The fly fishers knot
I have enjoyed tying knots ever since I was a boy, although I still find I end up with a granny knot instead of a reef knot now and again. I was amazed to learn a new way to tie my shoes at the age of 42 and surprised to find that this too is a kind of reef knot but with one side formed from the doubled lace to give one of the knots we all know from a young age. If you find that your shoelace loops tend to lie in line with your shoe instead of across you have tied a granny knot with your laces and probably find your laces come undone more often and have to be retied often, to correct this you need your initial crossover with your laces to go the other way.
The new method I learnt for tying my laces is the worlds fastest shoelace knot, known as Ian’s shoelace knot, named after the inventorΒ Ian Fieggen who has a whole website dedicated to shoelaces:
It’s tricky to learn but easy ever after and the same applies to many good fishing knots. Β Lots of us learned the tucked half blood knot as one of our first fishing knots, reasonably easy to tie but unfortunately liable to slipping even with the extra tuck. Β I have since used lots of other fishing knots over the years but my go to knot is quick, simple, very strong, doesn’t slip and doesn’t waste much material at the tag end. Β Inspired by the ‘Davy Knot’ named after Davy Wotton, a great knot but prone to slipping if a combination of fine tippet and heavy wire hook is used, the only difference here is the addition of an extra tuck with the tag end which solves the slipping problem completely and gives an incredibly high knot strength (near 100% in my tests). Β I can’t claim credit for this new version of the knot I have seen it from a few sources now but it never seems to be given a name, it’s such a good knot that I think it should be in all fly fishers armory so I decided to give it the name ‘Fly Fishers Knot’ for my article as its too good to go unnamed.
To get a very short tag end feed some of the tag end back into the knot as you tighten from the other end, the way I do this is to grip the end of the tag end in my teeth and pull the other end until the knot tightens. Β Make sure the knot is moistened to lubricate it before tightening:
Tying The fly fishers knot
Liked the look of the FFK Joel. I’m off to try it out!
You Tube Video of Fly Fishers Knot would be very useful. i.e. actual tying using,say, 2lb. tippet to size #14 fly.
Rgds
Well, isn’t this just a mirror-image of the double Davy knot?
Great knot and very compact. As you say, it is a Davy knot with an extra tuck so why knot call it a Davy Tuck knot (please excuse the pun).
I love this knot. It’s the knot I’ve searching for. Love the friction free way it tightens down with no heat damage on copolymer. line remains straight and undamaged all the way to the hook. Thanks for sharing!
My favourite knot is the uni knot, I have retained much more terminal tackle than I otherwise would have done in the event of snags thanks to this ultra strong knot.
would this be any good for flourocarbon?