Step-by-step: How to tie a Rubber Duck / LF Hitch Fly by Terkel Broe Christensen

Sunray Shadow - a classic killer

Rubber Duck is, as mentioned, a further development and improvement of one of the most classic salmon flies of our time, the Sunray Shadow. The Sunray, which is tied on a tube and which is fished as a wet fly, is today one of the most widely used flies on the Scandinavian salmon waters. In the water it looks like a small slim and shiny fish.

The salmon hardly take the fly for a salmon or trout fry - mostly the only other fish in the river, since they are usually brown collars. If the fly looks like something, it's probably almost like small fish such as a tobis or a capelin. The prey, which has been high on the salmon's food card, has they had stayed far north in the Atlantic.

Whether the salmon dreams about food and life in the sea or whether it just gets annoyed by the slim fly is diffult to say. The reason for the Sunray Shadows popularity is probably the combination of many factors. The most important thing, of course, is that it is a highly efficient fly, which has a nice pulsating flow in the stream and which of course catches lots of fish. At the same time it is a simple fly to tye and indeed a beautiful fly.

Original invented by the British salmon fisherman Raymond Brooks when he was fishing in the 1960s by the famous salmon river Lærdalselven in Norway. It is one of the simplest flies that can be tied. The body consists of a transparent plastic tube in addition, the fly consists of a wing twice as long as the body consisting of slightly dark and light wing. Originally, the wing consists of monkey hair, but today most people tie it with goat hair. It is bound in a myriad of color variations and lengths from head to wing tip ranging from 3 to 15 centimeters.

Materials: • Tube: Transparent plastic tube

Thread: Orange

Wing: Black polar bear and black hair from marble fox

Underwing: Black-colored polar bear

Flash: Krinkle mirror

Life jacket: EVA Foam (3 mm)

Cut the tube to the appropriate length - standard 30 millimeters but between 15-50 mm.

Gently heat one end of the tube with a lighter so that the tube end becomes soft and a small collar is formed. This prevents the thread from slipping off.

Tie the orange thread on to the end of the tube.

Tie a small bundle of stiff black polar bear hair on as a wing.

Then tie a piece of flash (wrinkle mirror) on top of the Polar bear hair. Bend the front end backwards so that there are two rays of flash on top of the polar bear underwing.

Step-by-step: How to tie a Rubber Duck / LF Hitch Fly

Tie black hair from marble fox on top as main wing. The total wing should be about twice the length of the pipe.

You would have a classic Sunray Shadow fly if you finished at this stage.

Cut a piece of 3 mm thick EVA Foam to form a pane shape.

Tie down in the middle over the head so that the foam bends in the middle and the tips slanted upwards.

Finish the fly with a whip finish and a drop of varnish to secure wraps.