Learn the Basic Fly Fishing Knots
Written by Jon Clouse on July 8th, 2008A lot of different fly fishing knots are available for your use while you’re out on a fishing trip. Some of the knots you can use are the Arbor knot, the Albright knot, the Blood knot, dropper loop, nail knot and improved clinch. Each of these knots have a different purpose.
An Albright knot is used to join your fly line and your fly reel backing line. As you tie this knot, remember to wind your loops around the loop of the larger line in a neat fashion. This loop will pass through guides, so make sure that it is tied and wound well. Fishermen sometimes cover this knot with rubber cement, making it secure and smoother for passing through the guides on your pole.
The Arbor knot is one of the fly fishing knots used to attach the fishing line to the fishing reel, also known as the Arbor. When you tie this knot it is essential you use the second overhand knot. It is recommended you wind the loop two times around the arbor before you make the first half hitch. This will increase friction which works well on polished reels. This knot is easy to learn and very effective.
The blood knot, another of the most important fly fishing knots, is used when you need to join two lines which are roughly equal in size. For instance, you would use this knot when joining sections of leader or tippet. There is more than one way to tie this knot, the best being to overlap the ends of the lines you are joining and twist them together about ten times. You can make a hole in the center of these twists and pass one end the opposite way through the hole. This knot, if tied correctly will be symmetrical in the middle. This is also an easy knot and will come in handy quite often.
One of the other basic fly fishing knots is the dropper loop. You can use this knot to prevent tangles in your reel line. With this knot, you make a loop in your leader as an attachment point for an extra fly. This loop is made by winding one line around the other at the overlap. This loop should appear to be symmetrical.
One of the fly fishing knots you’ll use almost every time you go out fishing is the nail knot. A nail knot is used when you need to tie together two lines of differing sizes. Thread the smaller line through the loops with a straw, nail (that’s where the name comes from) or needle. This creates a knot which easily passes through your guides, being that they are smooth and small in size.
There are many different fly fishing knots you might decide to use. You should learn many of these different knots because there are many different circumstances you will need to use them.
These fly fishing knots are easy to learn and will come in handy all the time - learn some of these fly fishing knots before you go fly fishing for the first time.
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