Category: fly fishing equipment

Setting Up a Fly Fishing Reel : Prepping a Wrapped Loop for Fly Fishing

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The wrapped loop is a little more complicated Here's what we're going to end up with, obviously this is just the end of the fly line that I've cut off, but you can see here, these are our thread wraps

And we need a couple of things to get that done One is a sharp knife, razor blade, something like that because we're going to actually shave the end of the fly line down so that it's got a taper so that when we fold it over, there's not a bump there where it meets the fly line The other thing that makes it easy, not absolutely necessary, is a thread and a bobbin This would be a bobbin that you would use for fly tying This just makes it a little bit more easier to deal with the thread

You don't have to hold the spool in your hand while you're spinning it, the bobbin holds it So that's basically all you need though, and maybe a, some glue or something to finish that off, to kind of protect the thread wraps You can use glue, or you could use like a clear fingernail polish or something like that So that's the prep for the wrap loop This makes a really strong loop, I mean this loop is actually stronger than the fly line itself

Like if I went to break this loop, the line would break back here before the loop would pull out of the thread, so it's a really strong way to make a connection

Setting Up a Fly Fishing Reel : Fly Fishing Nail Knot for Leader

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Okay, now we've got our fly line on our reel and we need to attach the liter to the fly line This is one of the more difficult connections that you'll have to make with your fly fishing equipment

And once again we're using the nail-knot tool This tool was made specifically for tying nail-knots You can find it at most fly shops Sometimes at, you know academy or something like that It's a pretty specific tool and it doesn't really do anything else

It comes in all different kinds of shapes and styles, sometimes it'll be in the shape of a fish or something like that This one has a pair of clippers attached to it But, here's what we're going to do Lay that fly line in the nail-knot tool again with the tip sticking out The end of the liter goes the opposite direction

That lays in there with the fly line Grab the end of the liter and we're just going to wrap it back over the whole thing, going this way once again Four wraps is all we need, so, one, two, three, four wraps And then we take the end and go back underneath the wraps we just made And now is the hard part, just keeping those wraps lined up while we tighten it up and slide it off the tool

Tuck it between our thumb and your forefinger, sort of pull the tool out and then, we'll pull it from the back end here, while keeping it tight on the other end Switch over to the other hand, pull the other side You have to be careful not to pull it off the end of the fly line too, that's also a problem When it's done, it looks something like that Give it a nice tug and we're finished

Setting Up a Fly Fishing Reel : About Fly Fishing Reels

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Okay, in this series, we're going to be doing a knot, and knots that will apply specifically to you fly casting equipment And basically what we're going to do is we're going to go from the reel all the way out to the liter

And I'm going to show you all the knots you need to do to attach your backing to your reel and then to attach the backing to the fly line, and then to attach the fly line to the liter, and the liter to the tidbit And there's a few basic knots you can do that with and then I'll show you a few, kind of alternative knots that you can use to attach all those together There's a couple of knots that are a little bit difficult, and there's a couple of knots that require a couple special tools, and then there's a couple of tricks that you can do to make tying a couple of these difficult knots a little bit easier And I'll show you all that stuff There's nothing, none of the tools are really out of the ordinary, a lot of stuff is stuff you can find around the house and stuff you might not have thought about using for tying your knots

So, we're going to show you how to do all that and hopefully make it a lot easier

Setting Up a Fly Fishing Reel : Fly Fishing Perfection Loop

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The next loop we're going to do is a perfection loop It's a little bit harder to tie but it's a nicer loop and it comes out a lot smoother when you're finished with it

What you want to do is start off, you make one loop like so, then you make another loop behind that loop, then you take your tag in between the two loops Okay, so then you're going to pull the second loop through the first loop and it ends out like that Looks a lot nicer when I'm not on film but that's a good way to get an illustration of it A little bit trickier but once you get it done that first time, pretty easy to do it Let's try that again

See, we're making the first loop, the second loop behind it, pull the tag between the two loops, pull the second loop through the first loop, perfection

Setting Up a Fly Fishing Reel : Fly Fishing Arbor Knot

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Alright, the first knot we need to do is the arbor knot, and that's to attach the backing to the reel, the spool of the reel This is what we call the arbor, here

This will also work for spinning tackle, or bait casting tackle, anyway, you need to attach the line to the spool of a reel So the first thing we're going to do is take the backing and just go completely around the arbor like so Then I'm going to take this tag end I got here, and the standing end of the line and we're just going to make another loop like so Okay, then we'll take the tag end and we're going to go thorough that loop four times so, one, two, three, four, until we have something that looks like that Okay, and then we're just going to pull that tight there

Okay, we got a nice snug knot there And then you just grab the spool and just kind of pull it and it'll tighten up on your arbor So then what you do is you just clip off the little tag there And we've got our arbor knot, nice and tight

Setting Up a Fly Fishing Reel : Fly Fishing Needle Knot

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Okay, the other way to attach your backing to your fly line is with a needle knot For this you just need a big needle

It doesn't really matter what it's for, as long as the eye is big enough to get the backing through the eye of the needle And this one's a little bit easier then using the nail-knot tool because you keep your wraps a lot tighter from the start So what you're going to do is line up the eye of the needle and the end of the fly line like so We're going to take our backing, line it up this way, and just lay them across each other And we're going to do the same thing

We're going to wrap the backing back this way, over itself, and the fly line, then we're going to use the eye of the needle to pull it back through the loops that we just made So, one loop, two wraps, three wraps,, and four wraps, okay, so now we're ready to stick it through the eye of the needle And, we're through The bigger the eye of the needle is, the easier it is obviously to thread it back through This one's only a medium size so I'm at a little bit of a disadvantage

Okay, got it through, and just grab that needle, the other side, and just pull that through Okay, this is a little bit easier because we don't have to worry about the wraps coming loose like we do with the nail-knot tool because we've already got our wraps pretty tight Same thing, slide it down, it looks like that Grab both ends of the backing, get it nice and tight, and wah-la, you're done

Setting Up a Fly Fishing Reel : Fly Fishing Nail Knots

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Okay, the next one we're going to do is the nail knot, and that's going to be used to tie the backing to the fly line and we're going to do it with the nail knot tool I'll show you, in a second, another way to do it without a nail knot tool

Okay, first you want to put the fly line in the nail knot tool like so, then we take the backing, lay that in there with the nail knot tool And what we're going to do is just wrap the end of the backing over itself and the fly line and we're going to go this way And we only need to make four wraps, so we're going to go one, two, three, four Okay, now, that nail knot tool is designed so we can take the end of that and just slide it underneath the wraps we just made Okay, once you get it through there, the tricky part is keeping those wraps nice and even while we pull it tight

First we pull it tight from the short end And then we pull the long end and slide the whole thing off the nail-knot tool Then keep it trapped under your fingers, tighten it up, and then you give it a nice, even pull on either side, and when you're done it looks like that The trick with this particular knot is that it grabs the fly line when you tighten it up and it doesn't just rip right off So, that's the knot you need to do to tie your backing to your fly line

Setting Up a Fly Fishing Reel : Wrapped Loops in Fly Fishing

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First thing we need to do is shave that fly line down a little bit so that we get a nice taper, so basically just trap it there and just pull it It doesn't have to be anything exact, you just want to get a little taper there so when you fold those things together you don't get a big loop

Okay, so there's that And just fold it over and you can make it as, you know, as big a loop as you want About like that, maybe half an inch of overlap is usually good Okay, we take our thread, we just kind of get it started here Nice and tight, you want to make these wraps pretty tight, a few tight ones

Now here's the trick to this The best way to get it really tight, especially if you're using the bobbin, and it's really easy, is just kind of spin the bobbin, I'm going to just spin the bobbin and wrap it back this way over that connection, so, here goes, just got to get it going Spin that thing, that'll make it a lot tighter then if I just did it by hand Pull out a little bit of extra, spin it back a little more, spin it back in the direction we started Then you could just go over it a couple of times, maybe back and forth a couple of times

Okay, that's good Then you can do a couple of overhead knots and that thread just to finish it off Clip everything off nice and close And the only other thing you need to do with this now is coat that, like I said, with a head cement with your fly tying equipment or maybe clear finger nail polish and that just protects the threads But that loop there is ready to go

Setting Up a Fly Fishing Reel : Fly Fishing Needle Knot for Leader

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Okay, we're going to attach the liter to the fly line again, but this time we're going to do it with a needle We're still doing a nail knot, but we're just going to do it a little bit easier way

Same thing, we're going to line up the fly line and the needle, you see the eye of the needle here And then we're going to have the liter going the opposite direction through here And we're going to grab that end of the liter, wrap it back this way toward the end of the needle and the end of the fly line, four wraps, that's all we need One, two, three, four And then we'll take the end of the liter, poke it through the eye of the needle, and then pull that back through the loops that we just made

And this is a little bit easier because, once again, we do not have to worry so much about the loops sliding because they're much snugger than they were in the nail knot tool So we'll pull the needle out, that pulls the end of the liter out, snug it up, pull both ends of the liter nice and tight And that's what it looks like when it's done You can clip it off as close as you want here, and as close as you want here and it shouldn't slide out You just want to give it a good hard tug to test it

If it doesn't come out now, then it probably won't ever come out

Setting Up a Fly Fishing Reel : Fly Fishing Perfection Loop on a Fly Line

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Here's another shot of that professional loop done with the fly line, a little bit less bulky This works with bulky materials pretty well, maybe not as well on the rope but definitely on the fly line where the section here looks pretty thick

So once again, we're just going to make a loop to start with, like so, and make another loop behind it, like so And then we'll take the tag end, put it between the two loops, then we grab the second loop, pull it through the first loop, like that Pull it kind of tight, and that's what it looks like when it's done Pretty neat little loop Do that again, And it's a pretty good loop as you can see, once you tighten it up, it's tight

Going to untie it real quick here, then retie it again So, in fast motion, loop, second loop, pull the tag between the two loops, pull the first loop through the second loop That's it Try one more time Loop, loop, in between, pull the second loop through the first loop, and that's it, perfection