Knot a lot of Knowledge - Fishing Knots for anyone

[AKRISONER]

Hey guys,

ive been taking fishing seriously for a few years now and over this time I have forever been on the quest for the most simple reliable knots.

The driver behind my quest is two fold.

One I have self diagnosed Raynauds syndrome in my hands (someone may say theres no such thing as a minor case of it?) But basically any time im fishing in weather colder than 15 degrees celcius my hands get cold regardless of how warm I am. they turn white and sure enough i lose feeling in my fingers and if its approaching 0 I quite literally lose all dexterity in my fingers as they pretty much go into paralysis. What this means is that I have a hell of a time tying fishing knots. Quite literally, many times while ice fishing I have to get friends to tie knots for me, or I will literally stop fishing for 10 minutes and stick my hands under my armpits so that they can get warm enough for me to get enough movement and feeling in them to tie knots.

If im ice fishing, even with gloves on, my hands pretty much go stiff to the point that i can hardly hold on to my rod anymore. 

The second driver, and i think many of us here can relate to this one, is my aging father. The man that taught me how to tie the standard improved cinch knot can no longer tie one himself. I am sure there is even a few of us on the board here that as we get older are beginning to struggle with the fine motor skills required to tie complex fishing knots. Most trips out fishing my dad relies on me to quickly retie as tying himself requires significant effort and a lot of time. It can be easier to just have me quickly throw a knot together rather than have him attempt to retie. There are even times now when my father goes fishing by himself that when he comes back he tells me "I was catching on one particular set up, but then i snagged and broke my line so I had to use a different set up due to my inability to retie what I had on" 

 

Over the course of the past 4 years I have done my absolute best to cover all bases. Unfortunately I cant find a simpler replacement for the canadian jam knot.. Each of these knots have indeed been tested in the field and the only one that has failed occasionally but still very rarely if you are careful enough is the Loop knot seen below.

Please note that yes, i understand that your nail knot or perfection knot may be better...you may even have some knots that you have been tying so friggin long that they are "easy" for you to tie, or seem simple. I have attempted to take it further than that. I have taken these knots and shown them to my father and others and they have basically been able to tie them first try every single time.

Heres my knots

For tying line together, the lefty kreh knot

For loop knots for fly fishing or cranbaits, quick strike rigs or wherever else you need a loop knot

The Weibe Knot (i named this one lol)

For tying braid to your hook when fishing slop/pads/wherever you want to tie braid directly to your hook, weight whatever (I never tie this knot to flurocarbon or mono unless its very heavy aka 30lbs+ because its known to burn your line and break. 

The Palomar

Finally Last but of course not least...Tying Fluro or Mono to anything

I literally learned this knot 2 weeks ago and have never looked back. prior to learning this knot I was using the uni knot but even it is more complicated than 

The Eugene Knot

 

As an added bonus to those of us that like fishing drop shots...lots of people have a hard time figuring out how to make their hook stand up. My buddy realized the most simple solution aside from using "drop shot specific" hooks with swivels or standouts.

 

Once you have tied you standard fishing knot to the hook, take your long excess tag and loop it back around and down through the eyelet again so that the tag end runs through the hook an extra time...attach your weight and voila, your hook will stand up perfectly as the weight tourques back on the hook sticking it out. Try it out!

 

I hope someone here can find this useful...heck maybe everyone will think I am an idiot! I am simply trying to speak from a guy with useless hand's perspective that spends 300+ hours a year on the water. Thanks for reading guys! Please feel free to provide further input if you know of something and are willing to share with the rest of us!

Remember, no matter what ALWAYS SPIT ON YOUR KNOTS!

Edited May 30, 2018 by AKRISONER

[Lape0019]

Raynauds syndrome is never fun. My daughter has it and was diagnosed by her doctor just based on symptoms alone. There really isn't much you can do about it but try to stay warm.

 

As for your knots, good collection. I use the Palomar and UNI a lot myself. It's pretty much all I tie so they are easily done for me. I'll definitely try a few of these though.

 

Thanks for sharing.

 

 

[lew]

I've had Raynauds for many years and find hand warmers to be a HUGE help. I buy mine from CTC and they last about 8 hours in my mitts and really do work well.

[AKRISONER]

41 minutes ago, lew said:

I've had Raynauds for many years and find hand warmers to be a HUGE help. I buy mine from CTC and they last about 8 hours in my mitts and really do work well.

Yup, When ice fishing i live with hand warmers in my gloves, without them i pretty much cant fish.

50 minutes ago, Lape0019 said:

As for your knots, good collection. I use the Palomar and UNI a lot myself. It's pretty much all I tie so they are easily done for me. I'll definitely try a few of these though.

 

I pretty much exclusively tied the uni and palomar for tying to lures for the past couple of years, but I noticed I was having a few issues with the uni breaking or coming undone...Its a great easy to tie knot but ive found it to be prone to failure. Im forever glad I learned the knot though because its awesome to tie a double uni for putting line together and even more so, if you can tie a uni knot you are basically 90% of the way to knowing how to snell!

[OhioFisherman]

48 minutes ago, lew said:

I've had Raynauds for many years and find hand warmers to be a HUGE help. I buy mine from CTC and they last about 8 hours in my mitts and really do work well.

Our truck docks weren't heated here, guys that worked the docks used to buy them by the case!

[OhioFisherman]

8 minutes ago, AKRISONER said:

Yup, When ice fishing i live with hand warmers in my gloves, without them i pretty much cant fish.

I pretty much exclusively tied the uni and palomar for tying to lures for the past couple of years, but I noticed I was having a few issues with the uni breaking or coming undone...Its a great easy to tie knot but ive found it to be prone to failure. Im forever glad I learned the knot though because its awesome to tie a double uni for putting line together and even more so, if you can tie a uni knot you are basically 90% of the way to knowing how to snell!

If it's any help? I watch the tactical bassing on youtube,  they use braid a lot and use a modified blood knot to join a leader to it, just nine loops instead of the normal 6. LOL MS and the heat kills me, it's hard to hang on to a fork!

[Garnet]

I don't have Raynauds but do take 1 aspirin before any cold weather activity stealheading and

ice fishing keeps the blood slippery .

[AKRISONER]

14 hours ago, Garnet said:

I don't have Raynauds but do take 1 aspirin before any cold weather activity stealheading and

ice fishing keeps the blood slippery .

I might have to try this out...im very very intrigued

[BillM]

With bad hands I can't see anything easier then the palomar. 

[AKRISONER]

3 minutes ago, BillM said:

With bad hands I can't see anything easier then the palomar. 

the trick if your hands are banged up like mine is give yourself a huge doubled loop to work with and a foot of tag end..you use a bit more leader material but its about as easy as tying an overhand not then.

 

Only prob with palomar ive found is that it breaks lighter fluro or mono if you aren't super careful.

[BillM]

Absolutely, you can make that loop as big as you want.    For light line I use an improved clinch.   Not a fan of the palomar with 3-5lb flouro leads.

[Headhunter]

Akri, I don't know for sure if this will help you, but I have a friend with the same problem with her hands. She bought herself an acoustic guitar and has started playing it as much as she can. Playing a guitar will certainly increase circulation in the hands as your hand muscles will require more blood flow in order to play.

HH

[Sinker]

I use improved clinch knot for EVERYTHING. It never breaks at the knot on me. Ever. 

Even attaching braid to mono/fluoro, back to back IC knots. Works fine. 

 

S. 

[AKRISONER]

31 minutes ago, Sinker said:

I use improved clinch knot for EVERYTHING. It never breaks at the knot on me. Ever. 

Even attaching braid to mono/fluoro, back to back IC knots. Works fine. 

 

S. 

my problem with the improved clinch is that it has somehow managed to come undone on me wayyyy too many times. I dont know why but it just seems to fail occasionally on hard hook sets. I can tell that its come unraveled because the end of the line is "crimped" as in you can tell it was twisted up tightly. 

 

My father is unable to tie the improved clinch these days, its too difficult to pass the line back through the bottom twist and then back again for him.

[Sinker]

There is no right or wrong knot. Whatever works for YOU is whats best. 

 

S. 

[Beans]

My bro-in-law has that raynauds disease and I didn't mind baiting his hook but when it came time for him to take a leak he was on his own...Sorry Uncle Dave !

I never had trouble seeing to tieing knots until I had my cataracts removed...they asked if I wanted to be short sighted or long sighted and seeing as how I drive I went for long...and use reading glasses to see up close...Palomar has been my knot of choice ever since I mastered it

If'n I forget my glasses It is just the plain old cinch knot which was no problem so far with crappie and blue gills...LOL

Edited June 2, 2018 by Beans