The story of the Sunray Shadow

 The Monkey hair fly - the Sunray Shadow, is one of the most famous tube flies ever made. It was designed by late UK angler Mr. Raymond Brooks in the 1960´s. The Sunray Shadow is a must-have for anglers pursuing fresh Silver Salmon in any river.

Brooks Sunray Shadow is a mythical fly and a must-have in the salmon fly box. In the early 1960´s Ray traveled through Norway to find the perfect salmon river. He did so with his wife Margit, and they found the rivers in the districts of Møre and Romsdal where they fished for many years.

Every summer the Brook´s would fish the fantastic Årøy (Aaroy) River that yields the biggest average weight of salmon on earth, but their favorite of rivers was the majestic River lærdal (Laerdal) that runs to the Sognefjord. A river that had a historic run of big Atlantic salmon and sea-trout.
The Sunray Shadow are tied on tubes designed exclusively for the purpose, consisting of an inner and outer tube, allowing a tube fly hook to rest in the back-end of the tube.  Hair from a monkey is used in the design of the wing.

Originally Brooks tied the fly with three materials: white-tipped squirrel, monkey hair and peacock herl. The stiff squirrel would lift the long wing free of the hook, the monkey would create the very long mobile wing and the herl would accent the fly. Many also use polar bear to lift the wing instead of the squirrel.
The monkey hair Ray used came out of a carpet that friend and fellow angler had in his living room. The Monkey hair turned out to be exactly right for the long wing. Soft enough to make the fly come alive and stiff enough, not to collapse in the stream.

Later Ray found a supplier of the monkey hair needed and finally also made a registered pattern on the fly that he named: The Sunray Shadow.
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The Sunray Shadow fly was tied commercially for the Brooks family by Danish company Lawcock and later with fly tiers in Singapore. The picture here below shows the original packing. If you want to tie the original Sunray Shadow, you can find the original rare colobus monkey hair for sale here!