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The three knots a beginner should know.

25K views 35 replies 21 participants last post by  jerseystriper 
#1 ·
Easy knots for the beginner. Practice so you can tie them in the dark.

1. The improved Clinch Knot. For attaching your line to the swivel.

2. The Palomar knot.
The recommended knot for attaching braid to the plug / hook or to the swivel.

3. The simple snell using the uni knot.

Thread six inches of line through the eye of the hook.
Hold the line against the hook's shank, and form a Uni-Knot circle


Make five to seven turns through the loop and around the standing line and hook's shank.


Tighten by pulling the standing line in one direction and the tag end in the other


What fishing knots are used for
Grogs Link
 
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#6 ·
Re: The three knots you should know.

Where's the loop knot, gotta have a loop knot!!

IMHO, and I did a lot of testing to back this up, the Rapala loop is the strongest one out there. I think there's a link somewhere around here to an animated Gif showing how to tie it.
 
#8 · (Edited by Moderator)
striperjim,

Another knot that is easy to tie is the Albright knot, to join braids to mono backed reels, or just dissimilar lines. very small knot and very strong I've found.
The rapala knot in MHO is the best plug knot there is. It has made the difference of catching fish or not catching fish. Same boat, same lines, same plugs, one line with the rapala the other with a cinch. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it.
Thanks again for all the info on here,
Frank

Albright Knot thumbsup.gif
 
#12 ·
As a general rule a weak knot that will break before the knot holding the rest of the terminal gear. That way if it gets snagged all you lose is the sinker.

I'm not sure what the weakest knot is. I would suspect it might be the surgeons knot, I've never had much faith in that one.
 
#13 ·
Kingstonian said:
What would be a good knot for attatching either a sinker to braided or sinker swivel braided connection
The recommmended knot for braided lines is the palomar. Suds makes a good point. If your worried about snagging up, make the sinker easier to breakaway.

TRB
I use the loop knots on the mono or florocarbon leaders. I dont tie directly to braid as it probably looks like a hunk of rope to the fish.
I think Floats mentioned that the Homer Rhodes loop knot is reduced by as much as 50% breaking strength.
To my thinking its the same amount of turns on a snap with the briad using any knot unless its a palomar.
It has its usefullness. I used it exclusively during a blitz of bigfish on a casting swimmer and it held up for me. Tied to flouro.
 
#14 ·
The recommmended knot for briaded lines is the palomar. Suds makes a good point. If your worried about snagging up, make the sinker easier to breakaway.

TRB
I use the loop knots on the mono or florocarbon leaders. I dont tie directly to braid as it probably looks like a hunk of rope to the fish.
I think Floats mentioned that the Homer Rhodes loop knot is reduced by as much as 50% breaking strength.
To my thinking its the same amount of turns on a snap with the briad using any knot unless its a palomar.
It has its usefullness. I used it exclusively during a blitz of bigfish on a casting swimmer and it held up for me. Tied to flouro.
i'm not worried about snagging because i'm surf fishing along the hudson w/bait but its the casting i'm worried about i went to my local tackle shop to re up on some things and he set me up with a mono leader with a 2 hook setup and sinker at the bottom.thumbsup.gif Worked good for a lil while then i felt like i wasn't gettin far enough out in the river was scared of loosing bait sign5.gif. So i went ahead one day and let it rip casted dumb hard and lo and behold lost leader:thumbs2: So i sat there and conjured up a thought braided should hold pressure of the swing from sinker and i set it up and tried it and almost got halfway into river so i want to know the knot that would withstand this massive force from the swing:banana::a_goodjob::banana:
 
#15 ·
#20 ·
Just to add some information to this thread.
I tie a simple snell using this method rather than the uni snell because I've had that knot slip after several fish. I should have retied but I kept rebaiting because the bite was fast on bait and I was too lazy to retie.

There are two better ways to tie the snell knot.

***********************************************************
The first is tied this way. With both ends of the line available to pass through the eye.

First pass the tag end through the eye of the hook from the front of the hook. Only pass it through about half an inch.
Hold the shank of the hook and the half inch tag end and wrap the trace around both the shank of the hook and the tag end 7 or 8 turns.
Pass the trace back down through the eye of the hook from the back of the hook.
Pull the trace tight while holding the hook to set the snell.
There should be very little or no tag end protruding when the knot is set. Then pull tight you have a snelled hook that you can tie to a swivel with a uni knot.

************************************************************
A bit more practice is necessary for this the true snell as it can prove to be awkward in low light.
The Snell Knot Animation
 
#21 ·
ahh...the animation clarifies things jim...i think i was still sleeping when you were showing me that snell...it does look good, ill give it a whirl...oh..btw, im glad you guys made it back safe..thumbsup.gif..and thanks for everything this past weekend, in the famous words of jimmyz...I HAD A BLAST!!!!
 
#22 ·
you missed (slept through) your flycasting lesson as jacob had his rod with him. i;m not much of a teacher but i kinda like wanted you to get some time on the 9ft rod. jake went home and came back. i brought my vise and material/ i can;t believe i didn;t have time to tie a fly or two. i really wanted to fish. i kept going over to the canal after hooking up with that bluefish. a knot tying loop was all i showed someone, shame it was my fault as i didn;t plan an allotted time for the slim beauty and whatnot



 
#24 ·
depends on what your fishing for? if it's bass then a uni is fine but if you think the yellow eyed devils or weakfish and perhaps fluke are about then i would crimp a 80# wire leader to the swivel. hope this helps. ps, bear in mind that the leader should be wire and not surfstrand coated junk. you can get .036 which could be sufficient but maybe a little thicker gauge/ the coated stuff will get tangled if it is too long.



 
#26 ·
where are you fishing these? and what bait are you using. i suspect you are in NJ or more south. i fished them off piers some time ago for an evaluation of sorts. piers and bridges are better than off the beach as a light type bait is harder to walk out than say a head or chunk. with this application you can also use whole baits and if you can learn the sliding snood knot you can make rigs to hold them and just tie or crimp the rig onto the swivel. i went so far as to put a 1oz weight inside a head to walk it out faster and although i did not have an underwater camera for this i could not see the advantage or disadvantage. let me know if i can help further, zim



 
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