Category Archives: Flies and tackle

Ride ’em Brookie!

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Labrador is famous for it’s oversized Brook Trout, but I must admit I exercised an artist’s prerogative to exaggerate a little here. My nephew said he wants to go where I go to fish after seeing this. This artwork was done for a t-shirt for one of Bear Andrews expeditions to Coopers’ Minipi Lodges a few years ago. I don’t recommend the technique below however. But I really want to talk about some possibly helpful tips.

First of all, I’m a pretty good artist but not an expert at fly fishing. But when you go to Minipi you don’t have to be a pro. You are going to catch Brook Trout. Sure you have to be able to cast at least reasonably well, and my friends will tell you I am “fair to middlin” at it. You also have to have the right equipment. A good fly reel with a lot of backing and good drag system is very helpful – no problem there. An extra reel and extra spool or two, one with a sink tip line will be handy. A couple of good rods of 6, 7 or 8 weight capable of throwing big bushy flies in the wind is really crucial. You definitely need a dependable spare rod. A 7 1/4 pound Brookie jumped out of my hands and landed on my partners’ new Scott rod and snapped it in half on the last day of our trip. Luckily the CEO of Scott rods is a friend of ours so replacement on our return was no problem. But my buddy had a hard time convincing him it was broken by a Brook Trout.

There is a section on this web site with a list of necessary flies for Minipi. You also should have a little selection of smaller patterns that will work on a monster that is sipping little stuff on the surface. He oftentimes won’t take the usual large flies that are recommended when you find one doing that. It happened to us a few years ago. I was the only one in my group that had some really small caddis and other flies when we found a lunker. My buddy Bear Andrews ended up sticking him eventually, but didn’t land him. But at least he got him to eat his fly. Make sure you have wire leaders or wire leader material for your streamers.

There are quite a few Pike in Labrador and you never know when one will hit. A good digital camera is a must for me. If you have one of the small waterproof ones as well, you will find it comes in handy. I’ve fried two expensive camera bodies over the years by getting them wet. Taking thousands of outdoor photos every year is a little like combat photography – things happen. No matter how careful you are, it will happen eventually in bad weather or if you wade a lot. Labradors’ Brookies are pretty cooperative, so have fun.

Pike for Variety

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The rare opportunity to catch brook trout of huge proportions lures us all to Minipi. Landlocked Arctic char also belong on every fly fishers life list. However, pike offer a great secondary target and change of pace. They can run up to 20 pounds, and even the smaller fish provide exciting fishing with their vicious, slashing strikes. I always carry a small bag with a few simple rabbit strip leech flies, black or purple, some on weedless hooks, some on plain worm hooks.

Extremely simple to tie (they only require one material), they are equally simple to rig. Use braided tieable or knotable wire. Store-bought wire leaders will work, too. The pike are especially active in early season, in the few weeks after ice-out in many coves of Minipi and Anne Marie. During the summer, weedbeds and lily pads provide cover, where the ‘water wolves’ lie in ambush for their prey. Even a small patch of lily pads will normally hold a few pike. An eight-weight rod and floating line, with a seven or eight-foot leader of 15 or 20 pounds, topped with about eight or ten inches of the wire completes the pike outfit. Cast beyond the weeds or pads and strip your fly medium fast, close to the cover. And be ready for the explosion.

Pike For Variety 02

What’s a “Bomber”?, asked Timothy O’Shay the other day.

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“Well, Timmy,” the guide replied, “It’s a big, bumbly dry fly, like this one here. And up here most times it’s the color of a Cream Sickle Dreamsickleand damn near as big as your pinkie finger with whiskers fore and aft as white as those on Santa’s chin.”

What’s it for?

“Well, it’s for skimming. You see, it’s really a salmon “skimmer;” what they calls a “waking” fly. First, it wakes up fish that ‘er nappin’; and, second, it makes a “wake” when you retrieves it straight. We use it for catchin’ brookies on smooth water, in the riffles or rapids. Smear it with dry-fly grease and ya can’t retrieve it too fast neither. Or bounce, skip and dance it too much on the surface. You can plop it close a log or rocky shore and waggle it. You know, make it “shiver.” Let it rest and shiver it again. Look out ! It’s called a bomber, ya see,  ‘cause ‘a the way fish explode on it. Bam !

How’s it made?

“Deer hair spun on a streamer hook size 2 to 4 clipped into a cigar shape and palmered with white, stiff hackle. Some mistake it for a bass bug or a caterpilly. Fact is, it’s one of the most popular salmon flies in Canada. The wings, split or not, and the tail are made from tufts of white deer hair, sometimes woodchuck. Gotta trim the bottom near flat close up to the shank to give the hook a better bite.  Old-timers like the body to end just short  ‘a the hook point. Again, for better bite.”

Bomber-Trout

“Some ‘a the boys take out their Swiss Army knife and scissor off the  wings and hackle and use it as a pike streamer. Got an extra one? Hand it here; I’ll show ya.”

What’s in imitate?

“Nothin’. Nothin’ ‘atall, Mr. Shay.”