Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Basic fishing knots

I have posted lots about fishing knots before, but I have never really put all of the information together in one spot for convenience. Hopefully this post will be of use to people looking for the basic fishing knots that every angler should know.

Tying good quality fishing knots is a very important part of fishing. There is nothing worse than losing a fish of a lifetime only to find your knots were not up to scratch (trust me I know). Fortunately, tying quality knots is not all that hard and there are some very strong knots that are even fairly easy to tie in the dark.

Basic fishing knots
If you click on the following links they will take you to my original posts with instructions or an instructional video for tying the knots.

Line to terminal tackle (hooks, swivels) knots


Improved Clinch Knot - A strong knot that is easy to tie.

Uni Knot - Probably the most popular knot in fishing and is a quality knot.

Snell Knot - More difficult than the first two, but is worth learning.

Palomar Knot (Polymer Knot) - Quick and easy to tie with sufficient strength in most applications.

Line to leader knots

Double Uni Knot - The most popular method of joining a line and a leader and is very strong.

Surgeons Knot - A very good knot for joining two lines with very different diameters.

Albright Knot - A slightly more complicated method of joining two lines of different diameters, but is very strong.

Line to lure knot

Rapala Knot - A very famous knot that is perfect for lures.

Others worth learning

Trilene Knot
Joe Miller Knot