Knots, Line, and so on

[Mitch f]

4 minutes ago, Seth said:

There are a ton of videos on YouTube comparing every knot you can think of. It ain't hard to figure out which knots are the best for an application. Even knots like the FG aren't hard to tie with a little practice. I'm always hearing about guys breaking fish off and it happens VERY rarely to me and I attribute part of that to choosing the right knot for the application. I'm also using a spinning rod and lighter gear than most much of the time so my chances of breaking fish off should be even higher.

Ok you win 😂

[Flysmallie]

1 hour ago, Mitch f said:

How much are those cameras? 

Cheapest ones are around $4500. But that’s only 1000 fps. I would think it would need to be much higher. Then you get into 10’s of thousands. 

[fishinwrench]

2 hours ago, Flysmallie said:

Maybe so but you can't fish a gurgler very well with fluoro. Mono works much better. 

Oh c'mon now !  

It won't sink a #16 Dalmatian Trude......but it'll keep a #4 Gurgler from working right? 

I might need Gurgler lessons 😉  Let's do that this coming May-June!  

[tjm]

I don't think you can fish a gurgler wrong.

[fishinwrench]

My biggest hangup with Gurglers is that when I tie them to act the way I want in the water......they spin the leader up like crazy in the air.   

I'm more a fan of the Crease fly  

[Flysmallie]

31 minutes ago, fishinwrench said:

My biggest hangup with Gurglers is that when I tie them to act the way I want in the water......they spin the leader up like crazy in the air.   

I'm more a fan of the Crease fly  

A crease fly is different to me. I don't even get close to trying to fish one the same. 

But a fluoro leader will sink under the front of a gurgler and it will cause it to take a little nose dive when you first try to move it and that's when you start fishing a gurgler wrong. It's not a popper. I'm trying to skate it across the surface, not just smash through it. 

[tjm]

@Mitch f Another page on that same site shows how his tests rated different knots and his testing requirements https://www.saltstrong.com/articles/fishing-knots/  with links to each knot in more detail

This page on another site describes ways to test lines and knots against each other at home https://www.bassresource.com/fishing/testing-lines-knots.html

Knots most often fail either because of damage when tying, slippage under load or one part of the knot cutting into another part. But in my crude testing back in the '80s I also found that hook size and line size needed to match, if the hook wire had too small of diameter in proportion to the line it would tend to "cut" it and if the hook wire was too large for the line there was a greater tendency for the knot to slip. (in testing line against line or knot against knot I tied both to the same barrel swivel)  Somewhere out there is a university study done on knot failures a few years ago but a quick search didn't turn it up. Here is a web page that seems to explain knots somewhat https://www.fix.com/blog/fishing-knot-encyclopedia/

One line failure that doesn't get a lot mention is reaction to a sudden force like when the trophy fish "hits like a freight train" (not a problem if you catch small fish like me) and on a UK fly fishing forum devised a test where he fastened multiple 6# lines to the "rafters" in his garage and connected a one pound weight to each then dropped the weights from a few inches to  increasing heights until each line broke under the impact. I don't recall which nylon or which fluorocarbon he used or how many he tested in total, but he claimed that in each case the fluorocarbon failed significantly sooner than the nylon.   Which matches with the claim that nylon has more stretch than similar sized fluorocarbon, but that claim is not accurate really, both under similar evenly applied  loads will stretch 20%-30% before failure, but the fluoro does not rebound from a less than catastrophic  stretch like the nylon does, it simply breaks or stays stretched and deformed.

 

[fishinwrench]

25 minutes ago, Flysmallie said:

a fluoro leader will sink under the front of a gurgler and it will cause it to take a little nose dive when you first try to move it and that's when you start fishing a gurgler wrong. It's not a popper. I'm trying to skate it across the surface, not just smash through it.

Good words there.  👍 

I'm trying to be too popperish with it I think.    

There's still the SPINNY on the cast thing though.   How do you avoid that ?

[tjm]

Isn't leader twist most often a leader problem?

[Flysmallie]

4 minutes ago, fishinwrench said:

Good words there.  👍 

I'm trying to be too popperish with it I think.    

There's still the SPINNY on the cast thing though.   How do you avoid that ?

Small sparse tails, short legs, heavy hook, 8lb mono leader. 

The biggest fish I have caught on a gurgler in freshwater have taken when it's just dead drifted. But the most fun you can have with a gurgler is skating it across the current. At the end of a riffle, across the top of a tail out, across the end of a submerged tree. The hookup ratio sucks. The fish are small. The takes are nuclear explosions. Soon as it warms up I will get out and video some of this.