fly tying with monkey hair

One of the most efficient and simple salmon flies around. Colobus Monkey hair tied on a tube, that’s all.

With the salmon fever constantly running in many dedicated fly fishers all over the world, its only reasonable that a genuine salmon fly would be the thing to publish here. We will allso be chasing the silver dream this summer and the Sunray Shadow will once again will be a trusted friend in the river.
 
The Sunray Shadow is an extremely simple and efficient fly.  It does the job with a minimum of extras. The fly is a long, black monkey hair wing on a tube with a stiff underwing like polar bear, to keep it from hooking itself and then a little flash. You can see the monkey hair right here in the webshop and get a feel of the material.

Originally it was created in Norway on the banks of the Salmon River, Laerdal by Ray Brooks.  It very quickly became extremely popular and widespread, since the little tube with the monkey hair proved so efficient. Today the fly is made in numerous variations all over the world.
 
Ray Brooks tied the fly with the materials, white hairs from squirrel, monkey hair and peacock herl. The stiff squirrel or polar bear lifts the long wing free of the hook, the monkey hair creates the very long and mobile wing and the herl will give a little flash to the fly.

The inspiration for the Sunray Shadow came essentially from The Collie Dog Fly - perhaps the ultimate smaller salmon fly. The Collie Dog is just a bunch of black hair from a Collie's tail on a tube, invented somewhere in the UK in the eighteenth century. Ray Brooks actually just enhanced the Collie Dog Fly with some materials, the stiff under wing, the herl and the most essential - the long Colobus monkey hair for the long wing.  The Sunray Shadow was born!
 
Ray Brooks original was tied with hair from the Colobus monkey, which has the ability to curl up when wet and by this give the fly exstra life in the water. The monkey hair can be hard to find but we have the monkey hair in the webshop on this site at reasonable prices right here.

The Sunray Shadow is not a big challenge to tie, and if you are a beginner to tube flies, this is a very good place to start.
 
Tie the fly on a 1 – 1 ½ inch plastic tube. Tie in a small bunch of squirrel, bucktail or polar bear wich is slightly longer than the tube. Top that with the colobus mokey hair which should be about 4- 5 inches long.  For the finish, tie in a couple of peacock herl on the wing and you are all set. You can add a conehead if you like to fish a heavier fly, or use a brass or bottle tube. Many will prefer to fish the light version in the top of the water, wich will give the fly more speed. As with any other salmon flies you will like to have a selection of the Sunray Shadow in various sizes from around 3” to 6” inches with long Colobus monkey hair wings.

The Salmons reaction to a Sunray Shadow is similar to a cats instinctive behaviour to flash out a paw on a string that is flicked in front of it, it simply cant help it. It just instinctive reaction. The Sunray Shadow with Colobus monkey hair is a lengendary Salmon fly!

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