Howcomezit -- loop knots

[TurbineBlade]

Hey, howcomes a loop knot?  My experience with them suggests:

1.  They give great action when you play with the fly with your fingeres, and then on the first cast they swing around and foul on the hook eye and/or head/bead chain/etc. of the fly.  

2.  Popular types (Non-slip mono loop, hipster tarpon loop, etc.) are difficult to tie in a small enough size to prevent #1, whereas types that are easy to tie very small (Duncan loop) collapse under pressure.  

3.  If you attach your tippet > leader with a blood or surgeon knot and use one of the two loops listed above, you will certainly lose your entire tippet section when you hang bottom given that the breakage will occur on the leader.  

So you're either a monster who litters the stream bottom with tippet and flies, or you could fish only with level leaders!  You're one or the other!  

Gene

[Danny Barrett]

Personally I only use loop knots with my big streamers.  I'm only fishing 4-5 feet of 12 or 14lb fluro. 

 

Open to any suggestions on different streamer set ups.

Thanks in advance,

Dan Barrett

dannyt...@gmail.com

(540)-222-8064

--
http://www.tpfr.org
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Tidal Potomac Fly Rodders" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to tidal-potomac-fly-...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to tidal-potoma...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tidal-potomac-fly-rodders/61f61a48-571c-43e5-9796-f922c5f1f190%40googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[Josh Cohn]

i pretty much exclusively use a no slip mono loop n often find it breaks at the bottom of the loop or the knot
n if the loop is small enough it wont catch on the eyes either
usually use 40#, 20#, 12# blood knotted mono leader

[Cary Pugh]

I almost exclusively use a nonslip loop knot with steamers and have used a lot with tapered leaders down to 5x with no issue other than if I don't seat the knot correctly or catch a larger fish or tree than the tippet can handle (esp if there are nicks in the line - if I'm lazy and only tested the streamer i don't change leader or cut back a perfectly good one even though I know I should). I even have used for a "wee" dry fly in 4x in New Zealand - tied by the guide the knot was a thing of beauty. The tiny loop was perhaps the only way the wee dry would have floated correctly with the "rope" we were using - so thick the guide had to cut the tippet at an angle to thread through the hook eye. I know some twins in Argentina one of whom uses the non slip loop knot and the other the perfection loop to tie on streamers. To each his own but I will not abandon a loop knot for a streamer. I am a strong proponent and work on tying with as small a loop as possible.

[TurbineBlade]

Josh -- in the "official" tests I've seen and in my own experience (both basement and stream testing), any line > line knot will almost universally be weaker than a tippet > fly knot.  The uni-to-uni, blood, surgeons of various turns, J-knot, etc. test somewhere in the 60% or so breaking strain limit of the lighter material versus the higher strength you generally get with *most tippet > fly knots.  The non-slip loop is a very strong knot, so it would be an anomaly for someone fishing a hand-tied leader to have breakage at the loop knot versus the first knot "upstream" of that.  I dunno?

A bimini may be an exception to that -- but most folks don't attach tippet that way.  I suppose using a tippet ring would remedy it as well, but I hate those things.  

Cary -- I've heard people advocate loop knots for dries (in addition to the typical streamer use), and the argument makes sense.  I use a Duncan loop more than any other knot, so the choice of whether to leave a small loop or cinch to the hook eye is as easy as it gets...you slide it down another few centimeters or you don't ;).  What I've noticed is that after catching fish (or debris) which causes the loop to cinch down, I get no noticeable difference in catch-rate using the closed knot versus the loop.  Granted, I reserve the right to change that opinion at any point!  ;)  You never know -- all it takes is one experience to change your mind about something right?  

I appreciate the interesting points -- 

Gene

[namfos]

Here's one alternative. 

;-)

Mark 

[Cary Pugh]

More than anything it's the knot you know how to tie the best and your confidence in it that matters. If you tie a better Duncan loop and the other ones fail a lot more then the answer is easy. I've not used the Duncan loop much because it is a slip knot but recall a guide in Montana who used it faithfully. All part of the fun. Hope to see you on the water soon.