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Transcript61 lines
- [00:05]
Joe Simons
Welcome to the Salt Strong podcast disrupting fishing entertainment as you know it. Prepare to laugh, prepare to get to know fishing legends in a whole new and unfiltered way. And on occasion, you might even learn a thing or two about fishing. Here's your host, Joe Simons like diamonds,
- [00:26]
the best fishing knot for beginners to master. And this could be the opposite of what advanced anglers need to know. Hey everybody. Joe Simons like diamonds. And hey, Luke Simons like diamonds. Salt Strong bros, back again. Talking about knots, it's always a hot topic. It always gets a little bit of debate because everyone thinks they have the strongest knot and sometimes you do, sometimes you don't. We've done a lot of testing. We bought that was like a eighteen hundred dollar knot tester where you can really get it down to the mini decibels where it's not just hey, I think this not as strong or hey, I don't that I've ever lost a fish from it. We hear that kind of stuff and that, that's great. But end of the day, if you're fishing and you know how tough it can be, right Luke, it can be a grind. You were out there today in Homo SAP. We'll talk about that in a little bit. I want to hear about this umbrella incident on your boat. And some days are a grind and there's nothing worse when you finally get that bite, especially if it's a big fish and you lose it because of a knot or sometimes you not even sure it was not. Maybe you got wrapped around something. But in the day you want to have every single thing on your side like you want every possible slight advantage possible. Now this podcast is going to be a little bit more towards the beginners. But as you do evolve and grow and get better and better, you do need to change your knots. So that's kind of another point of this podcast is don't just stick with this one knot. We're going to talk about and we'll talk about kind of the, the evolution of, of knots and, and that you should know and, and, and really master where you can kind of do it, you know, blindfolded because sometimes you're going to be out there like the mad snooker fishing at night time with no lights and sometimes you'll be early morning and skeeters are out and you can't see anything and you just got to be able to tie not as fast as humanly possible. So let's get into it, Luke, let's first talk about your trip today. What, what happened Umbrella incident?
- [02:27]
Luke Simons
Yeah. Yeah. I had the bright idea of getting an umbrella and I actually bought an umbrella stand for my boat. So like when on days like, like kind of today, at least it started this way where it wasn't windy and it was getting hot. I, I put the umbrella up front on the casting platform and I'm literally like standing on the umbrella in shade while fishing. Feels really nice. It's actually, it's a, it's a very good break from the sun. But the wind came up and I was like, I bet you this umbrella can handle it. And next thing I know, it was actually right when I got snagged on a rock, the umbrella shot off and I could, it's really floating off. And so I. Okay, do I like, do I break off or do I save this umbrella? And I was like, I think it can float. And anyhow I got my lure back and turned around. The umbrella's gone. It sucked.
- [03:12]
Joe Simons
Oh no.
- [03:12]
Luke Simons
So I finally go over there and found it. I had to, I snagged it with my lure and, and got it back. So it's all on video too. It'll be a fun video on the. My first time fishing out of Homosassa and custom reds and snook and, and an umbrella.
- [03:28]
Joe Simons
So when you say an umbrella stand is like a legit sand or stand with like sand or water in it where it's a heavy one. What is it?
- [03:35]
Luke Simons
It's 30 pounds, but it's, it's not sand. It's, it's like a cement I guess. It's surrounded by plastic and you're just doing side cast.
- [03:44]
Joe Simons
Obviously you can't go back.
- [03:45]
Luke Simons
Okay, well. Yep. So, but, but on to knots though. This is something that, that I'm passionate about. It's, it's the one thing in fishing. Can't even control umbrellas apparently. But the only thing in fishing that we actually have control over is the strength of our knots. And it's on us to make sure that we're choosing the right nod. And a big problem in the industry. And I fell for, for many years like to the point where I was tournament fishing with knots that I, that I thought were good because people that recommended say hey, this is 100% knot. So I just went ahead and used it and, and assumed they were, they were true. And turns out once I finally started testing knots, like once we started salt strong, that was just a big push. We got some, some testing software. They're not software. Some, some, some very high end scales where we can actually test the exact Breaking point of line. And I tested like every knot that I could find and I was blown away that my beloved knot. Yeah this hundred percent knot that I was told got smoked by a knot that's thinner and sleeker and it wasn't even close. It lost every single time. 100 time it lost. And, and then I started doing the, the pound difference like the, the tension difference and it was around 30 weaker than another knot. And so, so now again for many years I was using the A nod because I, I, I thought the person that I said 100 not but knew what they're doing. So what not was that? What's that what not was it? We're dying to know the double uni. So the double uni was the line to line connection that I, that I was told was good. When I switched from, from mono over to say hey this, this knot works great on braid. It's 100 use it right. And I just trusted it. And it turns out that was, that was totally wrong. So at the macro level there's going to be a lot get on YouTube even at the boat doc, wherever. There's gonna be a lot of people talking about knots which is great. But the one way to know that you shouldn't trust advice is if they say they have 100 not. Because I've done probably more not broken more knots than probably most people like under control test. And, and there's no such thing as 100% knot. Even my favorite knots, they're still gonna, the break is going to happen in the knot. It doesn't make sense that that fishing line can which is obviously designed to, to hold, to hold tension in one direction when you can tort it and twist it and, and turn it into a knot that now you have, you have pinch points that are created in there. You've got tensions going multiple directions. Unless your line is, is terrible where there's like some sort of compromised part of the main line. The break is going to happen in the knot every time.
- [06:36]
Joe Simons
What, what does 100% knot mean for people listening saying I don't even know what that means. I heard it. What does that mean?
- [06:42]
Luke Simons
Yeah. So again there might be people at different, different terminology but technically it's like, hey, if you tie this knot the breaking point is going to happen who knows where somewhere on the strand. But it won't be in the knot.
- [06:54]
Joe Simons
Not.
- [06:56]
Luke Simons
Yeah, not in the knot. So it's so strong like 100 means that you can tie a knot and there's no degradation of the line. So if, if you get stuck on the bottom, it could break at your rod. You know, it could break close to your rod, it could break close to the lure, but it's not going to be the knot. And with 99.9% certainty the knot's going to break, one of the knots are going to break. And. And so basically, if Everybody. That. That's mentioned 100% knot, I asked how they test it, and it basically, somebody says that it just means they've never actually tested or knots, because if they did, they would see that almost always the breaks can happen in the knot.
- [07:36]
Joe Simons
So is there any exception like this PR bobbin or any of these crazy
- [07:40]
Luke Simons
ones that even the PR bobbin that requires. It requires, like actual bobbin, where you have to do a ton of twists. It is actually the strongest knot I've tested, but it's a huge pain to tie, and it's barely stronger than the FG knot, which is absolutely amazing. And. But even then, the PR bobbin, it'll still break in the knot. And it's almost always the first hard turn, like, whatever the weakest line is going into a knot, and. And you can just kind of visualize it or follow it, and it's usually at the first hard turn. So the. The uni knot that we're gonna talk about, I'll talk about exactly where the break happens. And. And there are some things you can do to help to help increase the strength of it with just a couple. Couple wraps on a certain side, but it's still going to be. Not 100% and it's still going to be much weaker than other alternatives. So, long story short, the uni knot is. The knot that is. Is just a great knot for beginners because it works with all line connections. You can tie straight to a hook, you can tie to a swivel. You can tie line to line. You can tie it with braid, you can tie it with mono with fluoro even. You can use. Probably use a little bit of a wire, I guess. Yeah, maybe I should take that back. The Albright was the best one. I. I didn't know wire, But. But basically, as long as you're not using wire, the. The uni knot is awesome. It is. It is a good knot across the board for beginners.
- [09:04]
Joe Simons
Not because you said the double uni was not.
- [09:07]
Luke Simons
And the reason why I don't recommend it for beginners is because in all, you know, I've done a lot of controlled knot contests for specific things. Right. For line to line. Right. Let's get all the Best line to line knots that that at least I've heard about and that get, get added in comments and test them out. I do all the best snug knots right like line to swivel or line to hook direct. And, and at no point is the uni knot the best. So it's always good but it's never the best. So advance anglers who are trying to catch, you know, the trophy fish on light line and want to make sure that you never lose official lifetime due to being a little bit lazy on a knot. The, the, the advanced angler should not be using the uni knot. It's not very hard to learn learn new knots. Even the, the FG that that is now my personal favorite has been testing extremely well for line to line connections for specifically for braid to to leader connections. After practice it only takes a minute. And, and with after practice with the double uni knot that it replaces, it's like it, it maybe takes an extra 15 seconds to get 30% more strength while being thinner. It's a no brainer. So that's, that's the argument I hear
- [10:23]
Joe Simons
even from some guides that do the double uni and I get that like to put myself in their shoes, they're many times not trying to get the fish of a lifetime for their clients. They're just, they want something quick and every 30 seconds or even 15 seconds does help. I guess that's the argument because it is quicker. But yeah, 30, when you hear it's 30% less strong or less effective. Yeah, that's a big difference.
- [10:50]
Luke Simons
Let me show you. So I show you the size difference too. So it's, it's 30% stronger while being I would argue 50% thinner. So the FG knot never, never folds over the leader. See if you can try to put it in front of this background. So the top one is the uni knot. You can see that that mono section has the coils so that mono is basically doubled over and some in the FG knot on the bottom, the mono never doubles over. It's just braid wrapped around it. So literally that FG knot on the bottom is 50% thinner and it's 30% stronger. So it's like why would an advanced angler not tie it, not not do it or if speed is a thing too. The, the uni knot again this is the double uni knot. So this is like the uni knot tied on both sides which is good but another knot that's actually stronger and quicker. So like if speed is the, is the factor is the six turn surgeon knot is, is faster than the W uni and slightly stronger. So. So again and no, I, I can't. And if you really want to optimize knots, the, the, the uni knot is not going to be it. But if you only want to learn one knot that can work with everything, the uni knot is awesome because it's, it's good for online connections.
- [12:06]
Joe Simons
Can we tie that real quick? If you've got a beginner watching just kind of any tips and mistakes. So the six turn surgeon knot, I don't even know if I had to tie that one.
- [12:17]
Luke Simons
Yeah. Surgeon knot is actually the easiest knot. It's. It's literally a surgeon knot. Just do it six times. But. All right, so I got, I'll do the uni knot, the double uni. So you can see. And obviously the single uni is the same thing. Just do it on one. So get your two lines, hold the ends. The tags are going towards each other. Overlap them if you're starting out, overlap them by about six inches. We're going to turn the. We'll do the mono side first. We're doing the uni coils. So create a loop. And now with the tag end, we're going to go through the loop plus around the braid five times. So 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. And this is all in, in sequence. So you always loop.
- [13:03]
Joe Simons
Do you always loop to you or away from you?
- [13:05]
Luke Simons
You personally, I always go to me, but I don't think it matters. And then we're going to pull it fairly tight just to cinch it down, get out of the way. And now we're going to do the same thing. So that's basically we just did the uni knot. So like if you're tying to a hook or something, that would be the same thing you do now for the braid. Same exact thing we do. Create the little loop. And now we're going to do through that loop with braid. Braid is, is a lot. Doesn't have nearly as much friction. So for the. Typically with knots for the braid, you do twice as many coils as mono. So in this case do 10 coils. A lot of people do five coils with both braid and mono. And if you add the extra five coils on the braid, it's going to be stronger. I can't remember. I think it was like 5 to 7% stronger if I remember right. But one of those tests was done previously, so I lost count on here. But I'm basically taking that braid through that loop. We're gonna do it 10 times. We'll just say, that's right. That's about 10 times.
- [14:08]
Joe Simons
That's a baker's dozen there.
- [14:10]
Luke Simons
It's a baker's dad. And you can do more, right? The more you do, the stronger it'll get. But it'll, it'll basically get like fractionally stronger and it doesn't cinch down quite as well. So. So now we have the braid coils on one side, we have the mono, the mono coils. And then to cinch it down, we basically let go of the tags and we pull together. It'll have that white backdrop and then just put a lot of tension on it and that seats them together. So these are. They basically called stopper knots.
- [14:39]
Joe Simons
Looks like it's 100.
- [14:41]
Luke Simons
Yeah, it looks like it looks like it's 100. But I promise you, if granted, these are both 40 pound lines, so I'm not going to break them by hand. But if I did break them, that break is gonna happen inside the knot. So cut the tags off. And then you can see the braid side, right, is very thin and does pretty, pretty tight wraps around the mono. But that mono, the fact that it's doubled over, it just leaves a fairly thick knot.
- [15:10]
Joe Simons
What do you say is the reason when someone replies or puts in the comments? Because it will happen that, hey, I've, you know, whatever, lost a fish or broken off on the bottom or whatever and my line broke, you know, closer to my reel or inside my rod or somewhere, not at the knot. What's the reason behind that?
- [15:33]
Luke Simons
Well, typically it's so the most often the reason why people, people don't think their knots are breaking, they think the line's breaking is because when that braid comes back, it's a nice, it's a, it's a clean break, right? Like they think that the, you know, like the pigtail curls, coils, they think that's the, that is the sign that the knot broke. That, that's the, the. If you got the obvious oils at the end, that's a sign that not only did it break, it was a very weak knot. It started sliding out before it broke or it slid out altogether. If you see the coils, that's just a really bad knot. Don't ever use it again. Typically when, when it's a good knot that breaks, it'll break inside the knot and it'll be, it'll. It'll look as if scissors cut it. Because what's happening like, like on that, on that double uni knot, the break, especially if you're using a lighter braid to, to a. To a stronger leader. The break is going to happen right basically right where that that braid gets stopped against the mono coils. So it's going to slide out and, and the the braid is going to look just like scissors cut it. But the knot broke. It wasn't the midline, it was the knot. So most people. Because unless you actually do a controlled test where you can see the line that you lost and see exactly you know see that it's the. The knot is. Is at the end when the lines on the bottom you like they never know so they assume it happened on the line but it didn't. If if the knot. If the break did happen close to the rod like where you know you had 30ft of line out and you only got 5ft back then there was just a compromise on your line. That just means that you might have rubbed the line up against an oyster or something either either while breaking or a couple cast prior or whatever. But. But if. If the line is good it's impossible for a knot that's contorting the line to not create a weak point. Is is basically what I found. And, and I I thought when I started these knock on this I actually did believe in 100 knot. I thought there would be one. And and it's. I have had some line like some breaks happen outside the knot but it's again it's not even 1% of the time. Very rare.
- [17:42]
Joe Simons
Still believes in unicorns but not 100. No.
- [17:45]
Luke Simons
Yeah. So it's.
- [17:46]
Joe Simons
Yeah.
- [17:46]
Luke Simons
I believe it's about as real as unicorns. Correct.
- [17:48]
Joe Simons
Sasquatch. You like Sasquatch? You like Bigfoot?
- [17:52]
Luke Simons
Yeah.
- [17:55]
Joe Simons
Who doesn't?
- [17:56]
Luke Simons
But yeah. So all I know for. For years I was you know even when tournament fishing I was using the. The uni knot thinking that it was it that it was the. Had it more complex where I would tie the Bimini twist on the. On the braid. So I was using 10 pound braid to a 20 pound leader. So I would Bimini twist to double up the braid and then I would do a double uni knot with the end of the Bimini loop to my leader. It's a huge pain to tie. So I was actually. It's. It's much longer than the FG knot and it's. It's provably weaker. Every 100% of the time I'd put them head to head the. The FG one.
- [18:33]
Joe Simons
So that's without this with or without the scooter stick. Exactly. Hey 4th of July you know, around the 4th of July time we got Joe Dirt and this. You guys recall that scene from Joe Dierte? The, the fireworks? I gotta memorize that whole little spiel there.
- [18:54]
Luke Simons
That's impressive.
- [18:55]
Joe Simons
It was so good.
- [18:56]
Luke Simons
The guy was just selling sparklers.
- [18:58]
Joe Simons
Yeah, not going to cut it.
- [19:00]
Luke Simons
All I like is sparklers.
- [19:02]
Joe Simons
You're going to sit there in a fireworks store, tell me you don't have any whisker dues. Whisker don'ts. That's a good one.
- [19:14]
Luke Simons
Cool.
- [19:14]
Joe Simons
What else do we need to know? So let's go over. Got that one down. So beginner angler got the unique. I mean I could tie it directly to my hook or whatever. What would you learn next? After you can master the uni in all scenarios.
- [19:31]
Luke Simons
So I mean especially for lure fishermen and we have all this in the fishing school. It's once you're ready to, to learn a slightly more complex knot, but much stronger and takes again an extra 15 seconds for the, the braid. The, the most important knot that you need to focus on put the most time in whichever knot is, is being tied to the weakest line. So for most of us saltwater anglers, it's going to be the knot that's from our braid mainline to our stronger leader. We have to use stronger leaders because a lot of these saltwater fish are toothy and in thin, thin braid. Because a lot of these bigger, smarter fish actually hold up in shallow water. We got to maximize casting distance. So I put most of my time and effort on, on trying to get the, the best line, you know, braid to leader knot as possible. Because as long as I get that good, it doesn't really matter what I have on the end. If I have a 10 pound braid to a 30 pound leader, I could use a terrible knot at the other end of the leader and, and it won't make, will make a difference. The 10 pound braid is going to be the weak point. So focus your time on the knot that is touching your weakest line. And assuming that is the going to be the braid, the FG knot is, is shockingly good. It is incredibly thin. It's literally designed to, to spread the tension load. So what the reason why it is so good is because the, the, the braid is making these coils and it's, it's spreading the tension load evenly across this long strand. You can see that slightly thicker line that's the braid wrapped around the leader and it's, it's basically spreading that tension load compared to the stopper style knot like the uni knot. That tension load is right where that braid, the braid coils stop up against the uni coils. That creates the weak point. That's where that constriction's happening. So you want to avoid knots that create, that have a stopper style knot on the weak line. And that's exactly what the uni knot does. That's what actually most knots do. Even like the crazy Alberto is a solid knot, but the same thing, it has a stopper. The, the Albright knot can go on forever. Like pretty much all the popular braid to leader knots have that stopper. The red Phillips knot. I've tested it again. I've tested a bunch of them and, and the FG is, it just wins because it does a better job of spreading that tension load. So whatever your weakest line is, find a knot that spreads the tension, that spreads that tension line more evenly across a longer, a longer duration. The PR bobbin knot is the only knot that I've tested that actually beat the fg. But it was barely. And it was a much more a pain in the butt to tie.
- [22:20]
Joe Simons
Oh yeah, you have to have a whole manual.
- [22:22]
Luke Simons
It was the craziest thing ever in a manual. But you had to have an actual bob. Like you'd literally have to have like a little sewing kit bobbin and then twirl around. That's. I don't know.
- [22:33]
Joe Simons
I always carry a couple out every time I'm fishing. But it's still, it's a pain to bring them out.
- [22:37]
Luke Simons
True. But, but long story short, right, Just, just don't believe anybody that says there's 100 knot. And another thing too is that different lines do react a little bit differently sometimes with different knots. So whatever recommended. I don't, don't take our, don't take what we're saying as, you know, as, as hey, you must do this. These are all suggestions. Take, take these suggestions and then test them with your, with your own minds. I highly recommend doing that. You don't have to have fancy, fancy gear. Find a fence post. I, I started mine with just, just doorknobs and at the very beginning I didn't even have a scale. Actually I, I got a ten dollar scale at Walmart and I would tie one side to the scale, the other side to a doorknob and I would pull until it broke and then I would, I would go and, and see what the breaking point was. So you don't have to have anything fancy, just test them out. You need to know exactly where the weak point is in your line assembly. And when you want to get a more advanced like in the advanced section of our fishing school, it actually teaches you how to, to you know, be strategic on where exactly that weak point is. So that when you do get stuck on the bottom, if you're fishing tight to structure which I, you know we typically do going after trout, redfish, flounder, snooks, they're structure oriented fish. So it's just a matter of time before you get snagged on the bottom. Just to make sure you don't have to redo your entire leader assembly. You, you actually want to purposely make sure that that braid to leader connection isn't the weakest because if it is, then you're, you lose your entire leader every time you break off. So if you get a little bit more strategic on strategically go weaker on your knots closer to your hook or, or to your lure, you need to of course have the strength to get your target fish. But when it comes down to the actual pull, you know, full tension pull on making that, that very last knots just barely weaker than the line to line. And the only way to do that is to actually do some testing or, or use you know, at the end of the advanced level, level of efficient school which is, which is free to check out@saltstrong.com you can see the lines that we used and then exactly which knots, you know, make that optimal, optimal breakpoint so you can maximize your, your valuable time out in the water.
- [24:56]
Joe Simons
And then fishingschool.com is where to find the fishing school. You said saltshorn.com right for yeah.
- [25:04]
Luke Simons
I don't know if we have a redirect but it's saltstorm.com and then on the little drop down if there's a hamburger menu in the top corner, if you go into there there you can see the fishing school but or just
- [25:13]
Joe Simons
go to fishingschool.com that works too. Yeah. And unfortunately we do not have any more time to talk about knots. So guys, leave a comment down below if you have any thoughts, questions. I'm sure we're going to get some debates and we love it. So yeah, bring it on. Like I said, we're not trying to say we're right. You're wrong. Like Luke said, test it. I think a lot of the testing we've done is because of the comments. So yeah, let us know if you get a knot you think is worth testing or retesting etc. And definitely go check out that not section at Salt Strong. Super helpful. Luke's been documenting all this stuff for years and we've got the equipment to back it up. And even sometimes just if you don't believe that your knot is breaking, put it like on the doorknob like Luke mentioned and have someone or yourself sit there with you, your camera on. Then slow mo or just regular and watch. You can see where it actually breaks because I've done that before. Like oh no, what might not. And it turns out it was.
- [26:12]
Luke Simons
So that's it. You must have a high end camera because it happens really quick.
- [26:16]
Joe Simons
But the slow mo, slow mo on the iPhone will do it for sure
- [26:20]
Luke Simons
but without having to have any technology. Just, you know, put your hook up onto a fence or something or tied to something and then pull and then make sure that it's. You'll be able to see, look at the side that broke and you'll see exactly where the brake was. And again it'll be in the knot 99.9 of the time. Unless if you do find some sort of knot in the specific lines that, that does break outside of the knot most of the time, please leave it, leave that in the comment down below. I'd love to test it out. So far I've tested out multiple suggestions that have come in and they haven't quite worked out. So I'm still curious to see if there is the unicorn out there. But I have my doubts. From all the failed attempts so far,
- [27:05]
Joe Simons
I knew you believe in unicorns.
- [27:06]
Luke Simons
Yeah.
- [27:07]
Joe Simons
And if you can predict or guess how many times we said the word not in this podcast, 10,000 bonus points to you and the comments. So guys, we appreciate you big time. Go over to saltstorm.com or fishingschool.com to learn more. Come join us in the Insider club if you haven't already and comment down below. We'll talk to you on the next episode. Peace.
- [27:39]
Unknown Narrator or Outro Speaker
Find us on the water if there was away it's been said my papa he wrote the book on catching big reds and £20 snook I wish I knew all the things he knew today for he's the reason why we are this way and he put fish in our souls to stay.