Knots You Need to Know

Big fish can take your breath away and make your knees buckle. It might be a 20-inch rainbow, sucking down size 22, maybe size 24 Blue-Wing Olives, in a glassy smooth run. Or it could be the sight of your first 10-pound bonefish, slowly cruising a huge flat . . . . In the former, you're trying to watch the fish while rummaging for that spool of 7X tippet. In the latter, the guide is whispering-why does his whisper seem to shout at you?-for you to add three feet of 8-pound fluorocarbon to the leader and re-tie the fly.

With the fish of the season-possibly of a lifetime-in front of you, it's not the time to wonder which knot is best, or whether you can tie it correctly. It matters not that you have mastered a curving slack-line cast that settles just above the trout and drifts perfectly into his window. Or that you can make a 70-foot crosswind cast and place that shrimp imitation four feet in front of the bonefish. Not if your knots fail.

Knots are critical to fly-fishing, but few anglers ever bother to expand their repertoire beyond the few they learned when starting out. Furthermore, they rely on these knots for all situations to the exclusion of others that may be better suited to the circumstances.

One doesn't need to know every knot in the universe. Keep it down to a manageable few: Knots that are strong, easily tied and serve your needs. Depending on those needs and preferences, you should have in your knot arsenal both loop knots and "hard" knots. Most of these knots are easy to tie, but you need to practice them to gain proficiency; otherwise, you could find yourself in trouble.

All the knots described here have been shown to have breaking strengths of over 90 percent. (A knot tied using 10-pound test is said to be a "100-percent knot" if it breaks at 10 pounds of pressure; a different knot tied using the same material that breaks at nine pounds of pressure would be a "90-percent knot.") Let's break down knots into locations and criticality-where they are and which are, in fact, the weakest links.

The nail knot is the most commonly used connection between line and leader, and with good reason. It is neat (rarely catching in guides), and it is easy to tie, certainly so with a bit of practice. The nail knot holds well on almost all fly lines: The common braided multifilament-cored lines, the less common braided monofilament-cored lines and, with one adjustment, even on solid monofilament-cored lines.
1. Overlap the tip of the fly line and the butt of the leader by approximately 4 to 6 inches.
2. Lay a small "nail" (any number of similar common items work: a straightened paper clip, the plastic toothpick from a Swiss army knife, a ballpoint pen tube, etc.) alongside the overlapping lines.
3. Gripping the overlapping lines and nail between thumb and pointer finger a couple of inches from the end of the fly line, begin wrapping the leader butt back over the fly line and nail, toward the tip of the fly line. Trap the wraps under the thumb and pointer finger.
4. After six wraps, insert the tip of the leader butt into the coils, pushing it out on the side away from the fly line tip.
5. Still keeping light pressure on the coils, pull the leader butt end snug (but not tight) and then pull the long end of the leader snug (but not tight), and slide out the nail.
6. Making sure the knot is tight enough to not come unwound, inspect it to make sure the coils are side-by-side and not overlapping. Slide the knot down to within a half inch or so of the fly-line tip.
7. Moistening the knot, pull both ends simultaneously so that it comes tight and bites into the fly-line coating. Pull it as hard as you can. (I like to hold the butt end of the leader with pliers, and wrap the long end around my hand.)
8. Test the knot by wrapping the fly line around one hand and the leader butt around the other and giving a good pull. The knot should not move. Trim the ends flush and go fishing.

Notes: On monofilament-cored lines, the six-turn nail knot can slip off the line end. Use the pull test to verify. Many anglers coat the nail knot with some sort of flexible cement, to smooth it out so it won't get caught in the guides. I don't do that. The coating material is almost always less buoyant than the line and pulls the line tip under. Plus, a well tied and trimmed nail knot rarely gets caught in the guides and, generally, you don't need the leader knot inside the tip-top guide to land a fish anyway.

Blood Knot
Many anglers still use the blood knot to connect sections of tippet and leader material. The blood knot is simple to tie, is neat and looks good. The problem is that it's not very strong. The blood knot's breaking strength is typically listed as 80 percent to 90 percent of the line strength. That might sound pretty strong, but it's not great, especially when one considers that the breaking strength of the better tippet-to-fly knots are at least 90 percent, which means this knot will break before the fly knot will. Use the blood knot in the middle sections of the leader, where even an 80-percent knot is far stronger than the strongest knot in the tippet section, and it will serve you well.
1. Overlap the two sections of leader to be joined by approximately four inches.
2. Wrap one end around the other line five times, and bring the tag end of the wrapped line back to the beginning of the wraps and hold.
4. Holding the previous wraps, wrap the second tag end around the other line five times.
5. Bring the tag end of the second line back the beginning of those wraps and pass it through the opening in the opposite direction as the first line. Pull the line ends just enough so the wraps snug.
6. Moisten the wraps, and while holding the standing (long) ends, firmly pull the knot tight. Don't jerk or stop part way through to re-grip. The knot should be neat, with the wraps lying parallel, not overlapping.

Surgeon's Knot
Another way to join leader and tippet sections is the surgeon's knot. The surgeon's knot is easier to tie than the blood knot, and it is stronger as well. About the only downside is that it takes somewhat more material. The regular surgeon's works well for joining heavier lines. And compared to the blood knot, the surgeon's is much better for joining dissimilar diameters and materials.
1. Overlap the ends of the tippet and leader.
2. Loosely tie one overhand knot, and then a second.
3. Holding the tag ends and the adjacent leader sections, pull all four sections evenly until the knot seats fully.
4. Trim ends, give the knot a good test pull and you're done. It's that quick and easy.

Note: The surgeon's knot calls for two turns of the overlapping lines. The double surgeon's require four turns.
Read more – offline – from the current issue; subscribe to FRR.