Today we have some shots from Stephen Barnard of his recent trip to Kiritimati (Christmas Island). His notes (the third photo is from Idaho):
Black Noddies (Anous minutus):
White Tern (Gygis alba) in flight. They never seemed to land. It was difficult to capture a halfway decent in-flight shot with my bridge camera, even with thousands of opportunities:
Northern Harrier (Circus cyaneus, breeding male, taken yesterday):
Stephen went to Kiritimati to fish, and I asked him to send us some pictures of his prizes. Voilà:
Bonefish (Albula vulpes):
Titan Triggerfish (Balistoides viridescens). These have serious teeth and actively try to bite. They can easily take off a finger:
A modest sized Giant Trevally (Caranx ignobilis). They get much bigger. This one took a bonefish fly on my 8wt rod and took me for a ride deep into the backing:
Here’s a video I found of catching Giant Trevally on Kiritimati:
Great pics! (Who dat in the niqab? 🙂 )
That’s my Norwegian guide, Roy, in the Seychelles. I didn’t have a good bonefish photo from Kiritibati so I used this one. The “nigab” is a buff, and is used for sun protection. I can’t stand to wear them.
Thanks. I noticed other guys wearing them in the video too.
Fishing can be hard on the fingers, eh? You got some injuries there, or is that to protect those fingers while holding the rod? Those beasties look like fierce fighters.
The tape protects the fingers when stripping line.
Really nice pictures. I have fished for Mahi Mahi in Hawaii but never saw any fly fishing in the ocean. Only need to catch one and fight it all day.
Just recently they had a cat 5 typhoon in Figi. Not what you want to see on a very small island like that.
El Nino is causing havoc in the area. We had five inches of rain in one day. The flight into Kiritibati barely made it due to weather, and if it hadn’t I would have had to spend the week in Fiji.
The typhoon season is generally over in the pacific by end of Xmas but I’m not sure about it as far south as you were. In the late 90s Guam was hit by a massive typhoon in Dec. with winds at 200 mph. Fortunately most of the housing is concrete. Don’t know what kind of housing you had?
Cinder block.
That’s pretty good, but only if the block was filled with cement…probably not.
And poor Fiji got hit hard with a typhoon recently.
I’d love to have to spend a week in Fiji (just not in typhoon season).
Several villages were wiped off the map, and five deaths have been reported.
Personally, I won’t go to Fiji. The government was taken over by the military because they didn’t like the result of an election a few years ago (too many people of Indian descent elected). General Frank Bainimarama has been in charge since.
The government has just taken delivery of multiple container loads of weapons from Russia, and are getting lessons in their use from the Russian military.
All local media outlets that oppose the government have been shut down. Opposition politicians end up in jail, or are deported. There’s a lot of corruption.
Bainimarama keeps promising there will be proper elections to get the country back to the democracy it used to be, but they keep getting delayed.
Yeah I think they are still on he “you probably shouldn’t go there” list Canada puts out.
They do a reasonable job of keeping the tourists ignorant of what’s going on because they desperately need the dollars. They’re on our “you probably shouldn’t go there” list too, and a lot of people are not going in principle because of the government.
Though as a tourist you’re probably fairly safe. This is the Pacific, not the Middle East.
I wouldn’t wander down the main street singing ‘Bananarama is a wally’, not even while drunk, but short of that I’d be very surprised indeed to encounter any trouble. As a tourist.
So you could not-go-in-principle because of the government, or you could go anyway because the people who work in the tourist trade – that is, everyday Fijians – desperately need the jobs and the low wages and depriving them of your dollar is going to hurt them more than the General.
But I wouldn’t not-go because of any fears for my personal safety.
cr
My problem with being stranded in Fiji had nothing to do with the politics. They don’t have any flats fishing.
A friend of mine spent quite a bit of time there birding some years ago and picked up a nasty parasite that looks like it will be with him for the duration…
There’s one more reason, although I get exposed to lots of nasty things in the crazy places I go just to catch fish.
As always, Stephen, GREAT photos! My fishing fever is whetted considerably now…
White Terns are really beautiful: almost pure white, with deep blue beak and legs. Years ago I took some close-ups of them nesting on Cousin Island in the Seychelles (they do occasionally stop flying!). The locals who I met called them Fairy Terns, which are actually a different species. Unfortunately, in those days I was using a film camera, and I have no idea where my photos are now.
There are Fairy Terns in the Seychelles. I photographed one. They look a lot like White Terns, but more fairy like.
Great photos of some beautiful fish. Did you put them back or eat them?
All were released. Sport fishing is very important to the economy of Kiritibati, and in the recent past netting of bonefish has caused harm to the fishery. Deliberately killing a bonefish is punishable by a $1000 fine and being permanently banned from the island.
During my working years I did several trips to Guam and the Philippines and the summer time was always slightly worse. Nothing prepares you for the heat and humidity upon first arrival. It can suck the life right out of you when you get off the plane.
I like that “buff” because it sucks to wear sunblock sometimes but I bet it makes you really sweaty.
A coworking of mine really enjoys these fishing pictures of Stephen’s. He was jealous of the lovely trout picture as he enjoys fishing himself. I’ll have to share this post with him.
I’ve heard that for names in these islands, the “ti” is a substitute for the “s” sound, so “Kiritimati” is really pronounced “Kirismas”, which makes sense.
IIRC, it was borne out of a printer’s lack of “s” characters for a printing press.
Someone update me if I’m wrong.
Pretty sure that printing-press story is an old wives’ tale.
Many Polynesian languages seem to lack an ‘s’, an English ‘s’ usually gets rendered as ‘t’. (And ‘l’ becomes ‘r’).
So in Rarotongan ‘Chris’ is ‘Kiriti’. A leading ‘S’ as in Simon will be pronounced as ‘S’ in Rarotongan but IIRC it never occurred naturally.
Also, consonants are always separated by a vowel and words never end in a consonant.
Hence ‘Chris’ is not ‘Krit’ but ‘Kiriti’.
I’d have to hear a Christmas Islander speak it (because dialects vary widely) to know if the ‘ti’ in Kiritimati is pronounced as a ‘s’ or a ‘ti’. Note we often pronounce ‘ti’ as ‘sh’ – Creation.
cr
I wonder how it would go down if others who enjoy killing things displayed their wares too.
Say a wild boar, kangaroo, lion (Cecil maybe), a lamb (tasty), maybe some bunny rabbits?
And so on.
None of those fish were killed.
Yes, lots of people go fishing and many even eat the fish. It is something humans have been doing for a long time. Catching fresh or salt water fish and eating them for a shore lunch is a pretty good experience. I don’t recall anyone bringing up killing lions during any of this but if you do not see a difference, I guess we won’t be in the same boat.
I only submitted the photos because Jerry asked me to. I normally reserve my “hero shots” for other fishermen so as not to offend the sensibilities of delicate snowflakes.
I don’t enjoy killing things, and I don’t intentionally, but I do practice catch-and-release fishing. (I’ve occasionally kept stocked fish to eat.) There is some mortality involved in this practice, but far less than you might think when it’s done properly (barbless hooks, minimal handling).
I manage my ranch for wildlife at some considerable expense. The duck hunting would be world class, but I don’t hunt ducks. My creek in full of trout, but any caught must be released. I could shoot as many elk (which harm the crops) as I want, but I don’t, although I’ll occasionally let others do so for the meat.
Except for house spiders and house mice. I like killing house spiders house mice, but still feel a little guilty about it. If I had house rattlesnakes and scorpions I’d kill them, too.
Certainly can respect all of that. We do not allow any hunting of any animals on our place either. What we have is for the wild life and our eyes.
I do not consider fishing in the same light and have often fished and ate the fish that was caught. For someone to comment in – how would you like it if others who enjoyed killing thing and listed lions, or kangaroos — I consider that as out of place and rude. It is close to ridiculous as well.
A snowflake so sensitive should probably not be reading on this site but that is only a suggestion to him, I do not make the rules.
Most admirable, Stephen. Your efforts are certainly appreciated here.
Great images Steve! You must have really missed Stanley’s winter weather.
Thanks, Tara. I haven’t even been to Stanley this winter. There’s been enough winter for me in Picabo. Every winter I swear that the next one I’m going south, but I never get around to it.
Wonderful shots Stephen! Thanks for sharing. So did you end up catching any bonefish? You probably would have sent Jerry a photo if you had. A nice sized bonefish on an 8wt rod would be a thrill!
I caught a lot of bonefish, but they averaged very small, which was disappointing. I only got into the backing on three fish, and I lost the best one in the coral. The thrill of bonefish, for me, is twofold: It’s sight-fishing and they’re damned hard to see; they are the strongest fish pound-for-pound. They make trout seem like nothing in comparison.
The only bonefish killed on this trip was one I released. It was taken by a black-tipped shark. I have a photo of its head that I recovered. It’s a little gruesome so I didn’t send it to Jerry.
Aha, thanks for the added info. Death by black-tip…at least it was a natural death.
“Titan Triggerfish (Balistoides viridescens). These have serious teeth and actively try to bite. They can easily take off a finger:”
I can see from the photo it’s already had a go 😉
And as for the bonefish – wow! I had no idea you needed so much protective gear to catch a fish!
cr
P.S. You get a lot of smaller triggerfish 3 – 6″ long in the lagoon in Rarotonga. Picasso triggerfish, I think.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Picasso.triggerfish.arp.jpg
Generally, they ignore swimmers, but one time when I was there – it must have been breeding season – they seemed to have individual territories staked out on the sand, and every damn triggerfish would have a go at you. You’d feel a nip and there would be a tiny wound, just bleeding. It didn’t hurt much but it was damned annoying not knowing when the next one was going to attack.
cr
Picasso Triggerfish are the most beautiful (of a varied group of spectacular fish), but they don’t get very big. It’s worth a google search to see what they look like.
I actually linked to a wikipedia pic in the middle of my comment above, WP doesn’t seem to have imbedded it.
There are a lot of Picasso triggerfish in the lagoon in Rarotonga. It’s a very shallow lagoon, inside a fringing reef, but there are a few slightly deeper spots 3 – 6 feet deep. Well worth a snorkel and mask because you see so much more with your eyes just below the surface. Lot of triggerfish, angel fish, butterfly fish (several patterns), clown fish. Every time I go there I see one ‘new’ (to me) species. Last time it was a big porcupine fish, maybe a foot long. (Well, it seemed big to me!)
http://www.abyssdivecenter.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/porcupinefish-ad.jpg
If you take a slice of bread into the water you will get mugged by a shoal of assorted reef fish. This is at certain spots where there’s a rahui on fishing because they want the fish there to show off to the tourists. It seems to work.
cr
That’s a puffer.
The first time I went bonefishing I couldn’t see fish at all. It was embarrassing. After a couple of days I started seeing fish. I’d point my rod and say “fish!” Invariably, the guide would say “puffer”, and on we’d move.
It may well be called a puffer. I googled ‘porcupine fish’ and that’s what the pic I linked to is called. Fish nomenclature seems to be fairly flexible.
They are (or were) fairly rare in the Rarotonga lagoon, though in the 2 weeks when I saw the first one, I saw another three. From the sound of it there are a lot more in Kiritimati.
You must be right. I googled, too, and evidently porcupine fish are “morphologically similar” to puffers.
Great fishing shots, Stephan. I too love to fish and, these days, everything I catch is released.
In the spring, summer, and fall I fish. The rest of the year, it’s opera. Not a bad way to spend one’s retirement.
Thanks for the tern shot, Stephen! Beautiful bird. And that Gray Ghost is outstanding!
I enjoyed the fishing shots, esp. the size of that trigger fish!
Way to rock the Lawrence of Arabia look — and the bonefish! — Stephen.
All the indicia of the compleat angler, from where I sit.