Home Forums Fishing Flyfishing Knot for fly to tippet

No doubt this topic has been covered but nothing turned up in my search, at least for the one year past it lets me search.

Am looking for advice and maybe some consoling re tying fly to tippet. I had a bad day on Sunday last, suspect old sun weakened leader but for whatever reason lost a bunch of trout and flies to breaks and knots that came undone. (Lost a brookie of 3 or 4 lbs.) In frustration I broke the tapered leader way back and went to an improved clinch. Should have taken the time to change leader.

For years I used a figure 8 Turle and it generally worked well though once in awhile would let go. I have tried a Davy knot and recently the double Davy. Both break easy IME, which is different than others are finding so maybe there is some error in how I tie them. I fiddled with the George Harvey knot for awhile but never did get it down to tie quickly and easily in bad light.

I just noticed yet another version of Turle knot on Youtube, a Rio line video. This one has three wraps which should hold better. I REALLY LIKE the way the Turle knot brings the line straight out of a bent eye hook. Good or bad experience with variations of the Turle knot?

As to use, I fish some trout, many small but some up to ten pounds or better. I also fly fish salmon now and then, though with salmon I run pretty strong leader, hooks with bigger eyes and often use a Palomar knot.

I fly fish in binges, not all that often. What do experienced fly fishers say about fly to leader knots?

Added info because size of hook influences knot choice: I fish size 6 hooks more than any other, seldom go smaller than size 10 and on Sunday had my best luck on the brook trout with a size 2 steelhead fly. I fish wet flies about 2/3 of the time and dry flies about 1/3. I dislike slow deep nymph fishing but know that it is effective.

I typically used an improved clinch knot, when I am paying attention.Usual fly sizes I use are #6-12.
I suspect your recent day was due to old/deteriorated leader material (been there myself). Change out your tippet material or just get a new leader and see if things improve.

I use improved clinch but my flies are usually #12 - #16. I can't suggest anything for the size you're dealing with.

Clinch knot for everything except streamers where I use a nonslip loop.

I use an improved clinch knot, but I don't tie it to the eye, I thread it through the eye, then tie it to the fly body either just ahead of or just behind the wings.

Tom

For tippet 3X to 7X and flies smaller than a #10 I have started using the Double Davy and it has worked well for me. The key to this knot it to assure the tag end comes out perpendicular to the knot and is on top of the hook eye when you are finished. I find holding the tag between my teeth while pulling the knot up helps.

For larger tippet/line or hooks larger than #10 I just use an Improved Clinch Knot (dries or nymphs) and for a streamer a No-Slip Loop.

Note, applying a little Chap Stick to the knot before tightening will help a lot.

As others here said, I suspect if your tippet was Nylon (Mono) and was older than a couple of years, or has been exposed to a lot of sun, it has deteriorated and the whole leader needs to be replaced. Fluorocarbon leader/ tippet are much less susceptible to aging or UV deterioration.

Improved clinch for most trout flies, and a Turle for up eye heavy fish (steelhead) flies. The only time I ever had knot issues was when a tech rep gave me a bunch of high end, thin for it's weight rating, leader material. I think it was Diawa or something similar. Lost 5 steelhead to flies stripped on the take, each coming in with a curly cue on the end. Given their rarity, missing a steelhead is a significant issue to me.

Back in camp, I put things together and with pliers gripping flies, the leader wound around a stick, I attempted to pull several assemblies apart. One could watch the tag end of the knots spin around and come unglued. A solution was to put additional turns on the knots like 7 turns instead of 5 on an improved clinch. It's difficult, however, to get that many turns to stack properly. My solution was a visit to the dumpster and a return to my long used Maxima.

Best knot is a Bimini, but that's for huge salt water fish, and not something we would rig for a size 22 midge.

Heat and UV light are both killers of leader material. I assemble mine, buying 200 yd spools, and make every effort possible to keep the material out of the sun and never left in hot locations like a rig on a hot day.

Another thought: Do wet ones knots before putting the final tug on to cinch the wraps. That exercise on dry material can also generate brief but significant heat weakening the material in that local.

Also, if I have an extended fight with a heavy fish, I will cut off and replace the weakest tippet. Excessive stretch in a long duel can weaken the material such that it can not withstand a sudden heavy shock.

Your knots are fine, I'd be inclined to blame some aspect of the material.

Good luck out there,

Thanks all for several good tips. I am slightly surprised at how many of us use clinch knots, mostly improved. TOM's way of using the clinch knot, tied to the fly body as described above, is a new one to me.

I put on a fluorocarbon tapered leader this afternoon and plan to try the RIO style Turle a few times. I always lube the knot before pulling tight, usually with saliva.

Back again due to a brain fart. It came to me in a mindless moment as to why I do not use a Turle knot on my trout hooks. This would go better if I had artistic abilities .

Take a close look at the eye structure of the typical down eye trout hook. Notice the eye is not welded. To shape the eye, the forward portion of the hook shank is simply wrapped around a tiny mandrel and bumped up against the shank as the circle is completed. That end of the wire, where it should be touching the long portion of the shank, can be quite sharp.



With a Turle knot, ones leader is doing a partial loop around the long portion of the shank and the two stands forming the loop then pass through the eye to the front and into ones actual knot. This configuration is pulling a portion of the leader (right side of right image) into that realm where the sharp end of the wire has returned to and is supposedly touching the shank.

A clinch will usually grasp the bottom or forward most portion of the eye thus avoiding potential cutting. With its single loop through the eye though there's a bit more stress on the line and knot. Eliminate the cutting potential, and the Turle is a superior knot.

This came to me when I used to employ a lot of streamers fishing a tight line with across and down swings of the fly. They were often lost to heavy hits with what I thought should be tolerable shock. Up eye salmon/steelhead hooks get past this by shaping the eye and then running about 1/8 inch of remaining wire parallel to the shank toward the bend. That design eliminates the sharp edge/leader contact.

If the eyes of our standard trout hooks were welded, the issue would go away. Likely the price of hooks would double though.

Excellent point! I'm sure that accounts for a few mystery break offs over the years. Like you say, that especially fits those quick hits once in awhile that seem to break at far less than breaking strength of the leader. They feel like the line was cut.

Back to drawing board!

I also use the nonslip loop for nymphs and huge dries, Otherwise, just as you run things.

Hmmm... obviously the improved clinch knot works, even though I have this hang up about the line coming out of bent eye hooks with a straight pull. (I have a preference re which way TP comes off the roll also... )

TOM's method of tying the tippet to the body of the fly somewhere rather than at the eye may be a solution to having the line come out straight yet not be cinched against the potential sharp end of the hook wire. For some flies that would be an easy way to tie, others have fluff in the way of a clean pull.

How small of minutia can I/we obsess about when it comes to fly fishing?!

Our trout have not read eastern fly fishing books and seem to think that a big sloppy fly that lands with a splash is a full meal deal rather than having it spook them. And I am obsessing about the knot??!!

And then there is the riffle hitch...


https://www.netknots.com/fishing_knots/riffle-hitch

There are some good graphics at the link that did not translate well when C&Ped.

NetKnots | How To Tie Knots


How to tie the Riffle Hitch Knot. The Riffle Hitch or Riffling Hitch is a knot that helps the fly to skim across the surface of a river or stream to attract fish feeding near the surface. It is usually employed by salmon and steelhead fishermen however it can also be highly effective for trout.


The knot is tied after the primary knot connecting the fly to the leader. The primary knot can be any knot although some fishermen prefer to use the Turle Knot which seats behind the eye of the hook. The illustration below uses the Turle. It is simply a matter of tying a pair of half hitches behind the eye and the primary knot. Note that if there is not a lot of room on the shank of the fly behind the eye, a single half hitch can be used. When complete, you want the line to come out below the eye so that it is perpendicular to the hook shank. The Riffle Hitch Knot is one of 12 great fishing knots included on the Pro-Knot Fly Fishing Knot Cards (click to see).

Scroll to see Animated Riffle Hitch Knot below the illustration and tying instructions.
Riffle Hitch


Riffle Hitch Knot Tying Instructions
Tie fly to leader with your preferred knot or the Turle Knot. Form a loop in the leader in front of the fly.

Pass the loop back over the fly and tighten down, making a half hitch on the fly shank.

Form another loop the same as the first.

Pass the second loop back over the fly and tighten down in front of the half hitch formed in the 2nd step.

Manipulate the the fly so that the leader exits the knot below the eye, perpendicular to the hook shank.

Now Art, you're gonna get me confused or maybe get the fish confused. With a riffle hitch maybe the line doesn't come precisely out of the middle of the hook eye...

I've never used a riffle hitch but should have a few times. One mid September after a morning hunting deer, a friend and I unlimbered our fly rods and hit a large brawling creek. More rainbows in bigger sizes than most creeks, lots of 10-12 inchers. I tied on a variation of a Yellow Sally, with some gold rib on a grey skinny body and some grey hackle in the yellow. Those fish liked the fly to skitter over/in the surface, swinging in an arc with a tight line on quartering casts downstream. My biggest of the day was back under a log facing upstream where the big log made a dam across the creek. He would wait till the bug or fly was just about to go over the lip of the little falls and then shoot up, grab it and go back down under his log. I saw him take a bug so drifted my fly through but he didn't take till I tried again and skittered the half wet fly across the current. Drag? What is drag?

https://www.amazon.com/SAMSFX-Fishi...mp;psc=1&refRID=XWCGMX5TX0ETZZM8RZFJ

This is as easy as it gets. I bought a bunch and give them away. Sorry I misread the OP I thought it said FLY LINE to TIPPET

Silver salmon love to hang in frog water under trees. Dropping back a skating fly on a riffle hitch will cause the fly to move right under the cover and on top of the fish. It can be beyond deadly!

Up here most everyone has gone away from nailknots and such in favor of loop-to-loop connections. Knowing how to tie a nailknot in case of an emergency is important...

I think you know that I'm not just keyboard joshing when I say that I will try that this Fall. That is an excellent tip! I have watched silvers tuck in amongst the branches of a tree that has fallen in the water and breaks the current.

Many of the small streams I fish silvers in are perfect for this and it really is deadly...

Tradition is not always a good thing. The turned-down eyes on hooks and the Turle knot were invented specifically for gut leaders. Gut required a knot that didn't crimp down on itself (like a clinch knot does) but the Turle made the fly ride "cocked" when tied to a straight-eyed hook. So hook makers started turning down the eyes so the Turle knot and gut leader gave a straight pull.

Monofilimant line came along, but hook makers are STILL making fly hooks with turned-down eyes. Even though nobody has used a gut leader in more than seven decades. There's absolutely no need for turned-down fly hooks today, but...

Well, it's tradition.

Turned down eyes on beadheads help keep the hook point up...

That's possibly true, SD. By the same reasoning, they would tend to flip dry flies on their back, no?

Turned down eyes on a split wing double, which is what we traditionally use for half-pounder steelhead on the Rogue, work a bit like the front edge of a "Hot Shot" / Flatfish / Quick Fish lure dragging the fly to a fairly consitent depth underwater which just happens to be the fish's favorite biting depth. This whole new-fangled bead-head shyte .. might as well be fishing worms. Turned-up eyes work better for flies you want to skate. We never did that, it's another new-fangled thingy brought from some other river.

Tom

Yes. I have some 100+ year old 2.0 salmon irons from Scotland that are up eye. One will have to add some serious flotation to his patterns to get those to skate.

Not really... the eye would have to weigh more than the whole curve of the hook and be farther away from the hackle.

Can't have it both ways, Sitka. A turned eye causes a nymph to ride hook up, but it helps a dry to ride hook down? I think the effect of both is minimal if it's there at all. But a turned eye DOES change the angle of pull from the line. Instead of pulling straight down the hook shank, you are applying a small bit of leverage.

But it's all pretty picky. Fish don't care. They can reject anything I throw.

Just as a followup, I've been mulling this over and had a thought about a knot.

With a turned-down eye, I passed the leader through the eye, took it up and over the wrapped head, then back through the eye. Then tied a uni knot and snugged the knot back up until it jammed in the eye. The result is a nice straight line to fly alignment, an almost invisible knot that doesn't chafe on itself. Kind of a modern Turle knot, if you will.

Me too! This.

For dries turle. Nymphs , streamers poppers non slip mono

Let's lay it out so we both understand what we are saying...

Dry flies are tied on lighter hooks and the up eye dominates. If the eye weighs more than the whole hook bend it could offset things, but the final drift to the surface should be curve down, eye up.

Nymphs tend to be tied on down eye, heavy hooks. The direction of pull on the eye puts the shank down, point up.


Now, I need to go to the posts and see what I actually said!

Got your point... but up eyes are far more common on dries.

BTW, just managed a 2-fish silver limit this morning on just 2 casts. Was concerned about getting the motor started for the return trip as the battery had been a little low so I left it idling while I fished. Sneaky peek showed a nice school. First cast took less then a strip for the take. Landed the fish and took care of it before dropping it in the box. Second cast was taken on the first strip. Second fish in the box and the engine was still running so I just took a couple turns in the river and ran back to the launch... on the trailer in less than an hour round trip, single-handed.

I'd want more value out of all the boat towing work. I make sure I don't catch more than one fish per hour. At least, that's the way it usually turns out...

On subject, I use a nifty tying version of the Swirle knot. Not because of any angle of pull or tested strength or any other legitimate reason. It's just so easy. No poking ends in things, no counting twists. It's just so easy. And there's no way I could describe the technique.

Sitka:
I hate those days. Once had nine days put aside for deer season. Tagged out at 06:45 opening day and it was hanging by 07:30. Had no buddies at the time I could spend the rest of the season with.

Also limited in about 5 minutes on silvers once while on a party boat. Had to quit until the captain wanted to fill a couple empty tags in the last 15 minutes of the day.

I hear ya. A couple years ago, I was throwing a two-jig rig and had my limit of 10 crappie in six consecutive casts. Took longer to unhook them and get them in my cooler than to actually catch them. And had to release one besides!

It might not be high tech, but I've been using a Duncan Loop knot since I was 10 or 11. I'm now 62. It has been all I have ever needed. Is there something wrong with me?

EDIT: Just realized this thread has been asleep for a few months. Oh well...

Nah, I use the improved clinch for everything with an eye and I got no complaints. Perfection loop, nail knot and improved clinch do everything I need to do, and I fish 40 plus times a year...

Yes, I'm necroposting, but wanted to add that jig-head hooks are rising in popularity due to this fact.

Uni-knot or Eugene Bend. If you can double the line through the eye, Fish-n-fool (just a uni with 2 passes through the eye) or a Eugene bend with 2 passes through the eye.

I've use the Davy, Palomar, Trilene, Orvis, Uni, and Eugene Bend. I find the Uni and Eugene easy to tie and sturdy. For larger flies its hard to beat the fish-n-fool. A uni-knot with 5- wraps works well for me.

I learned the strength of a nail knot while flyfishing Kings on the Alagnak. Sometimes I'd fish 20lb Maxima tippet, and when trying to clear a snag the tippet would break. When I'd fish 25lb Maxima, the nail knot would pull off the flyline. Arcane, but perhaps useful.