THE FISHING SCHOOL
WE all spend time, effort and good money
hoping the next fish that takes our bait or
attacks our lure is a trophy. If you’re anything
like me, a number of thoughts will go through
your mind when the rod loads up and the
battle begins – for instance, I hope the hook is
firmly in place, that the fish doesn’t bust me off
on structure and that my line and knots are up
to the challenge.
The knot you tie can introduce vulnerability
in your outfit. There have been many articles
written about knot strength, along with how and
why each knot should be tied – these provide a
good guide to the basics; however, there remains
a number of factors which introduce
inconsistency into the equation.
Precision in knot tying is vital; the prescribed
number of turns and seating of the knot so that
it snugs down firmly and neatly is critical to
ensure a secure connection. Minimisingfriction when tightening knots is also
important. For example, most fishos know and
understand about the customary licking of a
knot and how it helps glide the connection
together and reduces the chance of weakening
the connection due to friction.
We all do things in our own unique way,
however. Five turns might actually be four,
the tag end might exit a loop in the opposite
way that it should while braid and leader
combinations often differ from angler to
angler. When tying friction knots like an FG
knot, it’s important to weave the braid onto
the mono tightly and snug the knot down
often. Loose loops or a lapse in concentration
when tying can often cause friction knots to
slip and unravel.
Learning curves and slight differences in
how we tie our knots introduces variability in
knot strength – the only surefire way to knowexactly how strong your connections are is to
destruction test them.
Destruction testing involves tying a knot a
number of times and measuring the pressure
required to make the knot fail. This seems
like a long and painful process but is really
quite simple.
In a perfect world we’d all have access to a
force gauge that can capture peak loads. In
reality, however, the idea of this exercise isn’t
for laboratory precision but more to get an idea
of whether your knots are really bad and
breaking well under what you think or whether
they’re pretty good.
Most fishos have a decent set of scales in
their garage which will allow a rough idea of
knot strength. To conduct the test all that you
need is the aforementioned scales, some tape
and a secure spot on which to attach your hook
or line.Conducting the test
If testing braid to mono knots I’ll wrap one end
around the tow ball of my car a dozen times and
secure with duct tape while the other end will be
wrapped around the hook on the scales a dozen
times and also secured with tape. The line
should be wrapped rather than tied so that you
don’t introduce any additional knots or weak
points into the test. Once everything is secure,
simply pull gently on the scales till something
breaks. Make a note of the reading when the
failure occurred. Either your scales will capture
the peak load, you can use your eagle eyes to
capture the reading visually or you can record
the scales with your camera phone and play back
to the point of failure to note the reading.
To get a good sense for the knot strength you
should repeat the test a few times and take an
average of the readings. Make sure you
approach each test in an identical fashion.
Take the average of all readings to obtain your
final result for analysis.Analysing the failure
It’s important to take a good look at the knot
and the point of failure after each test. When
preparing this column I went through the
testing process and found that the first uni knot
I tied wasn’t tightly secured. While the knot
didn’t fail, the tag end came awfully close to
pulling through. If that was to happen on a
drawn out fight it may well have cost me a fish!
Also take note of where the line broke. Was it
the knot that failed, was it the line adjacent toKnow Your Knot Strength
Use this simple DIY “destruction test” to find out if
you tie pretty good knots – or really bad ones!
WITH SAMI OMARIPROUDLY SPONSORED BY78 | fishingworld.com.au | February 2015
ABOVE: A simple set of scales will allow you to “destruction test”
your knots and ascertain your knot t ying abilit y.