The limited time that you have in your life for fishing should be peaceful and relaxing. However, there are some techniques that you should practice ahead of time that will really help eliminate the frustration that you can experience when things go wrong.
If you take the time to learn to cast, tie special fishing knots, set up lures and other tasks before you head to the fishing hole, you’ll waste less time and catch more fish. Tying knots can be difficult when you are on the side of a river, when your hands are wet and cold and you see fish staring at you from just under the water. Here are some of the most important knots that all fisherman should master.
Attaching Leader Line To A Hook
This is one of the most important knots to know since nearly all of the hooks and lures that you buy won’t have any leader connected to them. You should also, before you leave home, take some of your hooks and lures and attach lead to them beforehand. This will save you valuable time while fishing and it’s always easier to do under the bright lights at the kitchen table.
You will want to wrap the attached hooks and line onto a special perforated card that you can buy at the sporting goods store to keep them organized and separate. There is nothing worse than having a huge tangle of sharp hoods and leader loose in your tackle box.
The Palomar knot is the one you should learn for attaching short strands of leader to a hook. If you just use one pass through the eye of the hook, you will lose a lot of fish when the single strand of leader is stressed and then breaks. The Palomar knot uses a double strand through the eye and then reinforces it as well. It’s a knot that everyone who fishes should know.
Use Loops On The Ends Of Leader
By putting a loop knot at the end of every leader, you can quickly and easily change to a different lure or hook in just a matter of seconds. The idea is to use loops on the end of your main fishing line and then learn to quickly connect two loops together.
After you have a loop on the leader end and the mainline, you run the leader line loop through the other, and then drop your lure or hook through its own loop and pull tight. You can undo it the same way and change to a different lure in less than 10 seconds, saving hours of tying and untying while on the riverbank. These loops also help when storing your lures since you can place them all on a perforated card in neat order for quick access.
Tying fishing knots isn’t a difficult skill to learn, but the best time and place to learn them is at home with lots of light. That way you can spend your valuable fishing time pursuing fish, and less time struggling with your knots. There are hundreds of videos online that you can watch to see the different knots you need to learn so that you can practice each one until you’re proficient. You’ll also notice that you can use many of these knots in other tasks that you do and people will be amazed at your skills.
