Big Y Fly Fishing Blog

The fly fishing world has no shortage of famous destinations. Alaska. Christmas Island. Patagonia. The Bahamas. Mention those names to a room full of anglers and everyone immediately knows what you're talking about.

Akuani River Lodge isn't one of those places.

At least not yet.

Tucked into the remote dry jungles of eastern Colombia, Akuani remains largely unknown to much of the fly fishing world. For anglers willing to venture beyond the usual destinations, that may be exactly what makes it special.

It is a humble reminder that you can find comfort in the most basic of conditions. You can appreciate that they once tried to add hot water heaters to the showers, wired directly into the shower head (glad they did not work). You can appreciate that a large, ill-tempered crab lives under the stairs to your room. You can appreciate that the meals are made with love, and the best food that they can get, which you just have to be there for that one. You can appreciate that everyone here is either going with the flow or struggling to swim against it.

Here is a quick packing list for a week at Christmas Island.  This is also very relevant for Anaa Atoll, the Seychelles or anywhere else that you will be flats fishing on foot for a week.

In February 2025, Big Y Fly Co hosted our first shop trip to Christmas Island. For a lot of anglers, this is the big trip. It’s a sort of rite of passage—one of those places that leaves a mark on you and changes the way you think about saltwater fly fishing. If you’ve put in a week on Christmas Island, nobody will ever question your devotion to this whole fly-fishing thing again.

This write-up is a debrief, an explainer, and a handful of things we learned that might help make your first trip to CXI go as smoothly as ours did. If you want a packing list or gear list, we’ve got a blog post for that.

It’s been on the radar for years. Watching someone battle a marlin on an old 80’s TV show is one of my earliest childhood memories. A friend once described chasing marlin on the fly as fly fishing’s “final boss,” and...

Christmas Island is an intimidating place.  Its often the farthest, most remote place that most fly anglers have ever gone, and may be the only place like it that many anglers will ever go.  Its a gateway to extreme travel, and its a big trip to prepare for, especially if its your first time doing something like it.  We stayed at Sunset Horizon Lodge, which is booked through Fly Water Travel.  Even if you are staying at one of the other four outfits on the island, this should all be relevant and be useful in helping you prepare for this trip.