A Tangled Subject

GENERALITIES ABOUT KNOTS are generally wrong or, at best, true only part of the time. But we can rely on one general statement: There is no single best knot for attaching every hook to every type of line.

Be wary of claims about the efficiency of knots. When you read that the Reversed Triple Fubar has 97 percent breaking strength — that it retains 97 percent of the strength of the unknotted line — slam on the brakes. Does the author offer any evidence? Or is he merely repeating a figure that he read in an article by an author who heard the claim from a friend? Angling literature is full of numbers that writers have cribbed (sometimes incorrectly) from one another. Besides, fishing knots have more variables than constants, and it makes no sense to say that the Reversed Triple Fubar or anything else is an x percent knot.

Few people have conducted genuinely scientific tests of knots. Think about what's involved. First, the tester must establish the actual breaking strength of the unknotted line. Then he must tie many samples of a particular knot, all attached to identical hooks. Using very accurate equipment, he must strain each knot until it breaks, recording the results and then computing the average breaking strength. Having done all of this, the tester will have data for that one knot â?? when tied with one size and brand of line, and to one size and model of hook, and by the method that he used to tie it. The knot's efficiency might change with heavier, lighter, softer, or harder line, or when the knot is attached to a hook made of thicker or finer wire.

Do not blindly accept statements about 95 and 98 percent knots. Even if a claim is the product of rigorous testing, it indicates what a knot can achieve rather than what it will always achieve.

In the field, we sometimes have to think about attributes besides strength. Simplicity matters because it often translates into consistency. This, I think, explains the enduring popularity of the clinch knot. Most of us have used this knot for so many years that we can tie it in poor light and with stiff, half-frozen fingers. On a drizzly late-autumn day, that counts for a lot. Simplicity also matters because we do not all have equally good close-up vision or equally nimble fingers.

The knot can affect a fly's action. Most of the popular knots tighten against the hook eye, creating a rigid connection. A few knots, however, create loops that provide a free-swinging junction between tippet and fly. Loop knots have several benefits. First, the fly has more freedom of movement. A Clouser Deep Minnow attached with a loop has a more pronounced up-and-down action than one attached with a clinch knot. With a loop knot, a popper or slider has more side-to-side movement. Some emerger and midge patterns should hang at an angle or vertically in the surface film, and a free-swinging connection facilitates this.

A loop also lets a fly sink a little faster, at least in still water. With a flexible connection at its nose, a weighted fly, particularly a beadhead pattern or one with metal eyes, can adopt a nose-down attitude that helps it dive during a pause in the retrieve.

A loop knot doesn't care about the relative diameters of the line and the hook wire. A nonslip mono loop tied in 5X material is just as strong with a size 1/0 iron as it is with a size 16 dry-fly hook. With many other knots, that's not true; a clinch knot's strength is affected by the diameter of the wire against which it's tied. A good loop knot can let you fish a big fly on a light tippet. That can help in very clear water.

A knot's economy matters not because fly fishers are cheap, but because we start out with a short piece of terminal tackle. With a plug-casting outfit that holds 180 yards of monofilament, I don't mind using a Palomar knot that consumes 5 inches of line. A 24-inch tippet is a different matter; I'd like to be able to change flies a few times before replacing it. This is why I clung to the clinch knot even as I learned better knots: I wanted to get the most mileage out of a tippet. But I've since learned to use the best knot rather than the one that uses the least line. I go through more tippet material but compensate by drinking cheaper whiskey. One must have priorities.

Other things being equal, it stands to reason that a smaller knot is better than a larger one because the smaller knot is lighter and less visible. If you have a choice, why add a bigger, heavier lump of plastic to the nose of a fly?

Strength is usually the chief consideration with knots, but it's not the only one. An obsessive neurotic can stay busy for years worrying about this stuff. If knots have so many variables, does an angler have to learn dozens of connections to have any hope of landing fish? Fortunately, no. An angler who masters a few tippet-to-fly knots is ready for anything, at least in fresh water. But he does need more than one, and he does need to master them.

Take It Seriously

Attaching a fly to your tippet deserves as much care as selecting a fly pattern or deciding how to approach a piece of water. Don't rush the job or treat it as a distraction from fishing.

Operator error is the largest variable in fishing knots. Many anglers doubly handicap themselves by fishing with badly tied second-rate knots. Build every knot carefully. Pretend that you're rigging a big-game leader for one shot at a world-record tarpon, even if you're fishing for small bream at a local pond. Mental habits have a lot to do with fishing success.

Some knots seem to require a third hand. The nonslip mono loop, for instance, requires you to pull in three directions: You need to maintain some tension on the standing line (which means that something has to hold the hook) while pulling on the tag end to draw up the wraps before seating the knot. No matter how dexterous they are, ten fingers often have trouble with the job. The solution is to find something that can hold the hook while one hand keeps tension on the standing line and the other pulls the tag end. Try hooking the fly on a D-ring or zipper pull on your fishing vest or tackle bag. Better yet, add "third hands" to your vest, belt pack, and tackle bag. Tie one end of a length of fly-line backing to something secure on your vest or bag (a large D-ring, for instance), and tie a split ring or a large snap swivel to the other end. When it's time to tighten a nonslip mono loop, hook the fly on the split ring or snap. Now you can keep the standing line taut while pulling on the tag end, and the knot becomes simple to tie. I've even clamped hemostats onto my shirt so that I could use one of the finger loops as a third hand.

Lubricate a knot before drawing it tight. Water works fine, and a fisherman always has some handy. Spit also works, but I'm not keen on putting a tippet in my mouth after it has been in a stream or pond. It's possible to ingest the Giardia intestinal parasite this way. I've never had giardiasis, but a few friends have, and it sounds particularly grim. Terminal tackle does not go into my yap.

Hook the fly on something solid to tighten a knot all the way. I'm convinced that many anglers lose fish to incompletely tightened knots. It's hard to get a good grip on a size 16 Adams, particularly since you don't want to crush the hackles or mangle the wings. And, of course, holding a fly by the bend of the hook while tightening a knot is an excellent way to puncture a finger. Hook the fly onto one of your forceps' finger loops to seat the knot. This simple trick alone will prevent many break-offs.

It pays to sacrifice some tippet material at home tying knots and pulling until they break. Try to develop a feel for the strengths of the materials that you use. Then, in the field, you can seat knots firmly — and one that you formed incorrectly will break in your hands rather than in a fish's mouth.

Testing Knots

Determining that the Reversed Triple Fubar knot is 96.74 percent efficient requires better equipment than I have. But learning whether the Reversed Triple Fubar is stronger than the Improved Murtchison when tied with Brand X material requires no equipment. Cut a piece of tippet material. Attach a hook to one end with a Reversed Triple Fubar. At the other end, attach an identical hook with an Improved Murtchison knot. Pull on the hooks until something busts. Repeat the test nine times, recording the results as you go, and you'll learn which knot is stronger in that material.

It's a crude method, but it does let you pit knot against knot. You can even set up a play-off: The Reversed Triple Fubar beats the Improved Murtchison, the Humdinger Special beats the Flapdoodle Bend, and then Fubar plays Humdinger in the finals. You'll discover which knots work best with the materials you use, and you'll get a lot of practice tying knots.

I did just that with several knots, using various tools and gadgets to pull on the hooks. If you test knots this way, wear eye protection and gloves. No matter how careful you are, every now and then a hook or a piece of line will go flying in an unexpected direction. I've had 10-pound-test lines snap and hit my hands hard enough to draw blood.

I broke thousands of test rigs before finishing this chapter. Between my hook-knot tests and my tippet-knot tests, I used about three-quarters of a mile of fishing line. It was all great fun, and it was made affordable by the nice folks at Umpqua Feather Merchants, Scientific Anglers, Orvis, and Frog Hair, who provided many spools of tippet material.

I pulled on each rig until it started to stretch, pulled a little harder, and then broke the rig with a sudden tug. This seems a more useful test than slowly, steadily increasing the pressure until a knot fails. What breaks line in the field is not the fish that swims at a constant speed against the resistance of a smooth and perfectly adjusted drag, but the fish that lunges or thrashes or jumps in the wrong direction. It's the sudden tug that worries me.

Since I broke knots with muscle power rather than a machine, the rate at which the strain increased must have varied from rig to rig. This, too, seems a good reflection of conditions in the field, where every situation is a little different from the last one.

It might be interesting to know which knots perform best under carefully regulated conditions. But I don't fish in laboratories. What I want to know is quite simple: Which knots are least likely to fail when little old human me pulls on the line? I don't pretend that my findings are absolute truth. But neither are they anecdotal evidence based on a couple of lost fish.

No doubt I didn't test some knots that I should have. Perhaps I left out your favorite connection. So run your own tests. Make up ten knot-versus-knot test rigs with identical hooks, pull on each rig until something gives, and tally up the score. You'll be out 6 or 8 yards of tippet material and a little time. But you'll know.

First Things First

Don't worry about the knot at the hook until you worry about the connection between the leader and the tippet. There's no point in having 3 pounds of breaking strength at the fly and only 2 pounds where the tippet joins the leader. That's surprisingly easy to do. If you tie on a fresh 6X nylon tippet with a surgeon's knot and attach a fly with a nonslip mono loop or Orvis knot, you may well have a rig with 3 pounds of strength at one end and 2 at the other. When you snag a rock or hook a huge fish, you will break off the entire tippet. The Orvis knot's great strength will have been irrelevant. Much worse, you will have left some durable plastic stuck on the rock or attached to the fish. If you were fishing with a fluorocarbon tippet, you will have left a practically indestructible piece of litter in the stream.

If you persist in attaching tippets with blood knots, surgeon's knots, or even the Orvis tippet knot, then attach your flies with clinch knots. This way, you will most often break the line at the hook rather than at the top of the tippet. Yes, you will have a much weaker rig than you could have with better connections. But that's your problem. Broken-off tippets that you leave behind are a problem for other anglers, the fish, and wildlife. Anglers should not add plastic trash to the environment.

If you use the Bimini tippets described in the previous chapter or the ligature knot covered in chapter 3, then you can use better line-to-hook knots — with nylon. With fluorocarbon, which makes poor line-to-line knots, only a Bimini tippet will let you use one of the stronger tippet-to-fly knots.

Please do not combine a superior hook knot with an inferior tippet knot. Such a rig gives you unwarranted confidence and creates more litter where we least want it.

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