Fly Fishing Knot Tip for the Chalk Streams

Fishing gin clear water that is moving towards you and has the odd bit of weed etc drifting in it requires a careful choice of leader.  My friends in the USA tend to construct their own tapered leaders by blood knotting lines of descending diameters together till they add on the appropriate tippet.  I prefer to use a manufactured tapered leader because even the neatest blood knot can attach and snare a piece of flotsam.  For less subtle types of fly fishing when joining the business end of the fly line to the butt end of the leader I usually use a mesh tubed leader loop but when chalk stream fly fishing I prefer something less bulky.

 

I was reminded of this when one of the guys (I can call him that because he's from the States) showed me a loaded reel sent him by his fly fishing son in law. Joining the leader to the fly line was the the neatest needle knot I have ever seen.  The blood knots making the tapered leader were of the same standard.  So I decided to put new leaders onto my chalk stream reels and see if I could match the high standard set on the other side of the "pond".

 

Having pushed a fine needle up the end and out of the side of the fly line I struggled to feed the thicker end of the leader up the hole.  In the past I have heated the needle but I remember finding that it was too easy to over heat the needle with dire results!

 

It then occurred to me (and I expect the whole world already knows this) that if I reversed the needle and pushed it in the side of the fly line and out the end I could (wait for it) use the needle to thread the thin end through the hole!  Having done that I could then carefully pull the leader right through (or almost right through) the end of the fly line and then do the whipping knot that secures everything.  I still found the whipping a bit challenging due to the size of my fingers and only managed three or four turns so I added a drop of superglue.

 

Here is a picture of the join thanks to Gary Borger

 

 

Now lets see if I catch more trout!

 

When I can make time I plan to see if just super gluing the leader in the fly line hole provides enough strength!