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Hey guys! Let's talk fishing knots real quick. I talk to a lot of people and sometimes they get intimidated by all the various types of knots out there and I don't want you to be that way because there's a couple of knots that you can use for just about all of your fishing applications.
First and foremost is the Palomar knot. A Palomar knot is what I use 90% of the time, maybe even more than that. It's just what I use, It's effective. There's people that'll tell you certain knots are better and they may be. The breaking strength on some of them may be a little better in some type applications but I've been using it for 23 years professionally and then before that just fishing and it's always proved very effective for me.
Here it is: you just basically double your line, get it to where it's about 10 inches 12 inches, something like that, and you run your line through there. Now, you can also put your line through, of course, and then run back through. But it's basically doubling your line, coming through and just tying a overhand knot. Then, run your hook, your jig, your crank bait, whatever, right back through your tag end loop. And then here's the key to this knot: pull it out just a little bit and just before it gets down to where you're going to cinch it on your your line tie there, you want to put your finger in. Put your finger right there and pop it-- that string--over the top of the knot. Then your string isn't underneath the knot putting it in a bind. So now you've got that in place, you just cinch it tight and cut your tag. That knot is very effective.
Now, a drop shot is finesse fishing where your bait and your hook is up above your weight and you're basically tying a knot just like above, a Palomar knot, but the only thing you're doing extra here is you're not going to cut your tag. Take your tag and run it back through the line tie, pulling it down and putting your weight down here. Now it's a Palomar, but your tag end is just run back through, straightening your hook out, giving you a straight-out presentation on your worm or whatever.
One other really effective knot that I like to throw... get yourself a little slack and tie on a popper, a crappie jig, any kind of little light bait that you're really worried about the effectiveness of the knot impeding the action where you want it to flow real freely; and that is a loop knot. And, basically you're just going through the line tie, you're coming up about a foot and using both the line and the tag, you're just tying two overhand knots. So you got a loop, you run your bait through once, your bait through twice. Then you put your finger down on the line tie so it doesn't work its way over. You bring it down just about where you're going to cinch it tight and then pop it up the line to formed the loop. Cut your tag off and you've got a nice perfect little loop knot. Palomar knot, Palomar drop shot knot and Loop knot: very effective and will cover most of your fishing applications. Hope you guys have a lot of good luck out there on the water!
--Mark Rose
