knots?

[garb72]

I plan on tying 5x and 6x tippet material to a 9' tapered leader that is 5x (5x to 5x and 6x to 5x), should i use a nail knot, a blood knot, or is there another that is better to join them?

[gqualls]

Garb, the surgeons knot has served me well when connecting tippet to leader.

[Normand]

the double surgeons knot has always been good to me.

blood knot in that size tippet is way too hard for me to tie.

[fly.tyer]

The surgeons knot has never failed me.

[PaulY]

Double surgeons knot here, too.

[James Smith]

Double surgons knot for me as well. Fast and easy to tie, even with cold, wet hands and holds well.

Jim smith

[John Rhoades]

I plan on tying 5x and 6x tippet material to a 9' tapered leader that is 5x (5x to 5x and 6x to 5x), should i use a nail knot, a blood knot, or is there another that is better to join them?

Surgeons knots are easier for many people to tie, but I always use blood knots because they give a straight connection between each leader section. I've tied so many blood knots over the years that I don't have a problem tying them quickly (most of the time!).

A nail knot won't work at all for this.

[sagefisher]

garb72,

I have been using a double surgeons knot for many years when tying mono tippet to a mono leader. Once I started using only fluorocarbon tippet, I switched to what I call a triple surgeons knot. I use a Cinch Tie Knot Tying Tool, sold by Orvis, Cabela?s and others, and it works great for that knot. The surgeons knot is a great knot to use for leader to tippet connections.

Larry ---sagefisher---

[Trout Bum]

Double surgeons here too. Very easy to tie with cold fingers.

TB

[jeffnles1]

For the past 2 years, I've been using what amounts to a double Uni knot that I tie using the Tie-Fast tool.

Take the tool, put your leader and tippet together, tie a "nail knot" on one tag, turn it around, tie a "nail" know on the other, moistne the lines and slide the two knots together.

I did some puerly unscientific tests with this knot against a double surgeon's knot and a blood knot (actually several examples of each knot to be sure I didn't eiter tie one "super knot" or one "really bad" knot.

I first tried two leader tippet sections one with the test knot (double knot tied with the tie fast tool) and the control knot (either a blood knot or a double surgeon's). I tied the end of the tipet to a hook, linked the two hooks together and pulled slowly on each line to see which one broke first. The problem I ran into was they almost always broke at the hook first (taught me something about my knots at the hook end but more on that in another thread).

So, I ended up rigging a way to wrap the tippets around a dow pin and then pull on the leader ends. This worked well as it tested the knots against each other.

What I found was the "double nail knot" (glorified uni knot from what I can tell) was stronger then the blood knot in almost all tests. The "double nail knot" was stronger than the Double Surgeon's knot in 7 of my 10 tests and the Double Surgeon's knot was better in the other 3.

There could have been other stress factors on the lines, could be I was getting sloppy tying knots, could be a lot of things, but when out on a stream or a lake, one cannot control varibles either so I thought this was a realistic, if not scientific test.

For me, the bonus of the "knot too" knot is I can tie it in my sleep, with cold fingers, and in about half the time it takes me to tie a surgeon's knot and I can tie three of these in the time it takes me to tie one blood knot.

Also, this knot ends up looking like a blood knot, slides through the guides well and keeps the lines straight.

Jeff