Minipi Camps Web Log

Here’s a comprehensive review of the accommodations, the fishing and the guides at Minipi Camps. With pictures! And it’s written by one of America’s notable anglers, Ed Jaworowski of Temple Fork Outfitters. Ed is a well-respected fly-fishing writer, rod designer, and expert caster, author of “Troubleshooting the Cast,” a must-read book describing 32 common casting problems and their solutions.

His review of our Lodges can be found on the American Angling Gear Guide website.
Read it for yourself at:
http://www.americananglinggearguide.com/coopersminipicamps.html

This ad from the people at Newfoundland/Labrador tourism appeared in the March 2007 issue of Fly Fisherman magazine. And to quote them, “that’s why many anglers call it [fishing in Newfoundland/Labrador] the best brook trout fishing on the planet.” And, of course, you guessed right—that’s a Minipi brookie.

Recently there have been changes in the Canadian sales tax programs but the VRP was overlooked, and it may now be eliminated. The VRP allows visitors to Canada to get a rebate for half, that is 7%, of the 14% tax on their costs of travel to Canada. If the VRP were to be eliminated, this would essentially reflect a price increase of $258.65 USD on top of the cost of a week’s trip to our lodges. Therefore, I would like to invite readers to visit the URL http://www.petitiononline.com/vrp1/ and to sign a petition addressed to the Hon. James Flaherty, Minister of Finance, to help save the Visitor Rebate Program, or at least replace it with a new model. You are required only to give your name, location, and email address —you have the right to keep your email address private. Please help us save our VRP.

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I just put a “mouse/lemming” fly in the Photo Gallery and thought it might be interesting to include this note on the lemming.

Mouse flies work because there are plenty of little lemmings in the Minipi watershed.

Lemming

“Any of 20 species of small rodents, some of which undertake large, swarming migrations. Lemmings are found only in the Northern Hemisphere. They have short, stocky bodies with short legs and stumpy tails, a bluntly rounded muzzle, small eyes, and small ears that are nearly hidden in their long, dense, soft fur. The wood lemming (Myopus schisticolor) and steppe lemming (Lagurus lagurus) are the smallest, measuring 8 to 12 cm (3.1 to 4.7 inches) in body length and weighing 20 to 30 grams (0.7 to 1.0 ounce). The other species are larger, weighing 30 to 112 grams, with bodies 10 to 22 …

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As I browse thru the new web site I see lots of information on equipment and personal effects to bring when you make the decision to come to Cooper’s Camps on the Minipi watershed. The fly selections are based on years of careful record keeping in the log books and you can check the Lodge logs where you will be staying and the dates of your trip and see what flies were catching trout during that period over years. Fly patterns and size recommendations do not come better than that!

I was asked to offer some advice for new anglers to the Minipi system that would give them a better chance for success and make their trip go smoothly and be more enjoyable.

The first thing I would offer is an understanding of the methods employed by the guides to get you on to the trophy …

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Steve Grant, one of the guides, upon viewing the fly section of the web site, made this comment:

I noticed some of the flies that my anglers have great success with are not listed.  They include the Orange Wooly Bugger, the Black Wulff, the Minonipi Wulff, the Brown Drake and the Double Bunny.  These flies are used extensively at the lodges and should definitely be recommended along with those listed.  I had especially good success with them at Minonipi.

For a picture of the Minonipi Wulff, go to Photo Gallery and click the Hatches category.

James West Davidson, and John Rugge.  Great Heart: The History of a Labrador Adventure, 1988.

“In July 1903 Leonidas Hubbard, Jr. set out to traverse by canoe and portage one of the last blank spots on the map of North America – 550 miles of the subarctic barrens of Labrador in northern Canada.” Hubbard died. His expedition failed. “…Wallace [Hubbard’s partner] resolved, in 1905, to return to Labrador at the head of his own exploring party to try again.” At the very same time, Mina Hubbard, Hubbard’s widow, to redeem her husband’s honor, had also begun an expedition. And the race was on. This is the story of both the 1903 and 1905 expeditions, the latter being “a race unique in the annals of wilderness exploration.”

Dillon Wallace, The Lure of The Labrador Wild. First Edition, 1905.  1990 paperback Ed.

“It was Dillon …

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This is taken From an article appearing on the Field and Stream website, no date given, titled “Quest for The Mother Lode…the lost world of monster brook trout, “ by T. Edward Nickens.

Clutched between Ungava Bay and the North Atlantic Sea, Labrador offers perhaps the largest chunk of terra incognita remaining in North America: a half million square miles of taiga, spruce and tamarack woods, and soaring stone ridges that taper into iceberg- laden seas, three quarters of the province is entirely roadless.”

“When Lee Wulff [who discovered the Minipi in the 1950s] guided Curt Gowdy into the Minipi River basin to film a segment of The American Sportsman, trout anglers in the lower 48 almost swallowed their teeth at the sight of kype-jawed brookies the size of an overnight bag.”

Labrador is a wilderness “more remote than most of Alaska” where “every …

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