Fishing Knots - What do you use and why?

[fflutterffly]

I also use a three-four turn Uni-knot for flies and joining butting to leader for my salt as well for stream/rivers. Reason: This knot is simple to tie, I can do it literally in the dark, as well as with eyes closed, is exceptionally strong and is great for streamers when you want them to swim on the loop freely and tighten on take. It can also be used on any size line connection.

[Eric Peper]

Guess I'm a "throwback," as I still use a standard clinch knot for attaching the fly. I've been using it for over 50 years with few complaints, and best of all I can tie it blindfolded. My knot failures have almost always been pilot error in the tying, not the fault of the knot itself. I find no advantages and several disadvantages in using the so-called "Improved" clinch knot.

My standard mono leader comprises a 2' section of Maxima .017 nail knotted to the fly line to which I attach a 9' TroutHunter Finesse leader tapered to 5X to the Maxima using a blood knot. I then tie a surgeon's loop in the end of the leader and attach a 4' tippet section of 5X or 6X using a clinch knot for an overall length of about 15 feet.. My clinch knots are always 5-turns. Except for the green drake hatch (size 10 or 12) and the flavs (size 14), my flies are almost always 16 and smaller.

I have also been experimenting (quite happily in most respects) with some specially made furled leaders this season, and these have been attached to the fly line using loop-to-loop or an eminently simple jam knot to tie the fly line to the loop in the leader. A clinch knot has been used to tie the 5-6 foot tippet to the silver ring in the furled leader.

Eric

[letumgo]

Welcome aboard Premerger. I am happy to see you jumping into the conversation. I see you must be reading thru some of the old posts. There is a lot of good info/discussion if you do some exploring.

[William Anderson]

The simple clinch knot is my go to, though there is a lot of room for interesting discussion here. Love seeing this thread reloaded. Thanks, Premerger.

[Mataura mayfly]

Premerger, thanks for bumping this topic back to the fore and welcome to the fold. Please be sure to check back often and feel free to contribute to our knowledge base.

Like Eric, I am a throwback....... a clinch of 5-7 turns and either standard or improved versions are all I trust (and can tie in the dark) to attach fly to tippet. Also the same knot I use for "droppering" off the bend of the front hook, clinch on the bend and clinch on the eye of the trailing hook.
The "improved" version I feel is better in fluro, standard is fine on mono, but in a hurry or at night I will often use either in either material and have confidence in both....... provided both are wetted before cinched up tight! Line burn will degrade and weaken any line regardless of the knot choice.

For fly line to leader I am less stringent, if the fly line comes with a loop, I loop to loop with a perfection loop. (How many times can you use the word loop in a sentence? ). If a standard line, I use a nail knot, or nail knot a short section of 25lb mono with a perfection loop to the end of the flyline. If a floating line, I like to seal terminal ends with zap-a-gap or similar to negate tip sink.

I spent most of my midlife (fishing wise) using pre-formed tapered leaders, now I do not, owing to frustration in finding good quality leaders that tapered correctly, gave good consistent turn over and terminated in a tippet section that was true to the packet in regard to breaking strain!
I now build my own (again on a similar method to Eric) with Maxima mono, blood knotted at the steps. I did a lot of experimentation and listening to others that build their own, I settled on 9-12' leaders having a butt end of 6' of 20-25lb mono, depending on the line weight I am using them on. If I need to lengthen a leader on the water, I will often add more 25lb mono to the butt section rather than extending the tippet by 3-5' as I find that way easier to control.

I have experimented also with furled leaders, even made an adjustable jig for their construction. I like the ideology behind them, but have not had much of a catch rate success with them. Maybe I just need to "click" on the right colour combination.

[Otter]

I have been using the Davy knot for the past two seasons. Last season seen quite a few break off's - and I ws not sure whether it was the knot or the tippet I was using. Back to the drawing boards I relaised that I was tying the davy knot incorrectly.
The few times I have been out this season, same tippet, correctly tied davy knot - ZERO break off's.

Easy to tie, even at dusk - no crinkling of tippet, tiny knot profile - can now highly recommend it.

As an aside, I got to the river last sunday evening and never in all my seasons seen such an abundance of fly life and trout. A small breeze came up just as dusk settled and I had to turn face from the clouds of Caddis and blue wings - an extraordinary sight. The fishing was crazy stuff, a fish hooked or missed EVERY single cast - I grew bored very quickly and left, but happy that the river was so healthy and pleased that there was no urge to satisfy greed despite not getting many opportunities to fish this season. I have little doubt that I could have caught a hundred trout with little effort - not that there would be any point in doing so.

[Premerger]

Thank you for the kind welcome. Yes, digging about through the site looking at old posts. Will try the Davy knot after the recommendations, always keen to avoid break offs! Now I'm trying to see which nylon members use ...

[hankaye]

Otter, Howdy;

Good to see you posting once again! Also, good to hear you've
gotten a chance to wet a fly or 2.
Had to look up the Davy Knot ...
http://www.netknots.com/fishing_knots/davy-knot
How simple can life get ???

hank & Rascal (oorp!)

[Jerry G]

For the last couple years now the Clinch or Improved Clinch knot's have been replaced with the Davy Knot on smaller flies. Because I fish a fair number of smaller flies I wanted a knot that had a few less turns and was smaller when completed. The Davy Knot gave me that but in all honesty I have had failures with it. Now perhaps this is my fault as there are those that say they have had no failures. I use almost exclusively Rio's Powerflex tippet in the smaller sizes 4X thru 7X. After having had a few to many failures I started making sure I gave the knot a good snug pull before making that first cast. On occasion I found some slippage and with that started leaving a bit more tag.

Regards, Jerry

[Smuggler]

Duncans Loop and Davy Knots, all day. Stout knots.

The Duncans loop is a great knot just for the added movement it allows for the fly.
Davys? Not much to say here, strong, reliable and way too easy to tie. I've caught some pretty heavy fish with this simple knot and got myself out of some pretty nasty snags too. Also the knot itself doesn't create a big head on the eye of your hook like most other knots.