Secrets to Tying Good Fishing Knots, with Robert Ketley
Podcast Transcript:
Tom: Hi, and welcome to "The Orvis Fly Fishing Podcast." This is your host, Tom Rosenbauer. And my guest this week is Robert Ketley. I've long admired Robert's writing in "California Fly Fisher" magazine. He really gets into some very [00:00:30.199] scientific and detailed examination of some of the things we do in fly fishing. And I'd say he gets geeky in a nice way. I mean that as a compliment.
And one of the things Robert did recently was really examine how we tie knots, why knots break, where they break, do they slip, all these things. And he examined them with a microscope, and he did a lot of postmortem of [00:01:00.259] the knots after they broke. And I think that what he learned is going to help all of us in tying better knots.
Now, full warning, if you want Robert to tell you which knot is best, he's not going to do that, but he is going to tell you how to tie the best knots using your favorite knot. So it's some really interesting stuff as usual. So I think you'll enjoy this, and I think you'll see some [00:01:30.200] improvement in your own knots after listening to this podcast, at least I hope so.
But before we talk to Robert, let's do the fly box, which is where you ask me questions or offer some tips. And I try to answer them or I try to find the answer to your question. And if you would like to ask me a question or pass along a tip to other listeners, you can reach me at
"Just wanted to start off by saying thanks for the podcast and all Orvis does. I'll get right to it. My question is about the new Helios rods. I currently have one of the new Helios [00:02:30.419] series in 905F. It's an amazing all-around trout workhorse from fishing indicator rigs to throwing light drives far and accurately. I love the F series of rods because tippet protection is one of my top priorities. I'm currently looking into getting a higher-end rod for Great Lakes steelhead fishing, which I do very often, living under an hour away from Steelhead Alley.
In these waters, it's not uncommon for me to be fishing down to 5X in the gin clear and low waters [00:03:00.060] of the fall season. I'm curious as to how the 10-foot 7-Weight Helios D would fare for this application overall since the D series is not coveted for its tippet protection. Thanks again for everything you and Orvis do."
Well, John, although the F series in the Helios is touted for its tippet protection because the rods do flex a little bit more, I don't think [00:03:30.120] that's probably the most important aspect of the F series. The F series is more for delicacy and feel in a cast. It's a rod that's just a little bit more comfortable with a slower casting stroke, but I think the main advantage of the F series is finesse or delicacy.
I would not worry about the D series with tippet protection. I use both F and D rods and I've never noticed that the D series offered me any less [00:04:00.120] tippet protection. You have to understand that the D series rods are still a progressive flexing profile, which means as you apply more pressure, the rod's going to bend more deeply down into the blank, into the section. So I have never noticed any less tippet protection on the D series and I don't think you should worry about that. Again, it's not an overly stiff or unyielding rod. It's still quite a progressive action. [00:04:31.040]
Here's another rod question, a lot of rod questions this week on Helios rods. This one's from Mike from Texas. "Hey, Tom, I'm not much of a podcast listener, but discovered your podcast about six months ago and I've been thoroughly enjoying it. On Mondays, I have an hour and a half commute and I look forward every week to listening to the podcast during the commute.
My in-laws own a cabin fishing resort on the north end of Henrys Lake in Idaho and I've gone many times to stillwater fish Henrys Lake. I am more experienced in river [00:05:00.100] and stream fly fishing, but I learned to stillwater fish on Henrys Lake with my father-in-law and really enjoy it. I'm sad to say that even though I've been up there many times, I've never fished the Henrys Fork River. I've fished other rivers in the Yellowstone area, but not the Henrys Fork and it's on my bucket list. That's probably way more information than you needed or wanted.
Now my question. If you were to bring one Helios 4 rod to fish the Henrys Fork, what would it be? Thanks for answering our questions [00:05:30.220] and for being such a great educator."
Mike, that's an easy one. I fished the Henrys Fork quite a bit. I fish it at least once a year. It's one of my favorite rivers. It's not an easy river and sometimes it's not even easy to find a good-sized rising fish, but it's an incredibly beautiful river with amazing hatches and spectacular scenery. It's all wadable. If you've seen it, you [00:06:00.019] know all this stuff. I typically fish it in the fall when there are fewer crowds. I'm mainly fishing small flies. My go-to rod there is the 9-foot 408, the Helios 904F because it has the finesse to sneak up behind those big Henrys Fork rainbows and deliver a fly without spooking the fish. It works really well with small flies.
If I were to fish it [00:06:30.120] in June when the bigger Brown Drakes or Green Drakes are on the river, then I might go to a 905F, but I would definitely choose...whether you choose a 4 or 5. It depends on what time of year you're going. Anytime after June, probably it would be a 4-weight, and if you're fishing in June when those bigger flies are on the water, probably a 5-weight because you will get some wind. Even with the wind, for most of the year, I'd still pick the 904F. [00:07:01.160] I hope that's helpful.
Here's one from Trey from West Virginia. "This year we've had the worst drought in a very, very long time. There is a wild stream here in eastern West Virginia that was greatly affected and pretty much dried up. It was one of the best wild trout streams in the state and held very large brown and rainbow trout. Do you think a drought like this would kill a lot of the fish? Where do the fish go during a major drought like this? How long, if at all, until the stream [00:07:30.019] can recover? Thanks for all that you do."
Trey, that's an interesting question because it's something that I've thought of a local trout stream that I live very close to, which is experiencing the same problems this year. Honestly, I am not sure. Even on this stream, I know intimately I had a lot more fish in the stretch that I fish in June and July and they're not there anymore. [00:08:00.860] The state was in and electroshocked it a couple of weeks ago and found a decent amount of fish, but not the fish that I was actually seeing in June and July.
The fish moved somewhere. I don't know and I asked the biologist, I said, "Do you think they go upstream for cooler water temperatures, or do they go downstream to find bigger water and deeper pools? They [00:08:30.699] didn't have an answer. I don't know either, but I think it could happen both ways. Sometimes the headwaters of streams higher up have actually deeper pools than the midsection because they get into a stair step or a plunge pool area and they have deeper pools that will help protect the trout. And, of course, the water is cooler.
Sometimes the fish will drop downstream to find bigger water when the water that they're in for the rest of the [00:09:00.139] year becomes very thin. I don't know what happens in your particular stream, and it could be a combination of both things. Some fish may move up and some fish may move down, but they're going to look for deeper water and more protection. They're protected by depth and by riffles earlier in the season from predators, but as that water drops, the riffles settle down, and the water drops and they're more exposed to predators. [00:09:32.360]
Unless your stream gets too warm, that's going to be the determining factor of whether fish survive or not. If it gets too warm, of course, some fish are going to die because they can't get enough oxygen, but if it just gets thin, they're probably going to move. The problem is that when they move, there may just not be enough places to hold all of the fish to protect them from predators. That's [00:10:00.399] the biggest thing. You lose habitat as the water drops. You lose places for fish to live and feed and still be protected from predators.
We see this in our small streams here in Vermont that I live on. If we have a couple of summers of pretty high water, the small streams fish really well because more fish have survived over the winter and over the season. Then if we have a [00:10:30.299] couple of low water summers, then there aren't as many fish there because a lot of them got exposed to predators and were eaten.
So how long? It doesn't take long, usually. Depending on the growth rate and stream, it doesn't take long for the fish to repopulate. Some of the fish are going to survive and you get a good water year and a good spawn year. As long as the water quality stays good, the fish are going to come back pretty quickly within [00:11:00.299] a year or two. Again, it depends on the growth rate and how much food they have and how much water they have. I don't have a solid answer for you, but they will go somewhere during a drought and they will recover as long as the habitat recovers.
Here's an email from Sam, also from West Virginia. "Two quick questions for you. I recently did a trip to the Rangeley Lakes region of Maine [00:11:30.019] for a fly fishing trip. One of the rivers I fished most was the Kennebago. This river is very different from the smaller streams and creeks I fish in the mid-Atlantic Appalachian area. Kennebago is wide and deep in some places and the trout seem to be using the deeper channel to swim up the river in preparation for spawning.
To be able to get my flies in that deeper channel, I had to wade out to almost waist-deep and cast another 20-plus feet. Question number one, when I picked up the line and made a cast, I always noticed the [00:12:00.080] ripples and waves I made with my body while I cast. Are there techniques to avoid this when wading in deep calm waters?
Number two, this was the first trip that I was very successful swinging wet flies. However, one section of the river where I was fishing, I had no backcast due to the vegetation. After swinging, my line is completely straight downstream for me. A roll cast was necessary, but I was always unsuccessful trying to roll cast with all that line downstream. How do I roll cast after swinging [00:12:30.299] a wet fly?"
Well, Sam, I think I got a couple of good answers here for you. One is learn to cast without moving your body. When you're trout fishing, you really don't need to use much of your lower body at all. It's basically your shoulder and arm, and those aren't going to be underwater. What I would suggest to keep those ripples from forming is to, once you get into position where you're going to [00:13:00.059] cast, make sure that you're in a nice solid position. Make sure that both feet are comfortably planted and that your balance is good.
Face your target. Face where you're going to cast, and then just try not to move your lower body. You shouldn't need to move your lower body. Getting into position, you should also avoid those ways, but just plant your feet and try not to cast using your body.
Regarding [00:13:30.179] your second question, I get in situations like this too, and the best way to solve this is to learn a couple of two-handed casts. Now, you're probably using a single-handed fly rod, maybe a short one. It doesn't matter. You can do a snap-T or a double spey with a regular trout rod. In fact, Simon Gawesworth actually wrote a book on using spey casts on single-handed rods. This [00:14:00.059] is extremely helpful. This will allow you to get your line into position for another roll cast and then get it out across stream or down and across.
What I would advise you to do is maybe go on the Orvis Learning Center and learn two casts. Learn the snap-T and the double spey. Those two casts are basically the ones I use when I'm two-handed casting. They're the two that are the most useful. You can learn other [00:14:30.000] ones too, if you want. But yeah, I would go and practice some of those two-handed casts and use them with your single-handed rod.
Sylvan: Hi, Tom. I was catching up on his show back in May and wanted to comment and ask a question about something that was brought up. Someone had called in and essentially asked whether using a fly rod while canoeing was technically fly fishing. My comment is that here in Maine, from [00:15:00.100] what I've heard on fly fishing-only ponds, wardens have been known to write tickets for trolling your fly line. There had been quite a debate whether it's technically fly fishing or not, but I guess their thinking is that since you're not actually casting the line, they don't consider it fly fishing. So just a heads up for anyone coming to visit.
Sticking with the canoe topic, I take my 6-year-old daughter out quite a bit on our canoe, but they're not trips where I can just anchor and fish to a [00:15:30.059] certain spot. We have to keep moving around. I have a small trolling motor for that reason, and in case it's too windy, I don't have to paddle too hard since she's not much help. So I end up mostly just trolling my fly line behind the canoe and never really catching any fish.
My question is about sinking lines. I've always wondered how deep those sinking lines actually go while the canoe is moving because it seems that no matter how much line I let out, it seems [00:16:00.120] to stay, like, fairly close to the top and it doesn't really seem to get much depth. I know while paddling it's not a very constant motion, and I've tried to play with the trolling motor a little bit to get that speed right, but it seems kind of hard to figure out.
Sometimes I bring my rod with a full sinking line if I think there's, like, no shot at stopping, and sometimes I bring my rod with just a sink tip leader if I think I'll be able to cast more. So [00:16:30.120] I just want to know if you have any tips or suggestions on using a sinking line like that from a canoe or a small boat I guess. Thank you very much.
Tom: So Sylvan, that's an interesting tip. And I don't fish Maine a lot, and when I fish Maine I usually fish river. So I didn't realize that you can't troll in some lakes, but I looked it up and it's the [00:17:00.980] legislative rule 12658, unlawfully trolling fly. "Prohibition. A person may not troll a fly in inland waters restricted to fly fishing." So that's a good tip. If you are fishing in a fly fishing-only pond or lake in Maine, don't troll because it's illegal and you can be fined.
Regarding getting your trolled fly a little bit deeper, [00:17:32.400] often the fish will come up... When you're trolling, often the fish will come up for the fly, so you don't have to be that deep. But if you do need to troll deeper, try going slower for one thing. You can go pretty slowly with an electric motor. And then you definitely want to use a full sinking line, a Type 5, or even heavier. You want to get the fastest sink rate, [00:18:01.480] full sinking fly line that you can, and troll a little slower.
You might even put on a weighted fly with a little bit longer leader, although weighted fly may not troll the way you want it to, but that'll help get you down a little bit. But you're not going to get that super deep trolling a fly rod. People that troll deep in lakes use conventional tackle and cannonballs [00:18:30.339] or whatever to get their line down, and we don't really have that option in fly fishing. But I think you'll be able to pick up those fish in a little bit shallower water.
Here's an email from Wesley. "I was fishing in September on the Niangua in Missouri." I hope I pronounced that right. "Determined to use the tight line method, I had a 9-foot 3-weight, and according to Troutbitten, a standard Mono Rig leader that I had tied myself. Well, as close to their formula as [00:19:00.099] I could get, the water was low and slow compared to normal flow rates that I've experienced in the past. There were some deep pockets that were up to my waist but mostly 2 to 3 feet deep for most of the river.
As you know, there are no native trout in Missouri, but some waters do hold wild trout. These trout in the Niangua are all stocked and maybe a few holdovers, at least to my understanding. There are some brown trout, but mostly rainbows. As I'm fishing, I can see trout all around me. I can see them on the bottom flashing at times and very rarely rising, [00:19:30.220] but when they do, they jump clean out of the water. This is a party river. They're very used to people floating and wading in the river.
I would think fishing in waters like this would be like shooting fish in a barrel. Well, not for me. I talked to the owner at my local fly shop in Independence, Missouri, before I went down to the river. And, of course, he said a Woolly Bugger was the way to go. He's not wrong because that is one of the two flies that I've always been successful with on this river. I fished hard. I left nothing on the table except for changing to [00:20:00.079] a floating line and going back to my comfort zone.
I did not give in. I fished most of the morning and after a break to get some more food to stay another night. I fished for another three hours. Not one fish, not one after trying about six to eight different flies. I thought that maybe they knew what fly had on, so I tried a two-fly setup to try to trick them. Not one bite.
This is a spring-fed river, one upstream for me and one downstream. I took the temperature and it read 60, [00:20:30.339] just as I thought. It was not a complete loss. In my time that day, I realized my fly was not sinking fast enough to get the short dead drift that I was aiming for with a 9-foot 3-weight. I realized that my Mono Rig was on the water, preventing my fly from sinking. I extended my tippet another 3 feet so that I could cut through the water and sink faster. This gave me the contact to the fly that I needed and the depth that I was looking for. After this adjustment, I still didn't even get one bite. [00:21:00.319] Do you have any thoughts why I was unsuccessful? Thanks for all you do. Love the podcast."
Well, Wesley, despite the fact that those are mostly hatchery fish and there's a lot of people around, hatchery fish can get surprisingly selective in a stream, particularly after they've held over for a while. They see a lot of flies and they get suspicious. They get even more suspicious, [00:21:30.180] I think, than wild trout, believe it or not.
The one thing that I would have tried, you didn't say what size fly you were using. I would think that those fish were probably feeding on very small nymphs, midge larvae, or midge pupae. You didn't say how small you went, but to me, it sounds like they were feeding on midges. I would have fished probably [00:22:00.119] a bigger fly to get my little fly down with that tight line rig. Then a very light tippet, 6 or 7x, so that you cut through the water. Then a really small trailing fly on the dropper, say a 20, 22, even a 24. That is all I can recommend.
Sometimes on really bright days, fish are very difficult to catch. If it was a really bright sunny day, it [00:22:30.000] might have been tough. I would think going to a really tiny fly would be one thing to try, not knowing anything else.
Here's an email from Tom from California. "My question concerns a technique for playing larger trout. Over the decades, I've learned it can be very effective to apply opposing pressure on the fish. In other words, if the fish wants to go left, turn it right. When it heads right, turn it left, etc. I was taught this by several guides and good anglers and it seems to work for me. [00:23:00.000] I lose a few fish, but I've always felt that was part of the game.
Recently on a guided trip to southwestern Montana, I was scolded by an outfitter for playing a large fish this way. He claims that change of direction pressure causes the hook to wear a larger hole in the fish's mouth, allowing the hook, especially a barbless one, to fall out. He advised to try to keep the direction of pressure as constant as possible, although the fish usually has something to say about that.
In your opinion, is the change of direction approach more or less effective for [00:23:30.220] landing bigger trout? Do you worry about changes in direction of pull increasing the risk of the hook coming out?"
Well, Tom, I hate to disagree with a guide, but I disagree with him. You're going to lose some fish regardless. You're not going to land every fish you hook and you take that chance. Some of them are going to come unbuttoned. They're just not hooked in the right place, or maybe they wear a hole in their mouth and [00:24:00.019] the hook slips out. But I don't see how you can play a big fish without changing direction. You've got to be able to control that fish, otherwise, it's just going to go where it wants to go.
The one thing that I might recommend, I see people playing fish with a change of direction that whip the rod back and forth really quickly. I think that might cause a little slack and actually, that might cause [00:24:30.680] the hook to pull out. But when you're changing direction, you want to do it in a smooth motion. You don't want to quickly snap the rod from one side to the other, but you want to do it in a smooth motion so that that hook doesn't have a chance to pull out. If I were you, I'd keep changing direction. I'd keep side pressure on the fish and just make sure it's a smooth motion when you go from one side to the next. [00:25:00.180]
Here's an email from Jeff from California. "I've been thoroughly enjoying your podcasts and have learned significantly from them. I have also enjoyed your instructional videos via the Orvis website. Thank you for the friendly, encouraging guidance you offer for everything you do to help the fly fishing community. Your presence makes me feel like the Orvis community is a family. And when I walk into an Orvis store or handle a piece of Orvis equipment or clothing, I feel an immediate sense of trust in the brand and the people behind it.
I still think of myself as a [00:25:30.119] fly fishing novice, even though I've been fishing for about 35 years. I love small streams, and my go-to rod is my 30-year-old Orvis 1-ounce 3-weight. As I adjust to my senior years, my hand and finger dexterity is not what it used to be. So I have two specific resulting questions.
First, I recently started using tippet rings on my leader. Essentially, I use a tapered leader down to about 4x with a ring on the end. Then I'll adjust for the current situation [00:26:00.339] by tying a single tippet to the ring with a clinch knot instead of tapering with blood knots. I do this because the clinch knot is the easiest thing for my fingers to tie. So if I have a leader that is 4x and then I have tied a 6x or even 7x tippet to the ring, the change in diameter is a bit more abrupt. Does that hurt the presentation?
I hear that taper is important, but I've had luck with this approach. However, it could be that some fish notice the effect on the drift and maybe I could be catching more. What are your thoughts? Am I limiting [00:26:30.180] myself, or is this approach effective?
Second, I hate littering and appreciate the ethics of leaving no trace in the beautiful natural spaces that our sport takes us. But inevitably, when tying on new flies or tippet, I have to clip off the tag ends. Of course, we all have to do that. With the dexterity required, I'm not always successful at capturing the tag, and even when I do, it is rather clumsy to stuff it into a trash pocket in my vest.
What are the best methods for handling tags [00:27:00.140] and managing them and other stray filament so that they can properly be disposed of after leaving the stream? Thanks again for taking questions like this and others and for your really special podcasts."
Well, Jeff, I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. Stopping at 4x and the tippet ring and then a 6 or 7x. It's not going to straighten as well. It's going to be an abrupt change between the 4x and 7x. [00:27:30.359] But that's not necessarily bad because it may throw a little slack into your tippet. That jump at the end might throw a little slack into your tippet, which is almost always a good thing whether you're dry fly fishing or nymph fishing. I don't see it as a problem, and it's working for you, so I wouldn't change it.
The one thing I might advise, depending on the diameter of your tippet ring, is if you're going to tie 7x to the same tippet ring you're tying 4x to, I would try a Trilene [00:28:00.470] knot, which is just a clinch knot where you go twice through the eye or, in this case, the tippet ring. Because the difference in diameter between that 7x and the tippet ring, depending on how wide in diameter the tippet ring is, could affect the strength. You can try that, but if it's working, yeah, just do it. If you're dry fly fishing with this rig and it lands a little hard, then just use a little bit longer tippet. Extend your tippet a little bit and [00:28:30.640] it should work just fine for you.
Okay. Regarding grabbing those little pieces of tippet after you cut it off, there's a couple of things I can recommend. One is to try to make your cuts above your waders or your pants if you're wet wading so they fall inside your waders. Because you say you don't want to stuff them into a pocket or anything, just let them fall [00:29:00.140] inside your waders and then when you get home, run a shop back down inside your waders to pick up those little ends.
Now there's another thing that I think is a product waiting to be developed. I bought a pair of nail clippers once that had these little plastic side shields on them. What they would do is after you clipped your nails, it would keep them inside the nail clippers. It formed a little compartment behind the blades of [00:29:30.140] the nail clippers. You might even be able to find a pair of these online, someplace. Again, they're just little clear plastic side shields that catch the nail clippings, and that would also catch your little pieces of tippet. It probably isn't going to be the best device for cutting your line because they're nail clippers and they're curved, but they might work and that will catch those little pieces.
The other thing you could do is [00:30:00.160] maybe you could take a little piece of duct tape and attach a piece of duct tape to each side of your nippers so that it would be sticky. Once you cut that tippet, it wouldn't fall out between the two blades of the nippers. It would either stay inside the snips or might even get caught on the sticky part of the duct tape. I haven't tried this yet, but it's just an idea that I thought of. [00:30:30.519] Those are a couple of suggestions for catching those little pieces of monofilament after you clip them.
I'm still trying to talk to Orvis product developers into developing a pair of nippers with those side shields because I think it would be a cool product, but so far they haven't been listening to me. This reminds me to go bug them again about that. All right. That is the fly box for this week. Let's go [00:31:00.160] talk to Robert Ketley about the secrets of tying a good knot.
Well, my guest today is Robert Ketley. And Robert and I met many years ago at a show in California. We don't even remember which one, but he has a column in "California Fly Fisher" which has recently re-emerged as a real magazine. It used to be a newsprint. And I always read Robert's articles because he's geeky. Let's [00:31:30.019] face it, Robert, you're geeky. You get into the nitty-gritty of a lot of aspects of fly fishing, which I enjoy and I know my listeners enjoy. Welcome to the podcast.
Robert: I like to hear the geek resonates.
Tom: Yeah, the geek definitely resonates. You had an article recently about knots and you did some real deep dives into how knots fail. I'd like to talk to you about [00:32:00.160] knots. And tell people what you did for your study.
Robert: Okay, so basically I, like so many other people, got frustrated with my knot-tying. It just never seemed to be reliable. Not that I'm saying I lost every darn fish, but there was just something about it that wasn't quite right for me. So I decided, you know, I'd better find out what the experts have to say on this. [00:32:30.519] And as so often happens for me, I went down a rabbit hole and it just kept going and going and going. And so, you know, I'm starting to read mathematics and physics of knots and you discover that there's 350 million, over 350 million types of knots which we won't go into detail on with this podcast, but there's just so much information that didn't seem [00:33:00.119] to percolate up into the fly fishing world.
So I dug around in the depths of various journals, looked at what people were saying on videos online, and it was interesting to me that there didn't seem to be any, what I would call high school science-type projects that were being investigated by people in the fly fishing or angling general industry. And, you know, I have a background in science and labs. So I [00:33:30.559] figured, what the heck, let's just do some stuff that most of the readers may recall from when they were at high school how to do this sort of simple test. And so it resonates with them. It's something they can, you know, understand as opposed to the fancy formulas and nifty diagrams that the academic papers come up with. And like most fly fishers, I happen to have a digital microscope that shoots videos.
Tom: Oh, yeah, we all have one [00:34:00.039] of those, Robert.
Robert: Well, you know, I mean, it's essential if you're going to be tying size 22 Tricos and make sure that you've got the right number of thread wraps on the head in order to actually make it float right. There's only way to do it. But that aside, I set up...it took me... I mean, it sounds like I sort of did this in an afternoon. This was something that took probably months now that I think about it. The microscope wasn't too difficult to set up. What was a real [00:34:30.019] challenge was the traction device. So in order to test the knots, you have to obviously pull on them. And when you're magnifying 100 times, anything shakes and it ruins the video.
So I had to come up with a system that really allowed me to have a stable traction device. Eventually solved that. And then I started, you know, basically testing knots. A shout-out to Josh Jenkins at Scientific [00:35:00.119] Anglers. He was kind enough to send me all kinds of fresh tippet material. So I plowed through that. And about, I'd say after six months or so, I had enough information to come up with a column. So that's the sort of brief history of my knot experiments.
Tom: So in your investigation, tell us how knots fail. What happens to the knot?
Robert: Oh, so you want to go to the $64,000 [00:35:30.340] question right away?
Tom: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then we can get into some other stuff too.
Robert: Yeah. So the physicists tell you that a knot fails when at the tightest twist. So if you think about a knot that you tie, let's say a clinch knot, usually the tightest twist is at the top end of the knot, farthest away from the hook eye, using hook knots as an example. And so I figured, okay, let's shoot videos. And at [00:36:00.099] 100 times, I should be able to see exactly what's going on there. Turns out that's actually not where hook knots fail. They actually fail at the other end. And what my video showed was that it's actually inside the hook eye where the failure occurs. So while the physicists are definitely right in terms of what's going on with the knots generally, [00:36:30.119] for fly fishing in general, it's actually at the point where the nylon loops over the eye where the problem occurs.
Tom: Well, that makes sense to me and make intuitive sense.
Robert: It didn't to me. I was so caught up in the academic papers and expecting to see, you know, my results corroborate what they were saying. It's like, holy crap. I should also point out that [00:37:00.260] in order to do this testing, as you can imagine with 5x tippet, it's pretty hard to see what the hell is going on. So I colored various sections of the knot so I could actually watch it as it's deforming and then do a post-mortem examination once the knot are broken to be actually able to see what color section is where the knot broke. And it was almost always the point where it had gone inside the eye. [00:37:30.492]
Tom: You know, that's interesting because I've talked to people before who always leave a little bit longer tag end on their clinch knot or whatever. And I never saw the sense in it because it doesn't seem like it would help. Do you agree with that?
Robert: Well, maybe they're using it to make it a slightly weightless pattern. No, I mean, [00:38:00.039] that was... I've got probably dozens of videos of various types of knot clinch, Trilene, uni, Orvis, Palomar. And in a knot that's properly seated down, and this is probably something we should discuss, the tag does not move. So if you're adding an extra piece of tag as insurance, I don't think it makes any darn difference. I mean, you've got the most, you know, [00:38:30.820] sophisticated trout looking at your fly. I really don't think an extra couple of millimeters of tag is going to make too much difference when there's, you know, several feet of tippet and leader hanging off the front end. But from an insurance point of view, I don't think it makes any difference.
Tom: Yep. And we're talking about tippet-to-hook I guess here.
Robert: Okay. Yeah, let's go then.
Tom: Do knots break, or do they slip when they're properly [00:39:00.239] tied?
Robert: So they actually slip and slide. So as you may recall from having read countless pieces on knots and things, no knot fails until it slips is the mantra that we've all been told. As far as I can tell, and yet again, I'm only one person with a microscope checking these things, there may be academics with, you know, MIT scale labs, you can come up with something different, [00:39:30.526] every single knot I tested slipped. Now, the degree to which they slipped depended upon the type of knot and how well it was cinched down, but they all slipped.
And that sort of makes sense if you think about it. As you apply more and more tension, it's going to settle down. The curves, the twists, etc., are going to settle down into a stable conformation. And that causes a small amount of slip. So when you [00:40:00.019] looked at knots like the clinch and the uni, you could actually see them moving as the tension was increased. The best way I can describe it is it's sort of like a transparent anaconda squeezing toothpaste from a tube. So there's all this squirming going on. But Orvis and Palomar knots exhibited a lot less slip, but they still even then had some movement. So there's definitely slip.
But the [00:40:30.119] thing that was, as we were sort of talking about a few minutes ago, that really occurred to me, the thing that I hadn't heard about before was sliding, which is where as the tippet rotates over the hook eye, as it's sliding through the system, it's like a rope on a pulley, if you like. That's actually creating a heck of a lot of stress on the tippet at that location. If you can think about it, there's this pulling tension [00:41:00.039] on it as the tension increased in general, and then it's being crushed against a hard metal surface.
And so when you actually do the post-mortem examination of the tippet, you know, when we usually look at after we've broken off the fly, we look at our tippet and there's that little curlicue at the end. If you had Superman vision and you could actually look at it 100 times, you'll notice on one side of it it's actually slightly [00:41:30.099] flattened, about one-third to one-half the width of the tippet. That seems to be where it's actually being deformed by the tension of dragging over that metal. Now, whether that's just purely mechanical or if there's heat associated with the friction of that, I don't know. But that's clearly something that showed up on pretty much all of the knot failures.
Tom: That argues for making sure that you have good quality hooks, because if there's [00:42:00.039] any kind of metal burr, it isn't polished in that eye, you're going to have even worse problem, I would assume.
Robert: Yeah, that's actually where I went next with the microscope was having looked at that. It seemed to me I should probably check the inside surface of hook eyes, which you want to think about testing knots as being a pain in the derrière. Try looking on the inside of a size 16 hook eye with a microscope. But through hook or by crook, for [00:42:30.159] want of a better pun, I actually figured out how to angle them. And that's when it really got surprising for me. And that is, almost every hook I looked at had some sort of defect on the inside edge of the eye.
Now, good quality hooks, the expensive ones that we've grown about paying good money for, were generally the best. You could tell that the front half, the point farthest away from the back end of the [00:43:00.097] hook, was pretty good. But if you look towards the back, especially where the wire butts up against the shank of the hook, there was sometimes a little flare or a crimp there, which I assume is associated with the actual bending around a hard metal post to create the eye.
But then I picked up some cheaper hooks and there were defects all over the eye, which makes me [00:43:30.000] think that the reason they're cheap is because they're using a lower-quality wire in the first place. So that really surprised the heck out of me. But there was one hook which didn't seem to have any problems. And that was a Tapered Loop Eye Salmon Hook. For now, if you're a steelhead or a salmon fisherman, you probably use those because everybody uses them. But I don't know that anybody ties their hoppers [00:44:00.139] on those hooks.
But it might be a good idea if you're trying to get one of those huge browns that you've been searching for all your life to tie your hoppers on that type of hook. Because literally, there's no visible defects on those. Unfortunately, for the mayfly and nymph hooks, they don't seem to make them any smaller than size 8. So you're just going to have to buy the best quality normal hooks.
Tom: Well, I do remember many years ago, I'm really dating myself [00:44:30.179] here, that there was a loop eye nymph hook that went pretty small. I don't even remember who made it.
Robert: Really?
Tom: Yeah. Perhaps I should see if I have any left. I should dig them up. But there was a hook at one point that was a loop eye nymph hook. Yeah.
Robert: Wow. Okay. Yeah. Well, hang on to those, Tom, because they're really worth serious money.
Tom: Everybody in the podcast is going to want me to sell them to them.
Robert: I'm so sorry. I've gone on and given you [00:45:00.179] another product line.
Tom: If I can find some, I'll send you a couple. You can check them out.
Robert: Cool. Yeah. Do that.
Tom: I'll see if I can dig them out. I might have used them all up.
Robert: Well, that's what they're supposed to be for, isn't it?
Tom: Yeah. Well, they were a classy-looking hook. I mean, it was cool-looking. You had the look of an Atlantic salmon fly on a smaller hook.
Robert: Oh, before I forget, on the issue of hook knots and this issue of imperfections inside the eye, [00:45:30.519] I do want to mention that there's a special issue associated with loop knots, which I know a number of us like to use in certain applications. I don't know if this has happened to you, but it's been an ongoing problem for me, especially in fishing in the surf, which is a pretty abusive environment anyway. I'll often find if I don't retie a loop knot, you know, after an hour or so, and I hook up on something other than a fish and I have to really pull hard, [00:46:00.400] it breaks at the end of the loop rather than the knot.
I've even had lead-eyed Clouserscome off during the cast and the same thing is at the end. You've got the knot, but there's these two fingers of tippet just sitting at the end. And my assumption is what's going on is that section of the nylon, the monofilament, it's run around the inside of the hook eye a lot more than a knot that actually [00:46:30.139] cinches down onto the metal.
So any imperfections it's running up against, especially at the back of the hook, and the heavier the fly, you know, like a lead-eyed Clouser, there's a lot of momentum of that thing at the end of the cast if you don't time it perfectly. I can easily imagine how... If you don't have a decent hook and you're using loop knots, that's probably the main failure point. It's [00:47:00.099] not the knot itself, it's actually the hook that's doing the damage.
Tom: It's interesting you say that because I have become less and less of a fan of loop knots. In fact, I almost never use them. I was tarpon fishing with some friends in Florida who just, you know, with a 60-pound shock tip, they use just a 3-turn clinch knot on a big tarpon fly [00:47:30.119] and a big heavy tippet. And by God, it worked. The tarpon ate the fly.
And then I was in The Bahamas last spring and I was asking the guides, do you guys like loop knots? Because some people like loop knots for bonefish. And they said, "No." They said, "We do not want you to use loop knots because it creates more disturbance in front of the fly and it creates, like, a bubble. So they're not fans of loop [00:48:00.539] knots either. And then you telling me that there's a chance for the knot to fail makes me even less inclined to use a loop knot.
Robert: Well, I hadn't heard about that causing a disturbance issue. I'd be interested to know more about that. For me, actually, there are times when I like to have that. I mean, halibut fishing a few days ago where we're in 30 feet of water, you want a fly to get down [00:48:30.019] fast and a loop knot can help with something like a Clouser oriented so it dives more quickly.
Tom: Yes, that is true. And I think that the guides, they do prefer a loop knot in The Bahamas for permit flies because there you want to get the fly down quickly.
Robert: Yeah. So what I've done, and this is probably heresy to say this, I've just gone over to snap links and just tie a decent knot onto the snap link and then just [00:49:00.179] snap the fly on just like a conventional angler snaps on a lure and I don't have to worry about steel on steel damage.
Tom: Yeah. Little tiny snap links?
Robert: Yeah. I mean, all the manufacturers, all this and everybody else makes variations on the theme, but a lightweight snap link isn't going to add much to the mass of a fly. So it's a simple solution that may not make the front cover of "Fly Tyer" magazine, but from a practical point [00:49:30.139] of view, seems to solve the problem nicely.
Tom: Yeah. It's worth investigating, definitely. Because when you're moving a fly, it doesn't really matter if you've got an extra piece of metal in front of it. If you're moving a streamer fly or a saltwater fly, it won't make much difference.
Robert: Yeah. This is another one of the advantages of these modern phones is you can dunk a lot of them underwater. And you can actually take videos of what's going on. And it's been fascinating for me. This is a slightly tangential [00:50:00.199] issue here. But so many of the ideas I had about how flies look and move underwater have gone out the window, thanks to my smartphone or my GoPro. And so I would encourage anybody who's got a waterproof camera or a pouch to put theirs in, just shove your fly underwater and look at it with a camera and see what you see. Because I think we've got a lot of preconceived notions that just don't [00:50:30.159] hold up.
Tom: Yeah. Yeah. And phones are waterproof until they're not, especially in saltwater. I'm not so sure.
Robert: That's why I use a GoPro if I need to...
Tom: That's safer.
Robert: Yeah. But there's a lot of old husbands' tales in fly fishing that I think may start to fall by the way as more of this technology gets used too. What if, or is that real analysis [00:51:00.260] just by everybody?
Tom: Yeah. So let's get back to the real $10,000 question. You were using 5x tippet, right, and a size 16 fly for your test. Is that what...
Robert: Actually, I should clarify. That was the one that I did a lot of work on because that's the most commonly used setup. But no, I used saltwater tippets, fluorocarbon, hard Mono, saltwater [00:51:30.460] Mono, soft pliable Mono. I wanted to try all variations on the theme to see if there was something common to all knots and all materials rather than get super specific.
Tom: And did you find that different knots work better for different applications, for instance, the ratio of the wire diameter of the eye of the hook to the tippet? [00:52:00.972]
Robert: Yes and no, but perhaps not in the way that people might think. Ultimately, it came down to how well you tie the darn knot. That more than anything seemed to be the important factor. And I've done a lot of knot strength testing during these tests as well as at other times. And I'd noticed a wide range in variability in my [00:52:30.119] knot tests, in my knot strength with the same material, the same knot, done in the same exact environment. It would vary from, like, 55% to 75% of the breaking strain of the material. And I thought, "Wow, am I that bad a knot tier?"
So I got in contact with Josh Jenkins. I also talked to Simon Gawesworth, and they said, "Yep, we found pretty much the same thing too." Then, you know, [00:53:00.142] as I was doing more research for this study on the videos of knots, I started looking at medical research, and turns out surgeons are just as bad at knots as well.
Tom: Well, the surgeons don't tie the knots, the nurses do. The surgeons tell me that all the time.
Robert: Thank God, because based upon the statistical analysis of surgeon sutures, yeah, there's a high variability. But anyway, it made me feel at least [00:53:30.119] comfortable. It's like, no, the real problem here is we can certainly worry about, do we have the right size, right tippet, right knot, etc.? But ultimately, it seems to me, the largest single factor is just learning to tie the knot correctly.
Tom: Yeah, and let me...
Robert: Go ahead.
Tom: I just wanted to do a little aside here because we have found the exact same thing at Orvis when we first got an Instron machine [00:54:00.380] that's very precise measurement of break strength. We decided that we would try to figure out which knot was best for tying on a fly. So we got a bunch of us knot tiers and we went into a room and we carefully tied clinch knots on 4x to a size 14 hook I think. And we did them as carefully as we could in a controlled situation, same tippet material, [00:54:30.239] so on. And with the first person that we tested, there was a 30% variation in knot strength. And we realized that in order to get a statistically valid result, we'd have to tie hundreds of knots given that variation, given that standard deviation. And we said, "No, we're not going to do it."
Robert: Yeah, it gets boring after a while and it's like, "Okay, yeah. I think I've got the message here."
Tom: So [00:55:00.746] sorry to sidetrack you there, but what have you learned about how to tie the knot and tighten the knot?
Robert: Okay. So what I've learned is sort of this is something where I think a lot of folks need to just know how to tie one knot well under any circumstances.
Tom: Exactly.
Robert: So whether you're on the bank of a steelhead stream and [00:55:30.239] it's freezing damn cold, your hands are numb, or you're out on the flats and the guide has just pointed out there's a double-digit hermit or bonefish coming quickly towards you, it's 90 degrees and 90% humidity, you need to be able to under either one of those circumstances tie the same knot, know that it's going to be good, and then just get on with the darn fishing. So that I think is [00:56:00.119] the key.
And so saliva is a good lubricant. I've tested all different kinds of lubricants, and quite frankly, it seems to do the job nicely. Hold the knot gently and firmly down until it seats. You can, if you are a vascular surgeon, perhaps know that you can seat it to just a fraction of the percent of where it will break. But for most [00:56:30.139] folks, I'd just say just put the tag end between your teeth with one of your dominant hand has the hook and then the tippet in the other hand, and on all three of those points, just continue to pull it down until you feel that you've got a properly seated hook and then just fish it.
Tom: So you do pull on the tag end when you tighten knots, you recommend that?
Robert: For most knots, just get them seated down. [00:57:00.414] The Palomar is a bit of a fussy knot and I don't always use it because just it's a pain to actually do, but that one you have to do a little bit more finessing with. But no, for the majority of folks who are just using the clinch knot, yeah, just what you're doing if you think about it, the tag end is the far end of the tippet, the bit in your other hand is the leader end of it. So you're just pulling in different directions so that both ends of the knot get force [00:57:30.059] applied to them uniformly so that the knot itself cinches down, all of those wraps cinch down nicely.
Think about it this way, if you've got your left arm with your index finger pointing outwards, so your forearm is the leader and the index finger is the tippet, now take your right hand and curl your thumb and fingers over that index finger. If [00:58:00.260] all of your fingers are nicely clamped around it, you've got even pressure right along that whole length of your index finger. And so that will give you the maximum amount of tension in the knot to make it as secure as possible.
If you're only pulling from, let's say, the tippet end, the far end by your little pinky finger won't have quite as much tension on the turns as the top end and so you won't have the grip strength. Your knot won't have the grip strength on [00:58:30.219] the tippet. One of the things to understand about the clinch and uni and Trilene knots is that section of tippet goes straight down to the hook eye and then has the wraps around it. So the wraps are literally holding that tippet in place, stopping it from pulling on the actual hook eye.
It's a bit more complicated with the Orvis and Palomar knots because it's actually doing some twists and turns before it gets there. So by pulling [00:59:00.039] on the tag end and the tippet and the hook as you seat it down, you're giving those turns the best opportunity to have even tension and sit down and cinch nicely onto the knot.
Tom: And fast or slow? I've heard that you want to seat a knot relatively quickly and that I've heard that you want to draw it down slowly. What do you recommend?
Robert: I haven't found much difference. I mean, purely and simply for me, it's been slowly, it's just [00:59:30.233] easier on the teeth. For anybody who's got false teeth, I would definitely recommend slow.
Tom: Or forceps instead of teeth.
Robert: Yeah, that's actually a really good point. You might want to get more comfortable using forceps for your knots, especially if it's cold or your hands are real slippery. Yeah, anything to just give you that nice sort of smooth traction on the knot so that it can settle down. And [01:00:00.079] once you've got it there, just fish it.
Tom: And one of the things I always recommend to people when I talk about knots, because when I do presentations I often talk about knots, is that you need to test every knot. You need to test every knot because you can tie the most perfect-looking clinch knot and pull on it and it breaks well before it should.
Robert: That's another little rabbit hole to go down here. That actually is... I think [01:00:30.156] everybody sort of does that, but then it occurs to me, do you really know how much tension you're applying to the knot when you're fighting a fish or you're trying to break it off a snag?
Tom: Yeah, no you don't.
Robert: Most folks... I mean, there's that lovely lever stuff that we learned in high school physics. Your rod is acting as a lever, and instead of the leverage working for you, it's working against you. So if you pull directly on your fly line, you know, when you snag up a fly on a [01:01:00.368] mangrove or a log or something, you don't use the rod and lift the rod up to try and pull it off. You grab the line and you just pull it off that way. So the higher your rod tip, the less effective your pull is on the hook end.
So if you've got a knot, let's say you've got a knot that will break at let's say 5 pounds of tension, 5 pounds of tension when you're pulling directly on the line isn't much. You try and do 5 pounds of [01:01:30.199] tension with the rod tip high, I can guarantee you it's going to feel painful after a short while.
Tom: Yeah, most people can't pull 5 pounds on it using a rod. They think they're pulling so hard, but it's hard. It's really hard.
Robert: Yeah, it is. It's a lot harder than I think most folks realize and it's why one of my sort of main headaches about knots sort of went away, which is I don't think under most circumstances [01:02:00.519] I'm applying... I mean, I've got a 12-weight and I'm out after tarpon and I've got the rod at a low angle. I can probably manage 8 or 10 pounds for a reasonable amount of time. But under most other circumstances where I've got a higher rod to help deal with any of those head-banging movements that some fish will give you, I'd be very surprised if I'm sustaining more than a couple of pounds, 2 or 3 pounds. So if your knot's got [01:02:30.039] a 5-pound breakpoint, you've got a good safety margin there anyway.
Tom: But unless the fish lunges the other way and then you've increased the force dramatically, right?
Robert: Yeah, I mean, that's what I call the head banging, you know, those fish that decide that they're going to give you hell or that comes up in the air and there's no longer water slowing down their head movement. So you come snap up against a 100-pound tarpon doing its serious gyrations. But most [01:03:00.280] of the people we're talking to are fishing for trout in a river. And it just seems to me that we may be overly fixating on knots under certain circumstances. So I can definitely see if you're a tournament tarpon fisher, yeah, you need to be really, really fixated on it. But if you're just having a nice day fly fishing on a stream, relax and enjoy the environment. [01:03:30.398]
Tom: And learn to tie those knots at home so that you're not frustrated when you get to the river.
Robert: Yeah. Yeah, or literally instead of... I mean, I do most of my knot testing in the garage, which is usually at a nice comfortable 60 to 70 degrees controlled environment. But try actually learning how to do them in your back garden or backyard when it's cold, when you're not fishing. And so they've got that finger memory of, [01:04:00.159] okay, that's how it feels. You know how it's going to be.
There's going to be times you get down to the river, you want to be the first person on the water. It's still fairly dark, or maybe the sun is just starting to show. The air is cold. Your fingers aren't exact. I mean, the coffee is making them shake a little bit, but they're still cold. You need to be able to tie that knot well under those circumstances because that's the most likely time you're going to get that big fish. So yeah, [01:04:30.320] learn to tie it well at home, then learn to tie it well on the river.
Tom: All right. Robert, I'm going to put you on the spot here. You're on a river. There's a 25-inch brown trout rising.
Robert: Really?
Tom: Yeah.
Robert: I've got a 25-inch brown rising?
Tom: Rising. And you need to change flies. You know you got the wrong fly on. You have a 4x tippet and a size 14 fly. After looking at all these [01:05:00.496] knots, which knot are you going to use?
Robert: I'm going to probably use the uni knot.
Tom: Really?
Robert: Yes. And that's just because it's the one I know I can tie under any circumstances. And if we're 4x tippet, that's probably around about 6 or 7 pounds breaking strength. So if I assume I've got 50% knot, I've done a really poor knot, I've still got around about 3 pounds of break strength at the knot. I can tell for sure [01:05:30.862] that, you know, from the testing I've done with spring scales, if I keep the rod at a certain angle, I'm not going to put more than 3 pounds of force on the knot. So it's just a knot I'm comfortable using.
I should also sort of bounce this up the leader a bit as well. I've got a knot strength philosophy for leaders, which I know other people share. You probably have gone down this path as well, which is I want [01:06:00.059] the strongest knot at the top end of the leader, the sequentially weaker knots, the further down it goes. So if I do make that cast to that 25-inch brown, I flub the cast, it hooks up onto a log, I want to be able to snap that fly off and just snap off the fly rather than the entire darn leader.
So I want the sacrificial point to be closest to the fly as possible. This is another one of the things that [01:06:30.260] when you spend enough time out on lakes and ponds fishing for largemouth bass, on the bottom, you will occasionally hook up to something really solid. And when you're in a float tube, you're using 10, 15-pound test for some of these fish. You don't want to have to try and snap off a knot that's got 10 pounds of break force on it in a float tube. It's a great way of capsizing. [01:07:00.800]
Start thinking about the environment you're working in, but ultimately, yeah, I'd go with whatever knot you're comfortable with. If it's a clinch, great. If it's uni, Trilene, Orvis, whatever. I mean, I do like the Orvis knot for my tippet-to-leader knot where I use a tippet ring or a micro swivel because it's just... For me, when I did, and I've lost count of how many tests I did with the Orvis knot, but I'd say more than 50% [01:07:30.440] of the time the material broke above the knot than the knot itself. So the knot itself is actually providing more tensile strength at that location than the breaking strength of the nylon. Becauseeven higher with the Palomar, but the Palomar is a pain in the ass to tie. So that's where I would play around with your knots is better up top, have a weak link at the bottom, but not so weak that it causes you to lose the fish.
Tom: Yeah, I'm not buying that. [01:08:00.373] I'm going to tie the strongest knot that I can at each junction.
Robert: Well, yeah, I mean, to the extent that you're still probably not going to put enough tension on any of them to lose it, that's great. It's just, I mean, if you fish like I occasionally do out in the Pacific here and you hook up on a reef in 60 feet of water.
Tom: Yeah, okay. There is a difference there.
Robert: You're right. There's applications where you just need to be able to [01:08:31.039] break off the fly, you know, chucking to largemouth in woody structure. It's much nicer to be able to do that rather than have to sort of paddle over in a float tube or scoot the boat over and then disturb the fish and, you know, spend 20 minutes trying to pull a fly out of the vegetation or, you know, snook for mangroves. All of those things are just... So I think where you're putting the fly, choose the knot accordingly. But I'm glad you disagree. That's good. [01:09:00.697]
Tom: Do you have any thoughts about the leader-to-tippet knot? You said use tippet rings, which is a strong connection, but for people who don't want to use a tippet ring, let's say you're tying 3x to 4x, your 4x tippet and your last section on your leader is 3x. Have you done any tests on, you know, triple surgeons versus blood knot?
Robert: Yeah, I have. Not enough [01:09:30.380] to come up with anything conclusive. And yet again, I had the same problem that we were discussing earlier with knot-to-knot variability. Every time I tie a knot, I'm not going to get the same exact response. So yet again, I would urge folks to just think, "Which one am I comfortable tying when I've got that 25-inch brown rising to those flies and I'm shaking, I'm nervous, and it's like, just what one can I tie and I've got confidence it'll be good?" [01:10:00.300]
So if you want to use surgeons, if you want to use a uni-to-uni, or if you want to use any one of the other variations, loop-to-loop systems. I like tippet rings just because I know I can put an Orvis knot on either side or actually tie the leader to the tippet ring with a Palomar and then Orvis on the other side. I know they're my personal strongest knots. I'm not saying they are for everyone. And then I just have to, you know, just worry about the final knot for the fly. [01:10:30.468] So I'm sorry to everybody who's listening if you were hoping to have the secret here, but ultimately it's what works for you, it seems to me.
Tom: You know, it's what I tell people too when they want to know which knots are the best. We're not going to know. They're all pretty good, right? The popular knots, the Palomar, the blood knot, the clinch knot, the Orvis knot, the uni knot, they're all pretty good. [01:11:00.020]
Robert: They've all stood the test of time.
Tom: Yeah. And you just need to pick one, pick a lane, learn how to tie it really well, and test your knots.
Robert: One thing on the clinch knot, and yet again, this may just be my individual tying technique, I found that the regular clinch was actually stronger than the improved clinch.
Tom: I've found that as well. Yeah. Just anecdotally, you know, my perception [01:11:30.420] is that the standard clinch is better. Yeah. You know, whenever I fish with a trout guide, I always ask them, what knot do you use to tie your fly on, and what knot do you use to tie your tippet on? And I've kept track of it mentally over the years, and probably 90% to 95% of guides use a standard clinch to tie on the fly. And they prefer a five-turn blood knot [01:12:00.239] for the tippet, but they always have a caveat. If my hands are cold or I'm in a hurry, I'll tie a triple surgeons.
Robert: Yep. Yep. So there you go. There you go. So the circumstances dictate what you're comfortable doing.
Tom: Yeah. Absolutely.
Robert: And a guide's going to have a lot less nervousness than a client who's sitting there the first time and they're like, "Holy cow, that's the biggest fish I've ever seen, and the guide's telling [01:12:30.039] me to cast towards it." Yeah.
Tom: And I have a rule. I prefer a five-turn blood knot for my tippet connection, but I have a rule. If I flub it twice, then I go to a triple surgeons.
Robert: Yeah. These are all the things that I think we as individuals come up with after years of just playing around on the stream and we don't even think about. It's interesting when you start talking about knots, [01:13:00.039] it's just like, yeah, there's a lot of things I think we all do without even thinking about it. Maybe you stand back a little bit and go, "Oh, I do that. I didn't even think about it. I do that."
But yes, you know, the types of nylon will, you know, change what knot you'll use as well. If you've ever used some of those really hard nylons, the higher strength, it's like, "Wow, I mean, I actually have to wear gloves [01:13:30.180] for some of them in order to cinch them down." So that's a very different situation to the folks, you know, throwing a size 20 Trico towards a fish in a river.
Tom: Yeah. Did you see any difference in knots with fluorocarbon versus nylon?
Robert: Yeah, and no. And a lot depended upon the test of it and the diameter. One of the things [01:14:00.060] that did jump out, which was interesting, and I still haven't done enough tests to understand what's going on may have to do with the surface chemistry. I've tried various different lubricants, not that I'd ever bother using different lubricants in the field, but I did find that with silicone oil, mono copolymer would actually come undone. But some of the fluorocarbons I tested would not, which suggests that there's [01:14:30.260] something going on with the microscopic texture of the surface of the line, and the way the internal friction of the knot works. But yet again, my knot-to-knot variability is so high that I think it exceeds any differences that might be inherent to the material.
Tom: Yeah. I know that you talked about Josh Jenkins. Josh has developed a fluorocarbon with a coating. It's a cofilament, I guess, not copolymer, [01:15:00.539] cofilament. And it's like $30 a spool for the standard-size spool. What is it, 30 yards or whatever? And this stuff is incredibly strong, and I'm willing to pay that. I'm willing to pay that.
Robert: That's interesting. So yes, he's actually looked at the surface chemistry or the surface mechanics of it and modified so that you have a copolymer on the surface but you have the... That is interesting. I'll have to bother him about that.
Tom: Yeah, ask [01:15:30.119] him about it. But that stuff is so strong. It's unbelievably strong. If I'm using fluorocarbon, I'm going to use that material despite the cost because it really holds knots well.
Robert: So one other thing while we're on this topic, one of the things when I was looking at lubricants, I was also looking at adhesives. And one of the things that I have figured out, which I think I'm fairly comfortable with, is [01:16:00.359] the UV knot resins, like Loon Knot Sense and the others. Apply them and use them as a lubricant to actually cinch the knot down, then apply the UV to seal them. And it actually holds the knot together because that stuff is actually inside the knot and in between the twists and turns as opposed to just putting it on top. So that actually has been something that really does. If you're super anal about this and you want to have [01:16:30.140] absolutely the best knot, use it as your lubricant and then hit it with UV. I did try...
Tom: And you think the adhesive actually strengthens the knot?
Robert: Yeah, I think because it's... I mean, if you think about it from a surface area point of view, if it's coated around the entire diameter of the strand as you're cinching it down, you've got more adhesive inside the knot. So everywhere where the pieces of monofilament squeeze up against each other, there's that adhesive [01:17:00.600] as well as opposed to when you just tie the knot, cinch it down, and then pop the adhesive on top of it. That's just a surface coating. So I actually did also try with super glue, but I can guarantee you you don't want to go down that route, especially if you're [crosstalk 01:17:18.026].
Tom: No, I'm not allowed to use super glue.
Robert: Yeah, it will stick to your lips.
Tom: Well, Robert...
Robert: Not that I'm saying that happened to me.
Tom: Yeah. Well, [01:17:30.260] Robert, this has been fascinating, and I expected that we'd all learn some things in this podcast and I know I have. So I want to thank you for doing the research for us and for sharing your results with us.
Robert: Well, I'm glad to hear other people out there get as nerdy as I do.
Tom: Yeah, and I love your philosophy. Learn a popular knot and learn it well and just trust it. That's the bottom line [01:18:00.260] I think.
Robert: Yeah. I mean, otherwise, you've just got analysis paralysis, haven't you? What knot do I use? Am I tying it correctly? It's like, no, just go fishing and enjoy yourself.
Tom: Yeah. But it's still fun to get geeky about it as well.
Robert: Oh, heck yeah. Oh, heck yeah. But get geeky at home and then get serious on the water.
Tom: Yeah. Okay. All right. Robert, thank you so much. We've been talking to Robert Ketley, who is now a freelance writer, right? You're retired and you're a freelance writer. [01:18:30.440]
Robert: I guess that's what I am. I don't know. I'm just somebody who just enjoys writing about fly fishing.
Tom: Yeah. All right. Thank you so much, Robert.
Robert: Take care, Tom. Have a great day.
Tom: Okay. Bye-bye.
Man: Thanks for listening to "The Orvis Fly Fishing Podcast" with Tom Rosenbauer. You can be a part of the show. Have a question or a comment? Send it to us at