making move to braid from mono- knots?

Hi All:

Finally made the switch over to braid from mono. Bought Trilene mono about a month ago, 8 lb, and amazing how brittle that stuff is. Bought some Spider Stealth braid 20/8 and going to spool up this weekend. My question is what's the best knot for attaching line to lures/hooks? I've read about the palomar knot. Can anyone else recommend a good knot? Thanks in advance.

I suck at tying solid Palomars for some reason, so I use a knot called the Fish-N-Fool. You should be able to google it pretty easy. I've had good performance from it for all line types.

very cool knot. Thanks. Looks easy enough and the reviews on it sound great. I'll try that out with the new braid.

i'm in the same boat as you Heron, just switched over this season. I've been having good luck with the palomar...i've even been tying regular clench knots that seem to be working, they're just a pain in the ass to get the tag end back through the bottom of the twists. the knots seem to be tighter when you wet the line too, spit or water does the trick.

still new to this, so if this is a dumb question, apologies in advance. So, I have a medium action 6-6 rod with a reel that is rated up to 12 lb mono. The braid I bought is 20 lb with 6 lb diameter. Can I use that braid on this combo or will I have to get a set that rated up to 20 lb?

That's the same set-up I've been using, and it seems to be working fine...I have braid on 2 baitcasters and flouro on my spinning rod, and I haven't had any problems so far...get ready for some baddd backlashes on the baitcaster though (at least I got a lot, as this is my first year using one of those too)!

hey guys, my experiances with braid has been awesome. a palomar is perfect for it. with the durability of braid these days you really don't have to worry about knots, i feel.
volume, do you thumb the spool on your casts or just try to brake when the lure hits the water?
if so, just try to keep your thumb on the spool the whole time. it will cut down on your backlashes 95%

I'm sticking with my spinning reels for now. I'm not nearly confident enough to deal with baitcast reels yet. I will say my spinning has served me just fine for salt and freshwater so I can't complain at all.

I have been thumbing the spool...but sometimes it doesn't always work, as I mentioned, its a work in progress...I get lazy here and there and always pay the price...it also helps to have to the reel tension set properly

Hey Heron,

I also switched to braid a few weeks ago (20lb test, 8 diameter) and tie the palomar exclusively. I actually find it much easier to tie than it is on mono, and it's FAR more reliable than any other knot I've used.

Youtube has some pretty good videos showing how to tie this knot. Pretty good, but not great. The method I use to tie the knot varies in 2 somewhat important ways.

The first is that I don't make the loop before threading the hook. I feed a few inches of the line through one way, THEN I loop it back and feed it back through the eyelet. I could be wrong, but I think doing this maintains your line's strength better than "pinching" the loop so the whole thing can fit through the eyelet.

The other difference in my technique is that I use a LOT more line to form the knot loosely BEFORE tightening down. This allows you to ensure that the knot is tied properly with a quick visual inspection. Then, brace the end of the line without pulling on it, lightly pull the line through the other way (towards the reel). See which part of the knot's structure tightens when you do this, and use that to feed all the slack back through the knot towards your reel.

Believe it or knot... I mean not (sorry, couldn't resist), I actually save several inches of line every time I tie up by doing this. Those inches add up fast if you frequently change lures to try to dial in on what the fish like that particular hour.

I realize it's hard to understand by reading about it rather than seeing it, so I'll see if anyone I know has a video camera I can use to let you see exactly what I'm talking about. If/when I get my hands on a video camera, I'll post the vid somewhere and let you know.

Thanks for the tips Drazzle. I endedup using the fish-n-fool knot and works real well and I can tie it on real quick. I snagged a hook on a large downed branch the other day and I was able to pull the whole thing out of the water and the knot held. The braid has worked out nice so far. I ended up getting some nice wind knots the first few times out but i figured out that if I manually set the bail and not use the bail spring, i don't get the knots. I also sprayed some line conditioner from BPS on and that helped out quite a bit. Like the braid a lot and just ordered some 30/10 for my 7' sw spinning combo. Going to Stonington, CT in a few weeks and hoping to do some pier and surf casting.

fish-n-fool knot is the way to go. and as far as the wind knots go, I tried 20lb braid and got a ton of wind knots, went up to 30 lbs stren sonic braid and said bye bye to wind knots. and as far as what the rod/reel says on it for lb test to use, i don't pay any attention to it, i have some reels that have 20lb written on them and I have them spooled with 65lb braid