A Question of Shooting Heads

Hi Willie Gunn (from same side of the pond as you!) - I've faced a similar problem recently for a somewhat different reason. Basically, I found it an enormous problem finding heavy salmon lines of a suitable wieght (AFTM rating) to cut up and manufacture 'home-made' shooting heads. I found that 12 (and 13 wt if you could get them) lines were best for my 15' 10/11 wt G.Loomis glx, and, even when acquired, the flight characteristics weren't always that brilliant. I've given up on this silly (in my opinion) search and have (literally) only just bought a custom Loop head. They do these to suit various rods (in terms of length and rating) in floating, sink-tip, fast intermediate, and fast sinker. The factory joined loops look good and the line seems a quality (if relatively expensive) piece of tackle. I'll be taking the line out for a test cast some evening this week so will report back later. On the subject of 'Collie Dogs', on the one of only two days I've managed to get out this year, I managed a 14 1/2 lb Springer on a 3" Sunray Shadow (basically a very similar fly to the Collie) and usually find fishing it quite square and fast no problem with a Lee Wulff TT as long as 'full on' line stripping in slack water isn't required.

Talk later.

The dressing for the Sunray Shadow is as follows (although it is, as I have tried to indicate, subject to tremendous variation);

Hook: trebles or doubles, although I believe the dressing comes into it's own on tubes from 1/2" to 1 1/2"

Body: Can be left bare on plain hooks or plastic/aluminium/loop tubes. As a personal preference I leave tubes bare and on any other hook I tie a silver body ribbed silver.

Throat: None

Wing: White Bucktail and/or Arctic Fox under Black Arctic Fox with Black shadow Fox or Black Goat Over (depending on length of wing). Mix some peacock angel hair into the wing and top with 2-4 peacock herls.

Eyes: Jungle cock or sub. (optional)

Tying note: The wing should be tied in 'Norwegian' or 'Fat-Back' style. The first (stiff) under wing of bucktail is optional but can help prevent the long wing fouling the hook at the back of the tube. As the wing in layered in, progressively longer pieces of fox should be added to achieve the desired length (which should be at least x3 the length of the tube/hook).

Sunray permutations

Hi Willie Gunn, I've tied this style of fly with some success on small trebles (8's and 10's with an appropriately scaled wing length and fished with just a regular 'wet' fly presentation) and on tubes from 1/2" to 1" with a wing length from 2" up to 3" - 3 1/2". For obvious reasons I've fished the tubes a little faster (than the above) which can produce quite an aggressive (THUMP!) take.

Personally, regarding the tube dressing (while I've dressed the fly on a variety of different tubes), I've had most success with the fly dressed on aluminium tubes and fished off a Lee Wullf (or similar) spey line with a home made sink tip attached. Bear in mind that this success is probably a function of me quite often picking this fly (ie on an alu tube) out of my box first, either consciously or sub-consciously, rather than there being any superiority with an alu tube and that I fish this type of line alot of the time when the water warms up. I know, for example, that in their country of origin, this fly is very often tied on a plastic tube and fished off a 'fast' intermediate (such as an orvis ie with a sink rate of approx 1 1/2" per second). In Ireland, Peter O'Reilly rates a similar type of fly on a plastic tube one of his favourite summer flies.

As for the length of the fly, I'm sure that wings of up to 7" would work (not that I've tried mind you), but for any given combination of water speed/ water temperature they would have to be fished at an appropriate speed. As for the fly scratching the surface, again I'm sure this would score in the right circumstances. For example, small (approx 1" total length) plastic tubes tied specifically to scratch the surface fished off a floating line (ie. to make the current 'hump' over the back of the fly) is a minor tactic used with some success in Ireland for grilse.

Generally, this wider topic is very interesting and one's personal experience can't really be done justice in a few sentences so I hope this ramble is of some use to you!

Best