[Bluewater Australia]

I don't have the pic to go with this yet, but last week one of our staff, Joff Weston, took a 56kg dogtooth on a popper at Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean. He also caught GTs to 35kg and wahoo to 26kg.

The dogtooth took a Dumbell 200 popper with Owner hardware, fished off a custom built Calstar GF700H / Saltiga Expedition outfit.

I'll post a pic in a few days hopefully. The tuna was kept, weighed, measured and consumed.

[caranx]

Hal, while fishing a feeding frenzy with Yellowfin Tunas and Wahoo in the Coral Sea I had a powerful strike on a Carpenter Pencil Popper that Konishi-san gave me. The fish started ripping off line diving live a submarine and after a 15 seconds run he cut me off on the double wrap of the twisted leader (130lb X 4....). I'm pretty sure it was a big Doggie, in fact no 'hoo would fight in such manner and no Tuna could cut that think off. Neither was a shark, too fast, too quick, too damn tunalike kind of thing. Last year I posted the catch of a 70+ kilos Doggie caught at the Maldives on a Ranger, this too was in a feeding frenzy with the YFT. They coem up every once in a while, I can't wait to be back to the Maldives at the end of the month

Take care amigo,

ciao

Nicola

[Bluewater Australia]

Nicola,

The coolest thing about Christmas island is that it drops away so quickly it's rare to fish more than 500m from shore. This time the guys were only about 100m out. If you cast right, towards the shore you catch GTs, cast left towards the ocean and you catch tuna. They got a standing ovation and a cheer from the audience on the cliff when they got the fish to the boat. This was the same place Ché got his 60-odd kilo yellowfin on a popper a while back (pic on our website). No busting fish each time, it's just a fishy place.

Hal

Este tema ha sido editado por Bluewater Australia: 20 November 2005 - 11:16 AM

[JON]

Nicola,

The coolest thing about Christmas island is that it drops away so quickly it's rare to fish more than 500m from shore. This time the guys were only about 100m out. If you cast right, towards the shore you catch GTs, cast left towards the ocean and you catch tuna. They got a standing ovation and a cheer from the audience on the clff when they got the fish to the boat. This was the same place Ché got his 60-odd kilo yellowfin on a popper a while back (pic on our website). No busting fish each time, it's just a fishy place.

Hal

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hal / Nicola ,

It's a pity we don't have anymore regular flight from Jakarta to Christmas Is. like we used to do when the casino was still operating there , now it's a chartered plane or have to go all the way to Perth first , a big a roundabout trip for us who live just some 250 odd miles north of Christmas Is. .

Infact , with a seaworthy boat we can reach Christmas Is. from Pelabuhan Ratu with a full tank of fuel , during favourable months of April and November , that is .

Last May , a group of Surabaya anglers caught a 35 kg doggy on popper while targetting GT in Komodo .

Jon .

[Bluewater Australia]

Here's those pics I meant to put up a while back - none taken by me, probably all by Paul Micheli.

[caranx]

Nice doggie mate,

I wish I have one like this either on a jig or a popper....

ciao

Nicola

[Bertram]

G'Day Hal,

Could you please let me know what's available to fish Xmas island ? How to get there, charters available ect...? Do I have to fly 1st to Oz ?

Cheers,

B

[Bluewater Australia]

Hi Bertrand,

It's either ex Perth two or three times a week, for about A$1800 return, or ex Bali once a week (Friday) for about half that for a 45-minute flight. The latter is called AustAsia I think. Charters are non-existent but if you did want to line a trip up, we could sort something. I think our mob will be back there next October - unless we organise a later-in-the year Rowley Shoals trip, which would take preference for everybody, I'm sure.

Here's a couple of doggie pics from the last Rowleys trip I did (August)... successful release on this one, but swimming it was a bit nerve-wracking...

Este tema ha sido editado por Bluewater Australia: 22 November 2005 - 02:19 PM

[Bertram]

Hal,

So you like swimming with the wolves....respect for that. Would you say Xmas is better than Rowley shoals for mixed Gts and doggie fishing or reverse ? I am back in Ozzie next October for another Coral Sea trip and looking at doing some more fishing since I will be in the country. I thought Xmas was sort of "on the way" back to Europe via Bali. Any biggie GT been caught/lost/seen at Xmas by your team ?

Cheers,

B

[Bluewater Australia]

Bertram,

I've been pondering the question and don't have a firm answer. I think doggies are easier to find at the Rowleys, but really we have never spent much time exploring for them at Xmas. Part of the problem at Christmas Island is that you don't need a big boat, because as you will no doubt have noticed in the pics you don't need to go far from shore; so nobody has a thumper sounder, and even if they did they'd never use it because all the wahoo are in less than 100m, which generally speaking is within 200m of shore (sometimes within 20m); so nobody spends any time working deep drop-offs, because they don't really know where they are! If there was a pinnacle a kilometre out, chances are it's never been fished - but that doesn't do us any good, because we can't find it!!

Getting to either from Brisbane is difficult. Brisbane - Bali - Xmas - Bali - Europe could be done, and would be the easiest. Rowleys is ex Broome, and would probably be Brisbane - Alice Springs - Broome - Darwin - Singapore - Europe. With either, you would need to allocate a week for the fishing; you can't get off Christmas (unless you went back through Perth, very long way 'round) in less than a week; and Rowleys trips are usually five days, six nights, because it's 200km offshore and you have to do it by boat.

It's also a bit of more of the same as a Nomad Coral Sea trip in a lot of ways, so for time and $ efficiency you'd have to think that just staying out in the Coral Sea for another week would be a much easier way to encounter similar fishing. I mean the fish are bigger, faster and more plentiful in Western Australia, the men are better company and the women are much friendlier and far more beautiful than the few in Queensland, but apart from that it's not vastly different.

All that said, we're muttering around here about organising a late November Rowleys 2006 for GTs - nobody goes there then, too late in the year for comfort, but apparently the GTs form spawning (we assume) aggregations outside the reefs... schools for hundreds of metres... might be worth a look.

[Bluewater Australia]

Any biggie GT been caught/lost/seen at Xmas by your team ?

And in answer to that, probably not (knowing what you really mean by big). I think Rowleys has more potential there, although it could be a time of year thing at Christmas Island too. At the Rowleys there is far more territory and much more variety.

So many spots, so little time. Imperieuse Reef, the southernmost of the three Rowley Shoals:

So you like swimming with the wolves....

No, not at all, but I can't let released fish die either! If my wife ever looked at this, that pic would not be up!

Este tema ha sido editado por Bluewater Australia: 24 November 2005 - 03:00 PM

[Bertram]

G'day Hal,

Thanks for the info on Xmas and Rowley.

I have to say that Queenslander natives I have met in the form of Damon Green Giant Olsen or Neil Knot Case Griffith are quite passable characters. They do have good beer though and their women in general are all well behaved towards frenchmen (must be my bloody accent for sure). Been able to walk around Br'bane nighttime without being harrassed.
Have to say that Damon's future lovely wife has french roots, which explains why she doesn't drink barrells of beers, understands cricket or gets horny watching footy (what a weird game) but is more of a delicate person.

I am considering spending two weeks anyway for my next Coral Sea trip, since the travel is taking many days I might as well spend two weeks fishing over there. I have left a stickbait in the mouth of a GT of insane proportions and I intend to get it back.

I just love Oz for the laidback way of life and just have fun steering the ol' antagonism between WA and Qld...I want to go WA to check if all the horrendous things they say about you guys is real and check if the fish are any better (or any worse) than in the Coral Sea.

Read about Rowley shoals in a past BW magazine issue and was very interested by the article even though they only scratched the surface of the reef. Please drop me a PM about this ? I have all the digital marine cartography of the area and it is amazing.

Ciaooooooo

B

[MarkR]

Hello guys,

How I wish christmas island was still part of Singapore! My uncle once entered a contest for "the king of christmas island" but that was ages ago...anyhow, I here from the tourism office that a professional sportfishing charter will commence operations in christmas island come 2006.

Just wondering if there are pockets of local fisherman in christmas island, could use these local boats since the drop offs are close to shore, all we need is a portable sounder.

tight lines all,

mark

[Bluewater Australia]

Mark,

There are plenty of local fishermen, but a portable sounder would be a bit of humour. We threw a popper onto the rocks one time, and nosed the 6m boat up to the wall to get it back. The transom mount transducer was reading 80m depth, with the bow up against the rock.

A portable sounder with a 3kW transducer could be done, I guess!

I have heard AustAsia is working on getting a Singapore-Xmas flight going. If, and only if, that happens, a charter operation may be viable again. Mark Rochfort, who now works for us in Perth, was the last charter operator there (left two years ago), and he could only keep the boat going by virtue of the commercial fishing licence he had as well.

[Bertram]

Hal,

I can make one of our Lowrance LMS-337 DF into a portable version. It's a combo sounder and GPS-plotter with color screen, high resolution 480 X 480 pixels. The sounder is dual frequency 200/50 kHz, 600 Watts RMS and shoots down to 300-350 meters in good conditions. The transducer isn't too too big. I have often taken it to locations where boats haven't got any electronics. You can even read the digital marine map of the area, Navionics covers Xmas but the details aren't too great. It should do the job. Damon Olsen has 4 of these on his skiffs on Nomad. Details of Coral Sea are amazing.
With a rechargable 12V battery you can get two days work before charging. The GPS doesn't draw very much it's the backlight.
Same unit available in black & white screen with 16 levels of gray instead of colors. It's the LMS-480DF.

Ho yeah, I forgot, we are coming up with the same units with built-in integrated GPS antenna, so you don't have to worry about installing it. It's the LMS-339 DF iGPS.

I usually never blow the trumpet on the stuff I do for work but you guys might find this usefull for trips abroad.

Ciaooo,

B