Category Archives: Brook trout

Minipi Virgins No More

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For as long as I can remember my husband Dave has always wanted to go to Minipi. With wide eyes and excitement, he described how he’s always wanted to catch a trophy brook trout! In fact, the brookie was our first trout species we caught on a fly rod!

We were lucky to book the last week of the season this year. It was time for brookie nookie (spawning) so fishing was a bit tougher. Challenge accepted!

With my first cast on Little Minipi, I caught and landed the biggest brookie of my life! I was in awe over all 7 1/2 pounds of its masculine spawning colors! Feelings of excitement, amazement, disbelief and pure exhilaration consumed me! He was a beautiful specimen, I was honored to catch & release him.

The rest of the week was whipped cream with cherries on top (catching even more brookies). You couldn’t slap the big smile off my face! Anne Marie Lodge is beautiful, comfortable and inviting. Even better were all the amazing guides and lodge staff that made our experience memorable. The guides are amazing! They’re all fishing veterans and are full of knowledge and great tips to land that fish! They’re patient, offer guidance when needed, and all have a great sense of humor – I laughed all week!

Well, after a week at Minipi, we caught brookie fever/Minipi mania! We’re already planning our return for dry fly action and are soooo excited to return!

For now, we leave the trout to procreate to keep our fishing dreams alive.

“Minipi: where the brook trout are measured in pounds, not inches”

Here’s a few photos from our trip! Click to view full size.

Minipi’s “Oldest” Brook Trout

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Every now and then something remarkable happens on the water, and this time we’ve got documented proof. Meet Minipi’s “Oldest” recorded brook trout, MPP 328. We’ll call him ‘Fighter’ for kicks.

Fighter was tagged MPP 328 behind his dorsal fin in 1999 at approximately three years old. He was caught that year at Second Narrows weighing three pounds by Michael Antico.

Years later in 2012 Fighter was wrestled in again by Duncan Lewis at the Gorge, weighing three pounds again.

And most recently, this wise fish found his way to First Narrows and latched on to Carl Burt’s grey Wulff on July 1, 2014. This makes “Fighter” a recorded 15 years old! We can’t say for sure he was three years old when first tagged, but if he was, he has lived a remarkable 18 years. And now is more than double in size at 6.5 pounds.

“Brook trout can live to be quite old, not just the Minipi ones but even some of those populations of small fish on the Island. I think Jeff Hutchings found ages up to 7 or 8 in tiny fish from down near Cape Race. But, in general, brook trout in most places don’t seem to get more than about 5…” says Dr. Richard Haedrich, retired Biological Oceanographer and Ichthyologist with research experience in the systematics and biology of fish.

“A fish 15 years old (or more) is pretty remarkable. There’s no arguing with the tag data. It is interesting that even after such a long period the fish had only doubled its weight. I would have thought it might be even larger since fish do not quit growing at some particular size the way many animals do. It’s called “indeterminate growth” and that’s what fish do. A big one is usually very old!”



So meet Fighter, the little brookie that could! We’ll keep you updated if he makes another appearance.

One Hundred Minipi Brookies!

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When you are from Michigan you are quite used to catching 6 to 12 inch Brook Trout. Occasionally, but not often, you will catch a 15 to 16 inch “monster.”

I’m still waiting for my monster Michigan Brookie. My personal best was about 13 inches. Mind you, I’m not complaining.  Each and every one of them is a jewel! In my opinion, the prettiest trout in the world. I especially like looking at parr marked Brookies. I enjoy catching Brook Trout in the AuSable or Manistee Rivers or any of a number of smaller rivers or streams.

My first trip to Labrador was a revelation. No one even counts the “little” Brookies that we would consider trophies in Michigan. At Minipi Lodges only 3-pound trout are “book” fish. It’s easy to lose ones perspective.

The Brook Trout in my painting above is a Michigan trophy… but not in Labrador. Unless you consider that ANY such beautiful fish is a trophy, and I do. But Minipi is a world treasure, managed carefully and protected by the Coopers. You simply can’t take this precious resource for granted and the Coopers don’t.

On one of my trips to Minipi the water temperatures went up to dangerous levels and it put every trophy trout hooked in jeopardy. So guide Kelly Groves took Bear Andrews and me on a hike. We went over the mountain behind the lodge and down the other side to a place where a cold, spring fed stream entered the river. There the trout had a safe place to wait for temperatures to go back down.

There weren’t any “monster” trout in that spot but Bear and I fished for hours there and I know we caught at least 100 Brookies. All of them 7-to-15 inches long. Trophies one and all in my book. It was the highlight of my trip.