I have been thinking about starting a fly fishing blog for a while now. In this post, I will be addressing an issue that has always bothered me when I teach fly casting classes. I'm going to address the question of--how strong does a knot need to be?
The primary purpose of knots used in fly fishing is to attach the fly line to the leader, and to attach the tippet to the fly. There are many different knots that can be used for these applications, but for this post, I will only focus on two knots--the Blood Knot and the Improved Clinch Knot.
The Blood Knot is stronger than the Improved Clinch Knot. By "stronger", I mean that the Blood Knot will hold a given amount of weight with a smaller diameter. In other words, it will allow for less loss of fly line or tippet material as compared to the Improved Clinch Knot.
A few years back, an article was written in The Drake Magazine about how strong a knot needs to be to ensure that it will not fail when using mono-filament leader material. In the article, the author stated that there is no need for knots to possess more than 40% of the breaking strength of the line being knotted.
Since then, I have always taken this advice and taught it to my students.
However, in light of some recent events, I have begun to question this advice.
Earlier this year, I was fishing a small stream in upstate New York when I hooked into a nice brown trout. The fish made a strong run downstream and quickly put some distance between us.
I began to apply pressure to the line in an attempt to bring the fish closer to me, but soon realized that I was losing line at an alarming rate.
I finally got the fish close enough to net, but only after losing almost 20 feet of fly line.
When I got home and inspected my fly line, I discovered a rather significant cut in it.
I later learned that the fly line I was using was a very low-quality line, and should not have been used on such a small stream. However, there should not have been any great stress put on the line as I played the fish, since I had already gotten him into my net.
I started to wonder if the small diameter of the fly line had anything to do with its weakness, so I decided to test it. A few days later, I went back to where I caught the fish and tested my fly line using a blood knot against another section of monofilament leader material that was in storage.
The test results showed that the diameter of the fly line was in fact a contributing factor to its weakness.
Based on these findings, I now believe that knots used in fly fishing should possess a breaking strength that is at least 50% of the line being knotted.
This new information has definitely caused me to re-evaluate my teaching methods, and I will be updating my classes to reflect this change.
What are your thoughts on the matter? Please share them in the comments section below.
More social:
