How-to: FG Knot Tutorial

[BD STAFF]

As anglers in the Southern California Bight experimented with targeting Bluefin tuna, many took to casting lures at them and noticed the knots we were applying in this technique were not ideal. We were using knots such as the Albright knot or the RP knot, and what resulted during casting was that the knot would catch on the guides as it went out and would cause wear and tear on the connection point.

Anglers started to look at the East Coast to see how they made their connections and additionally looked to the South Pacific where anglers were targeting Giant Trevally with heavy casting gear. Many of the anglers were using the FG knot due to its high strength and equally as important it’s small, coned profile which allowed it to easily go in and out of the guides, especially when casting.

Want to learn a better connection knot for casting?

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[GaffnLaff]

Best knot ever. Hard to learn, but I totally trust it once pulled tight since the spectra goes clear, its like an indicator that you did it right. Amazing that it only grabs about 3/4" of straight mono. I've tested it and it never breaks in the knot.

 

[GClev]

Both hands? Your mouth? and a tight line from the tip of the rod? And tie it the night before? Great advice? Not.

If the fisherman casts a constrictor knot on a bight onto the the mono with the braid at the very beginning, he can tie the strangler section on a windy, rocking deck without any of the nonsense in this video. It takes two hands only to tie the knot, no mouth, no rod tip, none of that.

See Ashley's Book of Knots, knot #1251. Tested against your much harder to tie version on Izor's line tester on the RP and at the Hall Show in the mid '90s there was zero loss of strength by tying the constrictor first.

 

[GClev]

Your other two knots - the Albright? Originally it's an all mono knot, a short Bimini tied over a single knee, then a double Albright tied to about 3ft of 250# snelled to a big tuna hook. On the tester the Albright eventually pulled out at 60-80% of the line test, but nothing ever broke. The whole knot was outside the tip and never wound through the guides. There's a pic of one in the surf section on a shark leader from the 1980s.

The Bimini was fine with mono at 20 twists. With the spectra, 30-35 twists was better. Again, same problem, the lines didn't break but the double Albright pulled out at high test strengths. You had to tie the super short Bimini because Pete's line tester would only handle ~36" long knots.

The third knot you mentioned, the RP knot? It was never tied the way it was designed. Roy, the deckhand, before he was a skipper, was too freakin' lazy to tie it right. You're supposed to drop a loop and wrap inside the loop. That way the first set of wraps up is on the inside of the knot and the working end of the braid is on the outside. The mono is padded by the first wrap. The fast and dirty knot, Roy's way, puts the working end next to the mono with no padding so it nips on the mono and breaks it at the bend. He never tied it right.

Neither of those knots was ever designed to grind through the guides and all these knots are from the first year of the Spectra invasion including the strangler, the knot you call the FG. Nobody really liked any of these knots back then. They all preferred Johnny Pandeles's crimp kits or Ralph's overhand knot.

Pete Haynes tied the Spectra directly to his jig with a double San Diego jam and Pete was the boss. He tested that knot at the show a zillion times in front of the crowd to show how well it worked. Russ imported Spectra, but Pete promoted it and was the first guy to use it Long Range on his Jan1 Izorline charter. He slaughtered the wahoo with that knot with zero mono or fluoro leader. He was also the guy who gave the wahoo seminars at Fred Hall for years and years.

The first trip Pete brought a shit ton of Spectra, and we didn't have to dump all the mono on our reels and reload every night, was a test of faith.

 

[GClev]

Windy deck, rocking boat, tie a strangler knot (FG) the easy way. Start with the constrictor knot on a bight. This is from my notes 30+ years ago.

Then it's just a two line turk's head knot to complete the strangle. Wrap one from the tag, one from the working end, switch and repeat 12-15 times. Pinch it, push it back, pull it tight. Finish with a half hitch and a triple overhand. I like to add an overhand to the tag so it doesn't fray or you can hit it with a flame if you carry a lighter.

 

[Fishybuzz]

Took you BD mods long enough to figure the FG was the way to go.....