FinsandFur.net Forums

Fishing => Freshwater => Topic started by: Okanagan on July 20, 2018, 11:36:48 AM

Title: knot for fly to tippet
Post by: Okanagan on July 20, 2018, 11:36:48 AM
Nasty, or anybody:  what knot do you use to tie fly to tippet? 

I struggled on Sunday, lost a number of brookies and flies to breaks and knots that came undone.  At my age it is unusual to be struggling with what knot to use!

For decades I used a figure 8 Turle knot, which worked but once in awhile let go.  I tried the George Harvey dry fly knot but never got it down to tie easily and quickly in bad light and instructions say that it is for flies smaller than 10.  I use more # 6 than anything else and often #4 hooks or larger.  On Sunday I started with the Double Davy, but for me it seems to break easily and once in awhile lets go.  That is not what others report so maybe I am not trying it correctly.  In frustration I broke back the tapered leader to 12 lbs. or so and went to an improved clinch knot.   I should have taken the time to change the old leader because old weak line may have been the breaking problem.

I really like the way the line comes straight out of a bent eye hook with a Turle knot.  I just noticed a YouTube video of a three wrap version of a Turle knot put out by Rio fly lines.  It looks like it will hold but I have not tried it.

What say you, anybody?



Title: Re: knot for fly to tippet
Post by: nastygunz on July 20, 2018, 04:28:34 PM
"You have securely joined all the pieces of your tackle system â€" backing, line, leader, tippet and fly â€" and you have learned the basic knots of fly-fishing. The most important of these is the Improved Clinch Knot â€" the one you use to tie on your flies â€"because you will use it the most."

I mostly use the improved clinch knot. For Pike,Bass,stripers, bigger fish with bigger flies or streamers I usually use a Palomar knot.

I also use these fast clips pretty much all the time they make it so much easier to change flies and you don't have to keep a retying and clipping your tippet:

(https://image.ibb.co/cZ7T6y/image.jpg) (https://ibb.co/kXWAKJ)
[img]https://image (https://ibb.co/gVSZeJ)
Title: Re: knot for fly to tippet
Post by: nastygunz on July 20, 2018, 04:38:30 PM
 When it is dark or cold or raining and my fingers are frozen I find simple is best so that's why I usually stick with the Clinch knot. It sounds to me like you said it might be a line problem rather than a knot problem.
Title: Re: knot for fly to tippet
Post by: Okanagan on July 21, 2018, 09:04:13 AM
The more I think about it the more I am pretty sure it was bad line.  It was my first fly rod foray of the season and I just went with the leader that was on there.  I put on new leader yesterday and am wondering whether to make another trip up there or wait till Fall. 

Re the little fly clips:  Good reminder.   I like them for some uses, not so much for others. I should use them more for regular fly fishing.   A friend I fish with loves to troll flies and we use them when trolling streamers.  I like them for very small lures, like the tiny spoons we use for shad.  They make it easy to change flies but one time when we trolled there was no question that the clip was not getting bites like a no clip line. Usually they make no difference.   I haven't used them most fly casting, nor with dry flies, though use them for big salmon flies sometimes. 

In asking around, it has surprised me how many fly fishermen use an improved clinch knot to tie on a fly.  It is an excellent knot, always my fall back knot, but I keep hoping for something more form fitting to bent eye hooks.  I am going to try the RIO fly line version of Turle a few times because I like the way the lines comes straight out of the bent eye hooks.

We need to get into feeding trout and give this some serious testing!  A few times I've been on lakes in BC when big moth type bugs are coming out of the water and trout averaging 2 lbs. are rising all over the lake.  It sounds like pigs feeding on soupy slop. 


Title: Re: knot for fly to tippet
Post by: nastygunz on July 21, 2018, 10:01:29 AM
 I am convinced I could go anywhere in the world and catch trout on a White Miller dry fly, my go to!
Title: Re: knot for fly to tippet
Post by: nastygunz on July 21, 2018, 10:09:27 AM
Best tool ever!

https://youtu.be/XJUXmde-Uz4
Title: Re: knot for fly to tippet
Post by: nastygunz on July 21, 2018, 10:11:08 AM
Im also a big fan of the Uni-Knot.
Title: Re: knot for fly to tippet
Post by: Okanagan on July 21, 2018, 12:01:34 PM
Nasty, you are an encyclopedia of info!  I asked in the right place!

I have never used the nail knot tool, am pretty good at tying the nail knot, but that makes it a lot easier.   I will pick one up.

During my knot quest of recent days I also discovered using a hackle plier or maybe better, a forceps, to grip the end of a tippet and use it to tie a fly to tippet knot.  It makes tying the Double Davy super easy, and makes a clinch knot much easier.  YouTube videos.

One summer when driving across a bridge on the Columbia River in Castlegar (?) British Columbia just before sunset, there was the most amazing hatch of white moths I have ever seen.  It was like a blinding blizzard, could barely see the road and my windshield was running goo before I was halfway across the bridge.  Only one fly fisherman was wading and casting in the river below.   The trout must have been going berserk. 

I have a white moth fly but have not fished it in ages.  Next trip!  A major fly for the interior of BC is called a Green Sedge, which is a name for a moth.  The bugs come in variations of grey and green  or brown body with grey or brownish wings and when they are emerging from a lake, the trout pig on them.  A fly called a Grizzly King is close enough to work. 

My most productive flies have been a Black Doc Spratley, a sparsely tied Dragonfly Nymph (hard to find it tied that way), Muddler Minnow (usually fished dry which I assume looks like a grasshopper), long shank Royal Coachman or California Coachman,  Golden Pheasant, a small Renegade in #10 or 12, Green Sedge, Black Gnat with red butt, and a thing called a Bivisible in brown and white.  Our trout have not read eastern fly fishing books, and they seem to think that a sloppy big fly landing with a splash indicates a full meal deal rather than being spooked by it. 



Title: Re: knot for fly to tippet
Post by: nastygunz on July 21, 2018, 01:09:27 PM
 I have had some spectacular successes with the bi vis!  I don't know if I am a wealth of information on flyfishing but I am very enthusiastic about it, it has been a calling my whole life. The first three years i fly fished  the only fly i used was a muddler minnow!
Title: Re: knot for fly to tippet
Post by: Okanagan on July 22, 2018, 09:51:52 AM
My favorite bi-visbles are all gone and I have not been able to find any more tied like them.  They were tied sparsely with very long hackle or fibers or whatever they make the "hair" out of.  Then I fished them wet, like a streamer.  Big rainbows loved them in # 6 or 4.

Many years ago when I lived in the middle of good, close by fly fishing, I fly fished frequently much of the year and did not yet know much about.  I bought quite a few from a primitive resort on a lake where I often fished.  They were all tied very sparse and very hard.  Man they were tough.  They lasted through many fish without getting soft or chewed up, and they were super effective on trout.  They worked.

I never asked the resort people who tied their flies but wish I had.  As the years went by, we moved, and those flies are no longer available.  I see many flies of the same name or pattern and turn up my nose at them because I recall how that person tied them and the current ones do not match up.  I could spot that tyer's flies in a moment, and one time found some of them in a country store a few miles from the resort. 

I've been looking at flies online, very low price, but am wary of what I might be getting.  I have a lot of flies but need to replenish my old favorites, some of which are entirely gone. 



Title: Re: knot for fly to tippet
Post by: nastygunz on July 22, 2018, 10:40:29 AM
 I always keep my eyes peeled on craigslist for flies for sale and also local auctions. I buy from this company also :

https://www.bigyflyco.com

I really like fishing with terrestrials, like big grasshoppers especially are fun on trout and bass.
Title: Re: knot for fly to tippet
Post by: FinsnFur on July 23, 2018, 09:12:42 PM
 :wo: never heard of it.
I use the Rapala knot.
Title: Re: knot for fly to tippet
Post by: nastygunz on July 23, 2018, 09:23:14 PM
 Dear Lord please use your grace and higher power to turn Jim champion towards the divine light of the flyrod, amen.  :innocentwhistle:
Title: Re: knot for fly to tippet
Post by: Todd Rahm on July 23, 2018, 10:44:30 PM
When I tie them I use a similar tool and knot that Nasty posted up, but here lately I have been using the loops more often then "knot"  :alscalls:

I have a handful of variations on that tool but the coolest looks like a fish skeleton and is on my key ring.  :biggrin:
Title: Re: knot for fly to tippet
Post by: slagmaker on July 24, 2018, 02:26:54 AM
I want to learn fly fishing so bad. I have a rod and reel setup that my cousin Baloo gave me a couple years ago but I really need a teacher so I can learn to cast properly. Right now my casting looks like I am shooing flies away.
Title: Re: knot for fly to tippet
Post by: nastygunz on July 24, 2018, 04:15:31 AM
 One good day with a professional instructor will cut years off your learning curve. There are also some good videos on YouTube that might help.  Hit me up anytime if there are any questions you have that I might be able to help you with I'm not too bright but I try hard  :innocentwhistle:  I would also look around your area if you could for a Trout Unlimited chapter, you could probably get a ton of help from them also and possibly some coaching for free.

https://www.tu.org/connect/chapters-councils-near-you

A lot of the state fish and game department often offer free fly fishing seminars and classes also I would check your home state website for that also.
Title: Re: knot for fly to tippet
Post by: slagmaker on July 24, 2018, 05:55:26 AM
I will do that when I get home. First thing I really need to do is put new line and such on this as what is on it is probably 10 years old
Title: Re: knot for fly to tippet
Post by: nastygunz on July 24, 2018, 09:43:55 AM
 Putting a new line On will make a huge difference. I would get as good a one as you can afford.
Good read:

https://blueridgemountainlife.com/fly-fishing-for-beginners-a-complete-guide/
Title: Re: knot for fly to tippet
Post by: Okanagan on July 24, 2018, 11:13:52 AM
Quote from: nastygunz on July 24, 2018, 09:43:55 AM
Putting a new line On will make a huge difference. I would get as good a one as you can afford.
Good read:

https://blueridgemountainlife.com/fly-fishing-for-beginners-a-complete-guide/

An old time fly fisherman friend of mine once told me that the line is far the most important item of fly fishing and that a good line with a mediocre rod is far better than the reverse.  Don't know if that is true but he was good.  I haven't spent a lot on line, but have gotten by with sale items and over the years gradually improved by upgrading when something excellent is on sale. Line weight MUST match the rod weight.  Each will have a number, like #5 line and # 5 rod.

A half hour of casting alongside someone who knows what he is doing would be superb.  I like to stand on a dock that extends into a lake so you have wide open space in front and behind you for backcast.  For most fly fishing, you don't need to cast very far. 

The huge mistake almost everyone makes when starting to fly fish is that they over do, overpower and put too much effort and muscle into it.  It is a light touch, subtle nuance thing, that feels wonderful when right even if no fish bites.  Good gear used with the right timing always has a good feel to it IME whether in a shotgun, bait caster or fly rod.

The second error universal is to force the rod tip too far forward and too far back on each cast.  That makes the line drive toward the ground rather than ahead, and is super frustrating as a man adds more and more force to try to get the line to go where he wants but is unconsciously directing it down into the water too close in front of him.  With the rod tip straight up like a clock hand at 12:00, do not go farther than 2:00 on back cast nor farther ahead/downward than 10:00 on front cast.  All the fly fishing instructions say this and they are right.  When you master that you can work on the exceptions like side casts under overhanging brush...


(I love it when wading BC lakes and a trout grabs my fly behind me when I make a sloppy backcast that sags to the water.  When that happens, they are feeding!)

For 20 years I used nothing but a $5 discount bin fiberglass fly rod and a low cost level line.  (Fly lines come in various "tapers", like thicker in the middle, thicker on the front end, or the same diameter for full length, which is called a level line).    Probably caught more fish on that $5 rod than all my others combined since because I fly fished a lot in those years and lived in the middle of some of the world's best fly fishing.  My son took over that rod, used straight 6 lb. mono for a leader and was a trout slayer like rich New York yuppie fly fishermen only dream of.

On a back pack trip one summer, I watched him wading a wide thigh deep flat in a lake near timberline with rising trout all around him.  He hooked a trout almost every cast and got to laughing when one of them ran between his legs after taking the fly.  Dazzling sun, laughing 14 year old, wonderful memory. 

I'm not a purist but a pragmatic fly fisherman.  I just like to catch fish and when trout are eating bugs, it is likely the most effective way to fish, plus it is a pleasurable way compared to heavier rods and reels. 

Title: Re: knot for fly to tippet
Post by: nastygunz on July 24, 2018, 11:23:32 AM
Great post! Especially about the line.  It's funny how the fiberglass gave way too high tech graphite and other substances over the years and now there has been a sweep back towards the fiberglass because of the beautiful action it has. If you look around and get a chance to pick up an old fiberglass fly rod I would highly recommend it or even buy a new one which they now market once again.  I like the classics, old cars,guns and old fly rods.
Like Okanagan said, simple is best!
Title: Re: knot for fly to tippet
Post by: Hawks Feather on July 24, 2018, 02:38:25 PM
I have never really taken the time to learn how to throw flies.  Years ago I too, a couple hour class at L.L.Bean's main store. We went out to a couple of strips of water (no fish) and tied a small piece of pipe cleaner on the line to represent a fly.  I got pretty good - not at throwing the pipe cleaner fly, but at popping those suckers off.   :rolleye: While I am not sure I think the guy giving the lessons was about ready to tell me to stick to rifles.

Jerry
Title: Re: knot for fly to tippet
Post by: nastygunz on July 24, 2018, 03:31:22 PM
 I have Bull whipped a few fly cast in my day ha ha.
Title: Re: knot for fly to tippet
Post by: Okanagan on July 24, 2018, 03:56:28 PM
Hawk, you shoulda seen the despair in the only instructor who ever gave me skiing lessons.

Hey, Nasty, thanks for the link to Big Fly.  Wide selection of fly patterns compared to other fly selling sites, and great prices.  I am making up a list to order but man those internet fly outfits sure limit the sizes on most flies to dinky stuff.

They have a dry fly called a cinnamon sedge that looks deadly if fished in one of our sedge hatches, except that the biggest they sell is size #12.  I'd like it in #6.  Our sedges are kind of a medium size moth.  From reading their site, it looks like what people in BC call sedges is what the US people call caddis. 

I could pick up a few patterns I want in in larger sizes in the steelhead/salmon section but they are way more expensive, might as well buy them locally.

You all are a baaaad influence.  I am debating whether to drive all the way five hours back up there to go another round with the big brook trout in the moose pond.  I should wait till October and have a deer tag in my pocket, or November with a moose tag.  Next time I will take a skillet along to the shoreline. 


Title: Re: knot for fly to tippet
Post by: nastygunz on July 24, 2018, 04:52:25 PM
" I should wait till October and have a deer tag in my pocket, or November with a moose tag ".

He who hesitates is lost.

Time (and trout) waits for no man.

Never put off until October what you can do in July.

:innocentwhistle: :innocentwhistle: :yoyo:
Title: Re: knot for fly to tippet
Post by: nastygunz on July 24, 2018, 05:07:46 PM
 This is an article I wrote about a trout from long ago and it reminds me of Okanagans trout that he is thinking about, trout do that to a man:


TRUE STORY !
------------------
THE KING TROUT

Memories, like a short film or snapshot in your head, some good some bad. I have many memories of my experiences as an outdoorsman and fly fishermen. I carry a camera in my fishing vest to capture some of the scenes I encounter as I am stalking the elusive trout, mostly to share my experiences with family and friends.

But the most vivid and vibrant pictures I have I carry around in my head, and try to share them with people through my writing. Memories that range from early childhood to the present.. One of my earliest and clearest memories was of the little spring fed brook behind our cabin in Groton, Vermont.

It came from an underground spring across the power line behind the cabin, bubbling up through a rich layer of coal black silt that looked like black velvet, with a sprinkling of bone white sand disgorged from the underground source of the water. The brook draining out of the spring hole averages about 1 to 3 feet wide and at its deepest spots no more then 2 feet deep, its water ice cold enough to numb your hands and turn them bright red.

It runs through a variety of terrain as it crosses the power line which is heavily covered in blackberry bushes and other cut over area growth then reaches the other side of the power line and sluices down between to big, wet, moss and lichen encrusted boulders forming a perfect natural spigot where we used to fill our water jugs as kids. Once when I was going to fetch water I saw 2 big Brook Trout laying half in and half out of the water by the boulders as they spawned, their brilliant colors slick and wet, and neon, like a new oil painting.

From there it runs down through a pine forest, meandering and weaving its way between boulders and large pine trees until it infiltrates a thick, dark damp cedar forest. After running its course for a tumbling, gurgling mile or so, it reaches its end destination, a small very dense combination meadow and cedar swamp. I did not know it until I grew up and became “educated” but the swamp is a wetland with an amazing variety of wildlife.

As a kid it was a swamp full of turtles and frogs and rabbits and ducks. Best of all it was also full of trout. There are a series of small channels running through the swamp and over the years of grass growing up then falling over the channels they have almost become underwater tunnels. We used to quietly walk up to the channels and using our hands gently make holes in the grass so we could drop a worm down in the water of the tunnel.

When we dropped our baited hooks down into the tunnel we would often have instant strikes from brook trout that were very unusual as they were a dark purplish black from living in the tunnels. There were a lot of them and sometimes they grew to significant sizes. The same swamp was a favorite hotspot for running our beagles rabbit hunting in the winter time and always a good bet for some partridge during bird season.

One of my funniest and favorite memories of the brook is when I was 6 years old I was fishing the brook with my standard issue willow branch and about 5 feet of line. I dropped my worm into a hole where the brook ran between 2 huge dark gnarled cedar trees making a waterfall and a small deep dark hole under their roots and got an instant bite and reared back like The Mad Fishermen, Charlie Moore on a 12 pound largemouth.

The result of this expeditious application of force was the biggest Brook Trout I have ever seen to date from the brook came flopping up onto the bank and as I stood there in shock, flopped right back down into the hole whence he came from. It all happened so fast I did not even have time to try the desperate fishermen's dive after the trophy, that every fishermen has tried at one time or another. After that experience I got up every morning before school and tried the lunker hole and every night bee lined there to try my hand at capturing the King Trout, with no luck at all, not even a nibble.

About a week after the initial engagement between the King Trout and I, I went back down to the brook to go fishing on a nice Saturday morning with my older sister Dawn. To this day I don't know why she went as she never fished or hunted and doesn't till this day. As we were fishing our way down the brook in the initial moments I was not watching her, as I considered her a non-threat for competition for the best fishing holes, unlike my brothers who were hostile, agile, and mobile.

I was fishing and focused on the hole when all of a sudden I heard a scream and looked up and Dawn was at the lunker hole and had pulled the King Trout out of his hole and he was flopping on the bank as she threw her pole down on the ground and was screaming and crying Jimmy! Jimmy!. I dropped my pole and sprinted over to the hole just as the King Trout flopped back into the hole, again, like an instant replay of the first time I hooked him.

I think I yelled at her at the time even though she was older then me and used to beat me up pretty regularly at the time. I tried that hole for many years afterwards and never again saw or hooked the King Trout. And I have always had those memories, of the King Trout flopping on the bank, twice, and my sister screaming, irreplaceable and priceless, and 20 years later I still catch beautiful native Brook Trout out of the brook, and the very same hole I almost caught the King Trout out of. In an odd way I think I know how the old fishermen in the Hemingway Book “The Old Man and the Sea” felt.

When I was a kid I obsessed about catching the King Trout, now that I am older, I am glad I never did catch him, because now he lives forever in my mind.
Title: Re: knot for fly to tippet
Post by: Okanagan on July 24, 2018, 08:30:31 PM
GREAT story!  Thanks!

Title: Re: knot for fly to tippet
Post by: nastygunz on July 24, 2018, 09:07:37 PM
Can you tell I love trout? :innocentwhistle:😇
Title: Re: knot for fly to tippet
Post by: FinsnFur on July 24, 2018, 10:06:37 PM
No we cant.  :laf: :alscalls:

I'm still laughing at Jerrys post..."popping those suckers off" :laugh2:
Title: Re: knot for fly to tippet
Post by: weedwalker on September 28, 2018, 09:14:39 AM
I tie my leaders onto my fly line with a nail knot. And my leaders are just stepped down weights of mono. On my 4wt rod, I start with about 2 1/2' of 20# mono, then about 2 1/2' of 10# mono, then about 4' of either 6# or 4# flourocarbon line for my tippet, depending on what I'm fishing for. Except for the nail knot to the fly line, all the other lines are joined by a double surgeons loop knot, which is just a double overhand loop knot. I've never had a loop knot break.
My 6wt rod I step down my leaders with 30# mono, 20# mono, 10# flourocabon, then maybe 6# flourocaron.
My 8wt rod, 30# mono, 20# mono, 15# mono. Mostly for muskie or bigger smallmouth flies.
Title: Re: knot for fly to tippet
Post by: nastygunz on September 28, 2018, 05:02:45 PM
I just buy tapered leaders, I'm lazy 😇
Title: Re: knot for fly to tippet
Post by: weedwalker on September 29, 2018, 05:56:17 PM
Quote from: nastygunz on September 28, 2018, 05:02:45 PM
I just buy tapered leaders, I'm lazy 😇

:biggrin: I've got 1000s of yards of all sizes line. I'm too cheap to buy what I can make.
Title: Re: knot for fly to tippet
Post by: nastygunz on September 29, 2018, 06:40:30 PM
 If I am fishing the Brooks up in Vermont for native brookies with my 6 foot 2 weight fly rod I skip a tapered leader and just go directly from the fly line to about 3 feet of 2 to 4 pound flurocarbon.

(https://image.ibb.co/iqcn6z/image.jpg)v
Title: Re: knot for fly to tippet
Post by: Okanagan on September 30, 2018, 08:27:35 AM
FWIW I figured out how to tie a Palomar knot by threading the end of the leader through the hook eye rather than by the usual way of pushing the doubled end of the line through.  It works on small flies and I used it on my recent Yukon safari. Very small knot that is strong.

Title: Re: knot for fly to tippet
Post by: centerfire_223 on October 01, 2018, 06:13:50 AM
I use a double Davie knot when I am tying small size line. I use the same knot for my bass fishing size lines to but I throw in 5 wraps instead of 2. It's a super strong knot.
Title: Re: knot for fly to tippet
Post by: nastygunz on October 03, 2018, 05:52:03 PM
Big Y fly company:

4th Annual Clearance Sale, 10% Beadheads & Fly Tying