This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the Munro Killer Atlantic Salmon Fly.
The Munro Killer was developed by John Milne Morrison of Aberlour, Strathspey, Scotland. You might be familiar with the name Aberlour as Aberlour is a distillery of Speyside single malt Scotch whisky.
John Morrison owned a shoe shop where he was a master shoemaker. Next door was J.A.J. Munro, a fishing tackle and sportswear business he also owned.
Morrison and his good friend John Ashley-Cooper, a well-known salmon fishing author took a Thunder and Lightning body and added a long hair wing, which the Atlantic salmon were attracted to.
Here are Amazon links to three books written by John Ashley-Cooper:
- A Salmon Fisher’s Odyssey: Rivers and Reflections
- A Line on Salmon
- The Great Salmon Rivers of Scotland: An Angler’s Guide to the Rivers Dee, Spey, Tay and Tweed
To learn more about Morrison, see The Origin of the Munro Killer Salmon Fly, written by his son, James Morrison. Two original flies can be seen in the link as well.
Munro Killer is tied with a yellow and black wing, black body, orange and blue throat.
This is one of five Atlantic Salmon flies Jim purchased during his fishing trip in 1986 and the fly he used to catch a 32 inch, 12 pound Atlantic Salmon using a Winston 9′ 6 weight fly rod paired with a double taper floating line. He told me it was the only rod he had with him. He fished the fly like steelhead fishing, casting 3/4 downstream and letting the fly swing.
Jim purchased a box of Mustad # 3562 C in sizes 6 & 8 to tie additional flies. He states their sizing is interesting; a size 8 is equivalent to a size 10 standard dry fly.
This is a map of the river Spey.
And his license for the river Spey.
Here is an Amazon link to Hairwing & Tube Flies for Salmon & Steelhead by Chris Mann, the book Jim used to identify the fly.
I appreciate having a researcher I can count on!
Enjoy…stay home, stay safe!
(John Kreft is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.)
