endless number of surge wrasse. 

Bohar snapper are not necessarily a common catch at Christmas Island, but a few of us on the trip were lucky enough to tangle with them. Everyone but myself was able to catch their fish on appropriate sized gear (9-10wt rods). I on the other hand did not, which made the fight spectacular, but also incredibly stressful. At low tide it can be fun to toss your bonefish rod with a heavily weighted shrimp into the channels to catch little reef species, in addition to the ravenous bluefin trevally. This was exactly what I was doing, just stripping a shrimp around when the bohar decided to destroy my tiny little shrimp on my bonefish rod. My bonefish setup was a 9' 7wt Hardy Ultralite X which had more than enough power to cast in the wind and fight bonefish, but it was another story with the bohar. These fish are made of pure muscle and have a huge frame that makes it much harder to turn them. With the proper rod angle and a cranked down drag I managed to land this amazing fish, even after jumping through a channel that was as high as my chest. I definitely wouldn’t recommend doing such a thing, but my guide and I were determined to land this fish. I think he was just as excited as I was to get this fish. This was the first time in my fishing life where I was actually worried about breaking 20lb fluorocarbon, yet somehow it survived the toothy mouth of the snapper! The strange thing about these fish is how quickly they recede their bright red color while being handled. Below you can see two different photos, right when we landed it and when the guide handed me the fish; bright red to a pale red/blue in a matter of seconds. Crazy cool species that I hope to tangle with again during next year’s trip.

To keep the blog concise, I'll save the story about my big bluefin trevally for another time. If you want to hear about it, come into the shop and I’d love to talk about it! 

I will briefly talk about the surge wrasse though since they weren’t the most technical fish. In fact, these fish were more aggressive than the vast majority of any other species we’d encounter, as long as you didn’t spook them. Oftentimes your shots at these fish would be rather close due to the way the flat laid out during low tide. If you don’t spook them and make a clean cast, they’d eat anything, including small baitfish patterns. Numerous times I had surge wrasse steal flies from red hot bluefin trevally in pursuit of my fly. Additionally, when fighting bluefins and small GT’s, the wrasse would do their best to bite and ram into the fish. Small, but mighty!

The trip was an absolute success by all means, but there’s always thing you’d go back and change. So what would I have changed? The number one thing I would have absolutely brought was a stripping basket. It seems like a marketing gimmick to have a stripping basket on this trip. It absolutely IS NOT! I will advise anyone who looks to fish outside of the inner lagoon to have a stripping basket. The ground at the Huff Dam (backcountry) grabs your fly line more than anything I’ve seen before, and it absolutely ruins shots. 

Additionally, fishing the surf during low tide at the Wreck is tough without a stripping basket as your line is getting ripped in and out with the current, and this can be rather difficult for lesser experienced casters. None of us had a stripping basket, which wasn’t the end of the world, but it was enough to make things frustrating. 

Another item would’ve been a packable cooler for the truck or boat. Each vessel that transports you to and from the fishing location and the lodge had only one, large cooler. This was perfect, but if you enjoy a cold beverage after a long day on the flat you were expecting to have a warm beer. The cooler was filled with the guides’ and clients’ lunches, which took first priority. The remainder was filled with water, soft drinks, and beer. It would eventually empty out and then there would be room for beer or whatever drink the anglers would prefer to have. The only problem is the cooler were of cheaper quality and couldn’t hold cold temperature in the tropic sun all day. In particular it couldn’t make a hot beer cold. Long story short, we all wished we had packed at least one mini cooler for a late day stash. 

The only other “major” thing I’d change is my fly selection, sort of. I felt like the flies I packed were perfect, but I certainly would’ve added a few more. Clouser minnows were the ticket for bluefin and small giant trevally, and if you’ve ever fished a clouser minnow you’d know that they fall apart quickly. I did not have nearly enough of these flies and had to make an island trade with one of our guests to get more. Additionally, a few more smaller minnow imitations would’ve been helpful to mix things up with the bluefin and smaller giant trevally. Aside from these things, I wouldn’t want to change anything!

All in all, our hosted trip to Christmas Island Lodge was a complete success and most would say it’s a trip of a lifetime. There’s very few places in the world with the rich biodiversity that the island has to offer.