How to tie Knots

How to tie Knots: Categories

We all have to deal with knots sometimes. Whether fishing, boating, climbing a mountain or just staying home with everyday household chores you have probably at some point realized that you don’t know how to tie the knot you need. Can you tie a bowline knot, a reef knot, a figure-eight, a clove hitch or Carrick bend if someone asks you now — right away, from memory? Actually, you don’t need to. We have collected over 40 essential fishing, boating, scouting and climbing knots and knots for other purposes to help you learn new knots or to refresh your memory of the ones you already know. Animated step-by-step instructions won’t let you get confused, and a straight-forward classification system will help you find the required knot quickly and effortlessly. Save your nerves and good mood — you will need them for something else!

How to tie Knots: Lessons

Trilene Fishing Knot

The Trilene Fishing Knot is best for use with monofilament or fluorocarbon and is effective for tying line to snaps, swivels, hooks and lures. The Trilene knot is also known as the Two Turn Clinch Knot

Instructions

Surgeon's Knot

The Surgeon's Knot is one of the easiest knots to learn and is an excellent knot to join two lines of moderately unequal size.

Instructions

Blood Knot

The blood knot is a knot used for attaching two pieces of monofilament together, primarily for rebuilding tapered leaders. This is an extremely strong knot when formed properly and should be tied with monofilament close in diameter. Best use is for monofilament 10 lbs. and up.

Instructions

Albright Knot

The Albright knot is used in situations where you need to join two lines of greatly unequal diameter or of different material. Mostly used in saltwater situations, I prefer this knot for joining of fly line to backing material.

Instructions

Twisted Dropper Loop

The Twisted Dropper Loop is a variation of the dropper loop. As the dropper loop the twisted dropper loop forms a loop which is off to the side of the line. In the this variation the line is twisted before the loop is created. This stiffens the line and make it stand nicely off to the side. The twisted dropper loop can be used anytime a loop is needed in the middle of your leader.

Instructions

Surgeon's Loop Knot

The Surgeon's loop (aka Double Loop) is tied the same way as the Surgeon's knot but with a double strand. Therefore, this knot does use more line than most. It is a tad bulky but is great for making quick, strong loops at the end of lines and leaders for connecting to other loops.

Instructions

Slim Beauty knot

The "Slim Beauty" has become one of the most popular knots in saltwater fly fishing, due to both its simplicity and its performance. The Slim Beauty allows leader material of different diameters to be connected with minimal fuss and results in a high-strength knot with a very small profile. These qualities have led to it being adopted as a replacement to other classic tippet-to-shock and tippet-to-butt connections like the Albright and the Huffnagle.

Instructions

Improved Clinch Knot

This is a variation of an older clinch knot. The variation (a final tuck of the line back through a loop) makes this knot test 95 percent of the line strength.The secret of this knot is to make five turns of the tag end of the line around the standing end part before running the tag end back through the formed loop. Use for lines up to 20 pound test

Instructions

Dropper Loop

A dropper loop allows you to put a loop in the middle of your line instead of on the end of it. This knot is useful in the tying of multiple hook rigs or when trying to keep the hook off the bottom. This knot is used to attach hooks, flies, and sinkers.

Instructions

Non-Slip Mono Knot

The Non-Slip Mono Loop is also known as the “Kreh Loop” as it has been popularized by fishing legend Lefty Kreh. As its name suggests it forms a non-slip loop at the end of a fishing line. The loop connection to a fly or a lure can give the fly or lure more natural action. Some fishermen find the Kreh Loop easier to tie than the similar Rapala Knot and equally reliable.

Instructions

Orvis Knot

The Orvis Knot, the result of a contest put on by Orvis a number of years ago which was won with this knot by a man by the name of Larry Becker, is a remarkably strong and easy to tie knot. It is not a widely popular knot but independent tests show that it is one of the strongest tight-to-the-eye connections around. It works well with a wide range of tippet material diameters.

Instructions