Well, after several weeks of planning and buying gear, me and TimVB headed off to Christmas Island for a weeks popping, stickbaiting and jigging.

Big thanks to DazSam for getting us onto CI, and Mark from Shorefire Charters, who was a great skipper and host for the week.

A summary of the week:

- The weather was pretty average with wind typically 15-20 knots easterly. This stopped us getting around the back half of the island where the best jigging is, and limited a few days to the bay, but Mark did all he could given the weather.

- We dropped a lot of fish, and as usual, the best 4 or so fish all evaded us…..the two best GT’s were dropped after getting to the leader……………….a mixture of angler error, gear failure, bad luck and pesky sharks……..the sharks were red hot around the headlands and you had to be on your game to land a fish on these areas.

- Tim experienced his first taste of popping with heavy gear…..PE8 on a Hot Gipang XXXH…..his first GT was a revelation…….the look on his face on the strike was priceless.

- Jigging was average at best. Blind jigging for demersals requires a lot of patience and stamina….we ran out of both by day 3. We did hook up a bit and got a few blackjack and almost a tuna, but got sharked a lot and not wanting to kill fish, we pretty much gave up. Changed to lighter jigging in the last few days due to shear exhaustion and did a bit better with a few demersals.

- 5 weeks in the gym before CI was not enough……we never gave up, but the casts got shorter each day and a few big sharks sure took it out of us!

Attached some of the better fish….enjoy.

Tims first ever GT, about 200m from the boat ramp…….punished the young lad.

A few trevally and a nice red bass were had, the bass bricked me and after free spooling for a while, managed to swim him out and get a nice photo before releasing him to harass the resident bait fish again.

Next day, the Craftbait Realbait stickbaits were brought out……we only had one each….at $125 retail, they are exxy! On Tims third cast, a very good GT nailed it, and to cries from Tim of "CRAFT BAIT REAL BAIT!!!" Tim held on….only to get well and truly bricked in 20 m of water……seems his hollers of joy turned to cries of pain…….as about 10 seconds later my Craftbait got smashed…….and immediately snipped off by a stinking big Barracuda. Bugger me, $250 of Realbaits in 20 seconds………then we saw the stickbait bobbing around on the surface, so we turned around to pick it up, only to see the dirty great cuda smash it several times…..I am sure Tim was secretly hoping the cuda would take it…..but it did not hook up to the striken lure and we got it back….I used ther craftbait for the rest of the day to rub it into Timand got a few fish,  the craftbait turned out to be the second best lure behind my Bigfoot Orion, which did the most damage on the trip. 

We came across a big bustup, and Mark suggested we throw in something disposable as he said there would be big bities below….he was right. I hooked up on a river2sea Doggie stickbait and got a mid size YFT close to the boat before pulling the hooks….pinged it back into the fray and saw 3 or 4 tuna chasing it before I got hit again…this time a shark nailed the tuna immediately and I spend the next 15-20 minutes in shear pain fighting a stinking big shark on popping gear (HOTS Gipang XH and Stella 10000 …..NOT FUN, and I almost gave up half way through but Mark gave me some words of encouragement (I think the words poofter and harden the farc up were used a few times….)….my knackers will never be the same, as I had left the pin in the gimble belt and had had to use the outside holes in the Seven Seas belt…….finally leadered the beast and cut it off….I was spent! Tim decided he would give the bust up a miss……a shark on the XXXXH would have been diabolical….

Next day, another bustup (we only had two for the trip) and I toss in another Doggie stickbait, and BANG……. a MUCH bigger YFT hit it and headed toward the abyss at a great rate. This was by FAR the biggest fish I have ever hooked, and it proceeded to almost spool my SOM 16000 loaded with Varivas PE8 with max drag……near the end of the spool, the drag was so hard I thought I would not be able to hold the rod……amazing power. Got a few cranks back and looked like I had a small chance before the leader broke……………

Tim, to his credit, tossed his lure in, got nailed and landed a nice jealybean tuna on stickbait….even the little ones go hard.

The best 15 minutes of fishing was when we stopped in a quiet bay to clean Tims tuna…..whilst waiting, I decided to have a quick practice with Tims broomstick Hots popping rod, not even bothering with a gimble belt…….a small 100 g El Nanador was sent out, and I cranked it in. I had one more cast, and thought, hey, this rod aint too bad, and then SMASH, I got hit by this nice YFT in about 10m of water in a tranquill little bay which looked like it would not even hold a herring let alone tuna…..I battled with Tim’s Stella 10000 drag and the lack of a gimble belt after the first good run…..groin very sore!…….something was very wrong with the SOM 16000 spool drag (Tim has complained earlier), and landed the fish after a few good runs. We later pulled the SOM spool drag apart and it had been put together wrong from the factory, which was probably a contributing reason why Tim got bricked earlier on the GT…… put it back together that night and all fixed. Tim then cast out and a huge GT smashed the lure but did not hook up and I then pinged out a El Nananor and got a mid size GT. Great fun and most unexpected.

Next day we were both very tired, so we cracked out the PE5 popping gear and I used a lighter Daiwa Demon Blood PE5 rod and Stella 10000…..BIG MISTAKE……I got well and truly bricked and a nice GT…….CI is NOT the place for PE5!!!! Back to PE8, only to go too hard and straighten the Owner ST66 hooks on my best fish for the trip, a nice GT. Tim then got his best GT after dark. Top work dude!

Next few days were hard work, with high winds and several dropped fish, no doubt in part to the fact we were totally knackered…..managed a few fish including this cuda…..made a mess of the craftbait, which is now hanging in the shed, well and truly retired. Cuda went quite hard, and a few wahoo were caught on the way home, which was great as neither Tim no me had ever landed one.

A great trip….thanks Timbo for the laughs and making THE BEST wahoo curry!!!

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