Amelia Island Fishing Tips

Learning to tie a few basic knots properly is time well spent, and it will reward you throughout your fishing career. It's frustrating to lose a big fish when a knot lets go, and knots are the weakest part of your line, so you want to use a good knot to increase your chances of getting the big one into the cooler or the digital camera.

While I think knots are very important to the fisherman, I'm not going to spend the time here illustrating how to tie them. That's been done already on many other web sites. If you want to learn to tie a particular knot, plop the name of the knot into Google or simply "fishing knots" and you'll find a bunch of web sites with pictures and animations to help you learn the correct way to tie any knot.

What I'll cover here are the common knots I use, what I use them for, and a link to another web site that will show you how to tie them. Remember, wet knots are happy knots - wet the knot before tightening it and it will make the knot snug up better and prevent friction from damaging the line.

Clinch Knot - The basic knot for mono. Use this one for tying swivels, sinkers, hooks, etc. and even for tying your line to the spool on your reel. It's the first knot a fisherman needs to learn. It's a reliable knot and if tied correctly, it won't let go under pressure. See a picture of one here.

Snell Knot - The snell is used to tie a hook to a line. I think snelling a hook onto mono line is the most efficient way of keeping the line and the hook connected, no matter what happens. It's a knot worth learning. I've been snelling hooks on for years, and I've never had one come untied. Here's an illustration of how to snell a hook. You can tie a hook on with a clinch knot, but a snell is much stronger.

Dropper Loop - I use a dropper loop whenever I want to attach a hook with a snelled leader to either the main line or to a bottom rig I'm making. Here's a page that will show you how to tie a dropper loop.

Albright Knot - this is a knot I use to tie a shock leader to the main line. Here's a link to an illustration on how to tie an Albright knot, and also there is an article on this site about shock leaders.

Perfection Loop - I use this knot anytime I want a loop at the end of a line, like when I snell a leader onto a hook. It's simple to tie, and very strong. Here's a link that explains the perfection loop.

Article By Amelia-Island-Fishing.Com Staff