Vaal nymphing knots

[yella]

Hi Hendrik I had the same issue with bad tippet material long ago. Basically breaking every time a decent fish hits the fly.

I went to the local fishing shop and made knots in several brands of line and tippet and found some break easily some were good. Since then I have been fishing plain Double X platinum plus. i bought it in several different breaking strengths and what I also find good is to remake my complete leader often. I actually did it every time when I still nymphed a lot.

IMHO fluoro isnt worth the extra money.

[Hendrik84]

Ja its a drag

Yesterday I bought more tippet in various brands and strengths and it was eye opening to see how weak some of them are, far below specifications (although yet again its not known how old the stock is). Some of the knots pop at one third of the line's rated breaking strength!!!

Next up will be to test premier lines and see how they compare with the "cheapies".
Science will thank me one day...

[Korrie]

Not all lines are equal.

Some lines are very strong, but makes weak knots.
Some lines are very strong, when a gradual pull is applied but will snap when there is a sudden jerk on the line. (this is very prevelant in mono to fluoro)
Some lines have more stretch that will lessen the impact on the knots.
Knots between different brands of mono are weaker than knots of between the same brand.
Blood knot is good up to 4x, then it becomes a weak knot.
Thinner tippet then a double surgeon knot is best, some prefer a tripple surgeon knot.
When doing a dropper knot, the best is the knot that Pascal Cognard showed us.
Will try and find a photo

[Hendrik84]

Thanks Korrie I agree that some lines have a very poor knot making ability when compared to others.

And I fully agree with Tiaan about testing different brands and that fluoro might not always be worth the extra money. I spent hours tying and breaking knots and in my opinion Stealth was the only brand tippet which gave satisfactory results. Its not the thinnest when compared with its breaking strength but at least its knots (mainly surgeons knot) break at very close to its stated line breaking strength. I must state that I used numerous brands of tippet and even normal fishing line such as normal double x.

Oh and finally in my opinion (and results) the triple surgeons knot is definitely stronger than the double surgeons knot

Thanks for the input guys

[dollar]

i'm set in my ways and have never used the following, some say copolymer lines is better that flouro (and mono), it has flouro attributes and superior knot strength, thinner and stronger. i also think the price could be around the same as mono

[tombosis]

Thanks Korrie I agree that some lines have a very poor knot making ability when compared to others.

And I fully agree with Tiaan about testing different brands and that fluoro might not always be worth the extra money. I spent hours tying and breaking knots and in my opinion Stealth was the only brand tippet which gave satisfactory results. Its not the thinnest when compared with its breaking strength but at least its knots (mainly surgeons knot) break at very close to its stated line breaking strength. I must state that I used numerous brands of tippet and even normal fishing line such as normal double x.

Oh and finally in my opinion (and results) the triple surgeons knot is definitely stronger than the double surgeons knot

Thanks for the input guys

Hi Hendrik

Something else to note with your testing, if you are only using the knots mentioned it will always break at the knot. 100% knots are a rarity, you would need to use at least a bimini twist on each end to create loops to test the ultimate breaking strain of the material.

Google knot strength and you will get estimates for the double and triple surgeons. Uni knots break at about 80% of tippet strength, but do so pretty consistently (easy knot to get right). Palomar knot is pretty close to 100%, but you can't join sections with it.

[Hendrik84]

Ja thanks its all worth noting but I am more interested in knots and 90% of the time the surgeon's knot. I'll probably use the uni-knot or loop to loop for the leader to tippet but the surgeons is so simple, reliable and useful for giving 2 tag ends with the least amount of knotting.

The reason I started this thread was because I was struggling to get knots constantly close to 40 or 50% of the breaking strength and I was freaking out a bit and doubting everything I know about flyfishing. Turns out getting the correct brand of tippet solved 90% of my issues haha!

I tried amongst others xplorer, double x, kingfisher, featherlite but not rather expensive ones like rio and as mentioned before only the stealth worked well enough for me. Dont know if the other ones I tried were from bad batches or old or would perform better with other knots