Well another great trip to Christmas Island is behind us and what a trip, what a great group of anglers that provided lots of laughs and some great fishing stories. I don’t think I have ever laughed so much on a trip as I did with this one. On the LET’S TALK HOOK UP/CASS TOURS trip were the following anglers: Steve Grove, David Gayl, Mark Gillette, Gil Ayuyao, Jim and Toni Niemiec, Dave Cooper, Dan Stardash, Gil Dunn, Mark Quin who by the way came all the way from Taiwan, Mike Wiechman and Michael Chavira.
First of all let’s talk about the fishing, this was probably the best bone fishing I personally have ever experienced not only 
in quantity but in quality, Dave Cooper from Denver an avid fly fisherman said that he had his personal best ever on bone fish by catching and releasing 40 bones in one day. Even yours truly had a 18 bonefish day which was my personal best plus I had a couple of 5 and 6 pounders to boot. Even the first timers trying their hand at fly fishing had exceptional catches with 14 to 16 bone fish days, to note Steve Grove, David Gayle and Mark Gillette having exceptional days. The GT fishing was tough but if you worked hard throwing the poppers or jigging you were rewarded with some nice fish to 40 pounds. Though there were a lot of yellow fin tuna around it was tough to get them to take the poppers, trolling lures or jigging seemed to be the best method for catching these 20 to 30 pound fish. The wahoo bite was good especially while trolling CD 18 Rapalas or the Halco GT Tremblers, we had hoo’s up to 40
pounds. I might add that most of the offshore fishing is with in a quarter mile off the beach
This trip also had us catching quite a few big brown sharks on the troll and on jigs, not sure what type of shark (Bronze Whalers?) they were but they were big 150 to 400 pounds, it is rare that we catch them at all. The following sequence is how the title of this story got its name, we had caught a fairly big brown shark at which we took turns fighting it and getting it to the boat. One of our guides got a piece of rope with a loop at one end and as the shark got close to the boat he put the rope around the line, passed one end through the loop making a noose than slipped it down around the sharks tail to middle of the sharks body and then tightened the rope lassoing it. Of course all hell broke loose with fishermen scrambling as far and as high away from the trashing. Someone asked our guides what they were going to do with it and the response was “eat it”. After repeated hits to the head with a 2 X 4 the shark was dispatched and that folks was our “Christmas Island Rodeo”.
The staff at The Villages was great as usual making us feel at home and the food was good, the fishing guides were excellent and were great instructors in showing those that have never fly fished before how to cast and catch fish in just a couple of hours of instruction.
Once again a “grande gracias” to the guys on this trip, you were great to travel with hopefully we can do it again soon.
For those of you wanting to experience this fabulous trip and travel to a true paradise our next group trip to the island is scheduled for June 20 to 27, 2017, we only have room for 16 anglers so don’t delay and reserve your spot today, for a reservation or more information on the trip you can call me at 951-415 2505 or via e-mail at fishwithcass@gmail.com ……Cass
