Fly Fishing Knots for Beginners

Five joins, from the reel arbor to the hook eye. One knot for each.

From the book Fly Fishing for Nerds — $9.74 →

A trout outfit is a chain: backing on the reel, backing to the fly line, leader to the fly line, tippet to the leader, tippet to the fly. The fish pulls on the weakest seated knot in that chain. Learn the knot for the join in front of you before you collect another one.

The pieces are the first-rod setup: a reel with backing, a floating line, a 9-foot leader, and a spool of tippet. Which spool, 3X through 6X, is the tippet guide. This page is only the connections.

1. Backing to the reel

The arbor knot holds braided backing on the spool. It is a noose with a stopper. Pulling the standing line draws it tight against the arbor. Dacron is slick, so the stopper is what keeps the noose from walking off the tag.

Watch it tied → Animated Knots

1. Pass the tag of the backing around the reel arbor.
2. With that tag, tie an overhand knot around the standing backing. Snug it, and leave it loose enough to slide.
3. Tie a second overhand knot in the tag alone, about half an inch from the first, and pull that one tight. Animated Knots puts this stopper close beside the first knot. Without it, the first knot can slip off the end of the tag.
4. Pull the standing backing. The first knot slides down to the arbor, and the stopper jams against it.
5. Trim the tag to about an eighth of an inch. Wind the backing on under light tension so the jam stays on the spool.

Saliva does little here. The line is braid, not nylon, and the failure is a missing stopper or a jam that never reached the arbor. On a polished spool, an extra turn or two of backing around the arbor, before the first overhand, adds friction. Animated Knots notes that the direction matters: the turns should tighten when the reel rotates under load. If you cannot see that direction, skip the extra turns and seat the stopper. Check the jam once, before the fly line goes on. You will not see this knot again.

2. Backing to the fly line

Backing is thin. The fly line is thick and coated. The Albright knot is the join Orvis uses for that difference in diameter. It stays small enough to pass the rod guides if a fish reaches the backing.

Watch it tied → Orvis

1. Double the end of the fly line back on itself into a loop, with at least 4 inches of overlap. Pinch the base of the loop.
2. Pass 8 to 10 inches of backing through the loop.
3. Wrap the backing tag around both legs of the fly-line loop, moving toward the closed end. Orvis uses 5 to 12 turns, more when the diameters are far apart. Ten turns is the count for backing against fly line. Keep them smooth and side by side, with no gap and no turn piled on another.
4. Pass the backing tag back out through the loop. It has to leave on the same side it entered.
5. Wet the wraps. Pull the standing parts slowly and walk the coils toward the closed end of the loop. Stop before they slip off. Pull the backing tag and the standing backing in turn until the coils are tight, then pull both standing lines hard.
6. Trim both tags. Leave about an eighth of an inch of fly line past the coils. Cut into the coils, or cut that stub off entirely, and the loop can pull out of the wraps.

If the coils slip off the end of the loop while you tighten, the wraps are around nothing. Cut it off and start over. Wetting lets the coils slide into place. It is not there to save the braid from heat.

3. Leader to the fly line

Most floating trout lines ship with a welded loop. Use it. Pass one loop through the other and draw them up so they meet end to end. The join is bulkier in the guides than a nail knot, and you can change it on the bank when the leader is chewed up. On a 5-weight you rarely shoot the whole head through the guides, so the bulk is a small cost.

Loop to loop. If the leader butt has no loop, tie a surgeon's loop in the thick end first.

Watch it tied → Animated Knots

1. Double the last 5 or 6 inches of the leader butt back on itself, so you are holding a two-strand bight.
2. Tie an overhand knot with that doubled strand, then pass the bight through the loop a second time. Two passes. On a loop, a third pass adds bulk and little hold.
3. Wet the knot. Set the loop at about an inch, then pull the standing leader, the loop, and the tag until the knot is tight. Trim the tag.
4. Pass the leader loop through the fly-line loop. Pass the whole leader, fly end first, through the leader loop, and draw the two loops together.
5. The loops should sit end to end, the way two rubber bands interlock. If one loop folds back and cinches the other, you have a girth hitch. Undo it and pass the leader through again. A girth hitch hinges, and it can cut the welded loop.

4. Tippet to the leader

Tie tippet to the thin tip of the leader, not partway up the taper. Stay within one X size of that tip. The tippet guide is why a jump from 4X to 6X hinges and turns the fly over badly. Cut the piece before you tie. A surgeon's knot has to pass the whole tippet through the loop.

Double surgeon's knot. This is the bank knot. Animated Knots calls it the surgeon's join: easy to tie, and sound for two lines of moderately unequal size. A leader tip and the next spool down are that case.

Watch it tied → Animated Knots

1. Overlap the leader tip and the tippet by about 6 inches, side by side, tags pointing opposite ways.
2. Treat the two strands as one line. Form a loop and pass both tags through it. That is one turn.
3. Pass both tags through the same loop a second time. That is the double surgeon's. A third pass is the triple surgeon's.
4. Wet it. Pull all four ends until the knot draws into a short barrel. Animated Knots sets this knot by pulling all four ends, not by yanking one tag.
5. Trim both tags to about an eighth of an inch. Leave one tag about 4 to 6 inches long only when that tag will hold a second fly. After the knot is tight, the dropper should trail down the leader. If it sticks out sideways, you left the other tag long.

The surgeon's knot is bulkier than a blood knot, and it leaves a slight angle in the line. At the end of a 9-foot leader that angle stays outside the tip-top. Two turns are enough for nylon of neighboring sizes. Fluorocarbon is slicker, and two turns in it can creep. Use the third pass, wet it, and pull all four ends until the barrel is small. The extra turn is bulk. That is the trade.

5. Tippet to the fly

The improved clinch is the fly knot for nylon tippet. Animated Knots describes the improved version as one extra tuck under the last turn. Five or more turns for light line, and fewer when the line is heavier. The same page does not recommend it over about 30-pound test. Trout tippet is far under that. On a trout stream the failures are a dry cinch, and fluorocarbon.

Watch it tied → Animated Knots

1. Pass about 6 inches of tippet through the hook eye. From above or from below does not matter.
2. Hold a small loop open against the eye. Wrap the tag around the standing tippet in a neat spiral. Five complete turns for 3X or 4X. Six or seven for 5X and 6X, where fewer turns slip. Pinch the turns so they stay in order.
3. Pass the tag through the small loop beside the eye.
4. Pass the tag through the large loop that the previous step just made. That tuck is the improved clinch. Stop after the small loop and you have a plain clinch, which slips more easily. Orvis's plain clinch is that first tuck, and their steps say to let go of the tag as you tighten. Hold the tag on this knot.
5. Wet the turns. Pinch the tag so it cannot back out, hold the fly, and pull the standing tippet until the turns stack into a small barrel against the eye. Then pull the standing tippet and the fly to seat it.
6. Trim the tag to about an eighth of an inch. A tag cut flush can slip back through the tuck. Pull once more, hard, before the fly goes in the water.

If the turns pile up in one lump, or the tag slips out of the big loop, cut the tippet and retie. Pulling the tag instead of the standing line is how that tuck comes undone.

Fluorocarbon has a harder, lower-friction surface than nylon. The clinch holds because the turns bite the standing line, and on fluorocarbon those turns creep. On 5X and 6X, use six or seven wet turns and pull-test the barrel. If it slides down the standing line, the knot has failed. More than seven turns on fine tippet will not cinch. Heavier fluorocarbon is where this knot slips often enough to retire it. Wet nylon for a second reason: the turns heat as they slide. Animated Knots says to moisten a fishing knot before the final pull so it tightens without that heat. Water on a knot that is already tight never reaches the turns.

6. Wet it, then pull

Two habits cover every knot on this page except the arbor, which is braid and lives or dies by the stopper.

Wet the turns before they have to slide. Saliva is the usual lubricant. Water works. Do it before the final pull.

Then pull. A knot that slips in your fingers was going to slip on a fish. Charts that score these knots at 90 or 95 percent of the line are measuring a kinder test than a hook set on 6X. Animated Knots notes that monofilament with a knot in it commonly breaks near half of the line's ideal strength, and that claims above the half to two-thirds range deserve skepticism, because a knot bends the line sharply. Believe the pull in your hand, on the spool you are fishing.

Tie each one at a table, under a lamp, with the tippet you will fish. Cord hides a crossed turn. Five clean repetitions of one knot beat one attempt in the wind. When a knot slips, or the turns cross, cut it off and retie.

Learn them in the order a new outfit asks for them: arbor, Albright, loop-to-loop, surgeon's, improved clinch. The nail knot and the blood knot can wait until you can tie those five without this page.

Knots, tippet, and the rest of the rig get more room in Fly Fishing for Nerds: A Data-Driven Guide to Finding, Hooking, and Landing Trout. Readers can take 25% off ($9.74) with code NERDS25 at Leanpub.

The Riverbank Checklist is the one-page routine for the bank. A knot you have not pull-tested is not a finished rig.