“The Lamprey” is a pattern we use along most of the season and even under different river conditions. The purpose of it, imitate mainly a small lamprey in length, color and movement. It can also be taken as a small fish or even a leach.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamprey

Lampreys come into our for spawning. The adults are parasites of the sea run brown trout and other species but only in salt water. Once they go into the river they don’t feed any more. After hatching, the young ones live for a period of time in fresh water, when they become a prey for trout.

List of materials:

• Thin plastic tube – clear
• Cone head (light blue in this case)
• 6/0 Uni-thread
• (Wing) Arctic fox tail – black
• (Under Wing) Angel hair – dark blue
• (Sides) Krystal flash – electric blue
• (Collar) Chinese pheasant / hen saddle – black
• Jungle cock

Step 1:

Prepare the tube and fit the head. Burn the back end to stop the cone. Present in vise.

Step 2:

Ty the thread on and present fox hair towards the front once the length of it was chosen.

Step 3:

Fold back 1/3 of the wing, add angel hair and first collar.

Step 4:

Follow by folding back the rest of the fox hair wing, add second collar palmered too and krystal flash on the sides.

Step 5:

Finish with jungle cock on both sides and whip finish it. Cut the rest of the plastic tube and burn to reduce edges.

This style of tying tube flies makes it easy and inexpensive. Most materials can be adapted to the needs, as in this case we use arctic fox for its great movement even in slow water.

The conehead put behind the wing makes it great so the wing and collar don’t get squeezed but keep a good shape instead. It can be put in front as well.

In between the steps while folding the wing back -you can use different colors mixed- you can add flash, hackle, dubbing, etc… it will all look very natural into the layers.

Note: if your regular coneheads meant for fitting hooks don’t fit in the tube you can use a drill -carefully to not damage the paint in the head- and take the hole to the size you need.

How to fish it:

We like to fish it with a floating line so it only goes under the surface for the weight of the conehead. Length of leader will depend on water conditions while in normal summer water of Rio Gallegos and Rio Grande we use not less than 12’. The strips are long and consistent and speed of retrieve medium to fast as it sometimes triggers even the most difficult fish, sunray shadow style…