The Sunray Shadow story

The Sunray Shadow or Brooks Sunray Shadow was initially designed by late British salmon angler Mr Raymond Brooks (Ray Brooks)

In the early 60s, Ray travelled through Norway to find the perfect salmon river. He did so with his wife, Margit. Their favourite river became the Lærdal River which runs to the Sognefjord. A river that had a historic run of big Atlantic salmon and sea trout.

Ray and Margit held the lease for the lærdal (Laerdal) River from 1966 until the mid 90´s when this and other rivers in the region saw a devastating outbreak and infestation of the salmon parasite Gyrodactylus salaris

The Lærdal River is gin clear and of medium size. It is in these fabulous surroundings that Ray Brooks creates the Sunray Shadow fly.  The first fly was done in the early 60s – and the Sunray tube fly soon proved so good that Ray and Margit started production of the fly.

The flies were 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 monkeys was used in the design of the wing. Initially, the monkey hair came from a fellow angler’s carpet in his living room. Later Ray made a registered pattern on the fly that he named: The Sunray Shadow.

The Sunray fly was tied commercially for the Brooks family by Danish company Lawcock and later with fly tiers in Singapore.

The Sunray Shadow was once tied with hair from a monkey – Today, anglers will substitute monkey hair with material like a goat. Sunray Shadow shown in photo tied with Kashmir goat dyed black – Numerous + 20-kilo salmon have been caught on the Sunray Shadow.

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