Fishing Knots: Which Knot for Which Line and Job

Five fishing knots cover nearly every connection on the water. The Palomar ties on a hook or lure, the uni handles braid and joins, the FG joins braid to a leader, the surgeon’s joins line to line, and a non-slip loop lets a lure swing. Which one you tie depends less on the fish than on the line on your reel.

On the IGFA’s test machine, “15 lb” braid broke at 34.4 lb. A “100 percent knot” is one that breaks at or above the label, not one that never breaks.

Which knot for which job?

Pick the row that matches the connection you are about to tie. The Palomar, uni, FG and surgeon’s pages give the numbered procedure, the turns for your line and the mistakes that cost strength.

The figures come from the three published pull-test series laid out further down, with each test’s lines and method. They are single testers’ results on named lines, not a laboratory standard, and that matters for how far you trust a percentage. Where you fish decides the rest: which line goes on which rod, as with the best fishing line for bass, and the material and length of the fishing leader at the join.

Which five knots should you learn first?

1. Palomar knot. Line to a hook, lure or swivel. Six steps, no turns to count, and it holds on mono, fluorocarbon and braid. Its one limit is that the lure has to pass through a loop of doubled line.
2. Uni knot. The all-rounder: a hook knot, a sliding loop, a snell along the shank, two lines joined as the double uni, and the knot that beat the Palomar on braid.
3. Surgeon’s knot. Two lines laid together and tied in a double or triple overhand. The fast line-to-line knot, and the one that tolerates unequal diameters and cold hands.
4. Non-slip loop knot. Lefty Kreh’s loop leaves a jerkbait, walking bait or jig free to swing, and finishes with the tag pointing at the hook so it sheds weed.
5. FG knot. Braid to a fluorocarbon or mono leader, the strongest and slimmest join you can tie without a tool. The last to learn because it needs tension on the braid the whole time.

If your reels carry monofilament, add the improved clinch, the fastest knot on nylon and the one most anglers were taught first. Learn to tie a fishing knot in this order, Palomar first, and give every new knot a hard pull by hand before you trust it with a fish.

Free PDF · Hook size chart What size is that hook? Lay it on the chart.

Print the free chart, lay any hook on it and read its size: 14 hooks from 9/0 to #8 at actual size, a gap ladder from #32 to 12/0, and the size for 17 fish and 16 baits on the back.

Your email address

Yes, send me the free chart

No card, nothing to buy, and the PDF is yours to keep. Confirm with one click and it's on its way. Then a few short emails and one a week on what's biting. Unsubscribe anytime. Privacy.

Why does the line decide the knot?

Three things decide how much strength survives a knot: the bend radius, the friction and the heat. A doubled strand or a wrap over a thicker line spreads the load at the first bend, which is why the Palomar doubles the line and the FG wraps the leader. Friction is what holds a knot together, and braid is so slick that knots relying on a few wraps simply slide apart. Heat from seating a knot dry glazes fluorocarbon and scuffs the coating on braid.

The practical rule follows from the friction. On monofilament nearly any well-tied knot holds; in Field & Stream’s test a five-turn improved clinch kept 96 percent of 10 lb mono, but only “if they were tied with extreme care”. On fluorocarbon the same knot kept 75 percent, and the Palomar and non-slip loop did better. On braid an eight-turn clinch “would not hold at all” and slipped out at about 10 lb on 14 lb line. Braid wants the uni or the Palomar at the hook, more turns than nylon, and a leader joined with a knot built to grip it.

Lines are also rated below their real break, so compare knots with each other inside one test and never with the label. The line hub compares the three materials on stretch, diameter and visibility, which is where the choice of line itself begins.

Which knot ties on a hook or lure?

The Palomar knot is the first choice on mono and fluorocarbon, and it holds on braid, where a uni edged it in Salt Strong’s test. Chester Palomar, a Scout leader from Pomona, California, showed it at a fishing show in 1971, and DuPont, the maker of Stren line, adopted it as one of its best knots. It ties in six steps:

1. Double the line. Fold 8–12 in (20–30 cm) of line back on itself to make a loop, and pass the loop through the eye of the hook. With a small eye, pass the tag through, then back, to make the loop on the far side.
2. Tie an overhand knot in the doubled line. Use the loop and the two strands together, loosely, with the hook hanging from the middle of the knot. Do not tighten it yet.
3. Pass the hook through the loop. Take the loop end of the doubled line and pass the whole hook or lure through it, then bring the loop up above the eye so it sits over the overhand knot.
4. Wet the knot. Braid and fluorocarbon especially; a dry seat glazes fluorocarbon and scuffs braid.
5. Seat it. Hold the hook and pull the standing line and the tag together, steadily, so the overhand knot slides down and the loop closes over it against the eye. Both strands should lie neatly, not crossed.
6. Trim the tag to about 1/8 in (3 mm). A seated Palomar does not slip much, so a short tag is enough.

Salt Strong ranks it first of eight snug knots; Field & Stream measured it at 89 percent on 10 lb mono and 82 on fluorocarbon. It is awkward with a big crankbait or a lure on a pre-tied rig, because all of that has to pass through the loop.

The improved clinch knot is the classic mono knot: five turns around the standing line, back through the small loop at the eye, then through the big loop just formed. Tied with care it matches the best mono knots, and it goes through a small hook eye the doubled Palomar will not. It is not recommended above 30 lb test, and it is never a braid knot. Its cousin the Trilene knot passes the line through the eye twice first. That double pass is the version the tests treat most kindly: 96 percent on 10 lb mono, level with a careful clinch and ahead of the Palomar.

The uni knot is the knot to learn if you fish braid. A loop is laid along the standing line and the tag end wraps through it around both strands, five turns on nylon and ten on braid. Tied once it holds a hook; tied twice, back to back, it joins two lines; tied along the shank it is a snell; left loose it is a sliding loop. It was published in 1944 as the gallows knot, re-invented by Norman Duncan in the 1960s, and popularized as the uni knot by Vic Dunaway in a 1970 book. If you have never tied a knot on a hook, start with the Palomar: there are no turns to count.

Which knot joins braid to a leader?

The FG knot is not a knot in the usual sense. The leader is wrapped under and over a tensioned braid 12 to 15 times each way, and the braid’s coils grip it like a Chinese finger trap, locked with half hitches. The leader never doubles back, so the join is slim enough to run through the guides on a cast. In Salt Strong’s head-to-head pulls on 10 lb braid to 30 lb fluorocarbon it beat the Alberto five bouts out of five. The price is that the braid must stay tight while you wrap, so it is tied with the braid held under tension, often by bending the rod tip.

The Alberto knot is the practical alternative. The braid passes through a loop in the leader, wraps seven times up and seven times back over itself, and exits the loop. Alberto Knie, the surfcaster who built it, says the idea came from a Chinese finger-trap toy. It needs no tension trick and ties in the dark; in the same Salt Strong series it beat a 14-wrap Albright three bouts to two. The double uni knot is the easiest join of all, two uni knots slid together, and its strength hangs on the wraps. On the IGFA’s machine five wraps a side kept 55.8 percent of the braid’s real break, four wraps 40.1.

The Albright knot still has fans for this job, but the tests go against it. Jimmie Albright, the Islamorada guide whose name it carries, tied it for tarpon leaders in the 1950s. On braid it slips: The Fisherman calls it “not a good connection when joining mono to gelspun”, and in Salt Strong’s 2020 bouts on 10 lb braid its first failure was a pull-out. It remains the knot for single-strand wire to mono and for fly line to backing. In short, for a braid to mono knot, tie the FG when the join must run through the guides and the Alberto when you need speed or are tying in the dark. The double uni is the easiest join, and the Albright is for wire and fly-line backing.

Which knot joins two lines of nylon?

The blood knot is the join for two mono lines of similar size: each line wraps around the other, three to seven turns a side (more on finer line), and the tags tuck through the center in opposite directions. Orvis calls it the best knot for sections that differ by no more than .002 in, one or two tippet sizes, which is why it is the classic join for hand-tied tapered leaders. In Field & Stream’s test a five-turn blood knot kept 83 percent of 10 lb line where a three-turn surgeon’s kept 65. Salt Strong’s six-pull contest on 20 to 30 lb mono found it about 13 percent stronger than the double uni.

The surgeon’s knot trades a little strength for speed and tolerance. Two lines laid side by side, tied together in a double overhand, a third pass for the triple: it joins lines of “moderately unequal size”, in Animated Knots’ words, and ties with cold fingers in a rocking boat. In Salt Strong’s 2015 mono contest the three-pass surgeon’s held 13 to 15 lb and won, while the double uni held 7 to 12 and the Albright 6 to 8. Fly anglers add tippet with it; inshore guides put on a leader with it.

When does a lure need a loop knot?

A snug knot pins the lure to a fixed point. A loop knot leaves a small fixed loop in the eye, so a jerkbait darts, a walking topwater glides and a jig falls level. Lefty Kreh’s non-slip loop is the one to learn. The turns follow the line test, seven on 6 to 8 lb down to two above 60 lb, and the tag finishes pointing at the hook so it does not catch grass on the retrieve. In Field & Stream’s test it held 83 percent of 10 lb fluorocarbon, a point ahead of the Palomar. The Rapala knot is its older relative, rated a tad stronger in Salt Strong’s loop ranking, with the tag pointing back up the line where it collects more weed.

When do you snell a hook?

A snell knot wraps the leader five to eight times around the hook shank instead of tying it to the eye, so the pull runs straight down the hook. It began on hooks that had no eye at all and survives for two jobs. On a circle hook with bait, the in-line pull tends to set the hook in the corner of the mouth, which is why it belongs with the handling advice on the catch and release page. On a straight-shank flipping hook, threaded in from the front of the eye, the hook kicks its point up and out on the hookset, which is what sent bass anglers flipping and punching heavy cover toward it. The uni snell does the same thing with a knot you already know.

How do you tie line to the reel?

The arbor knot is two overhand knots: one in the tag around the standing line, one in the tag alone as a stopper that jams against the first on the center of the spool. It carries almost nothing once the spool is full, and we found no published break test for it. Its one weakness is braid, which can slip on a bare arbor. Wind on a few yards of mono backing first, or put a strip of electrical tape on the arbor, whenever you put fishing line on a reel that will carry braid.

What do the pull tests actually show?

Knot strength is thinner ground than most knot pages admit. No standard test exists. This page draws on three testers that publish their figures together with their lines and method. Salt Strong runs mostly head-to-head bouts, two knots on one strand pulled until the weaker breaks, so each figure is the losing knot’s break. Field & Stream tied the hook knots to a lure and the joins line to line, and reported each as a percentage of the line’s measured unknotted strength. Sport Fishing pulled 53 braid-to-leader knots, sent in by anglers and captains who answered its call, on the IGFA’s Instron machine, three samples each, as a percentage of the braid’s real break.

Two lessons sit in that table. The testers disagree on mono to a lure, where Salt Strong ranks the Palomar first and Field & Stream measured the Trilene knot ahead of it. On braid to leader they point the same way. The FG beat the Alberto in all five of Salt Strong’s bouts, and on Sport Fishing’s machine the best FG out-held the best Albright and the best Alberto in both line classes. On line to line each tester tied a different set of knots, so there is less to compare. And the hands matter almost as much as the knot: four anglers tied an FG for the same machine on the same lines, and their knots held anywhere from 49 to 73 percent. Read every figure beside its test’s conditions before you pick the best fishing knots for a job.

How do you keep any knot from breaking?

1. Wet it before you seat it. A dry knot pulled tight heats the line. Heat glazes fluorocarbon and scuffs the coating on braid, and the knot breaks below its number.
2. Seat it slowly and fully. One steady pull on the standing line until the wraps stop moving and lie side by side. Crossed wraps cut each other; a knot that seats under the weight of a fish seats in the wrong shape.
3. Trim to about 1/8 in (3 mm), not flush. A knot can settle a fraction under the first fish, and a tag cut flush leaves nothing to give. Berkley’s braid instructions leave about 1/4 in (6 mm).
4. Test it, and retie it. Give the knot a hard pull by hand before the first cast. After a big fish, a snag or a stretch of line that feels rough, cut back above the damage and tie again.

Where did the knots come from?

Most of them are younger than they look. The Palomar is from 1971, the uni was popularized in a 1970 book, the Albright is a 1950s Keys tarpon knot, and the non-slip loop went into Practical Fishing Knots, the book Lefty Kreh wrote with Mark Sosin. The FG’s name is disputed between “fine grip”, “freaking good” and an unconfirmed originator, which is fitting for a knot that is really a splice. If you are starting from nothing, start with the Palomar: six steps, no turns to count.

Free PDF · 2 pages

Stop guessing hook sizes. Lay any hook on this page and read it

A jar of loose hooks and no packet in sight. Guess wrong and you find out with a fish on.

The True-Size Hook Chart. Print it at actual size, lay a hook on the outlines, and the one its bend fills is its size. One sheet, front and back, for the tackle box.

• 14 hooks from 9/0 to #8 at true size, plus a ladder from #32 to 12/0
• The size for 17 fish and 16 baits, from bluegill to tuna
• A 2/0 circle that gapes less than a #4: why a 2/0 is not always a 2/0

Every outline drawn from Mustad's published dimensions; every size from the 25 sources on the page, Maryland DNR and Idaho Fish and Game among them.

Your email address

Yes, send me the free chart

No card, nothing to buy. Confirm with one click and the PDF is on its way, one version for your phone and one to print, yours to keep. Then a few short emails and one a week on what's biting, with an unsubscribe link in every one. Privacy.