My good friend, Bear Andrews, is a nationally and internationally well known fly tier, guide and booking agent. Bear was presented with the Federation of Fly Fisher’s “Buzz Buzek Award” for fly tying. To say that he is good at tying flies is something of an understatement – and he’s just as good at catching fish as he is at tying flies.

I have been to Cooper’s Minipi Lodges four times with Bear, and I believe he has been there at least 10 times over the last twenty years.  So Bear has a lot of experience playing with Minipi’s famous monster Brook Trout and Char. I’ve learned a lot from Bear over the years, and I can truthfully say that I owe a lot of my success to him.  

Bear’s flies are small works of art… and they work. I’ve caught a lot of trout, steelhead and salmon on his patterns, including many of my biggest.   Most nights on our trips Bear can be found at the vise cranking out more of his little masterpieces for “Bear’s World Class Mouse Team” the next day.  There were ten of us on the “Mouse team” on our last trip and Bear was kept plenty busy filling our fly boxes with “can’t miss” flies.  

The Coopers have recommended a number of different and successful patterns on this web site to bring to Labrador.  They ALL work!  It pays to have what the Brookies are looking for.  In addition, I have used a number of Bear’s patterns and they work extremely well. I caught one of my best Brook Trout on a “Bear’s Hex Nymph”… works great during the Hex hatch!  I prefer catching them on top but if they don’t cooperate, I will feed them what they are looking for.  So bring along a few nymphs and streamers, along with the Bombers, Mice and Wulff’s.