For those looking to get into fly fishing, one of the most important things to do before getting on the water is to learn your knots. Not knowing the key fishing knots or lack of practice will cause frustration and can result in lost fish.
There are hundreds of different knots, which creates lots of debate on which are the best ones. However, there are only two that you need to get started: The Cinch Knot and the Triple Surgeons Knot.
The Cinch Knot:
Use this knot for tying your fly onto the end of a leader or tippet. This should the the first knot you learn, without it, you won't catch anything and you'll lose a lot of your flies.
The Triple Surgeons Knot:
This is an easy knot for adding tippet to your leader, building leaders or extending the length of your leader. The tippet is the very end of your leader, the part the fly is tied onto. Adding length to your leader by adding a section of tippet, allows you to have a longer leader, which will help you trick spooky fish while maintaining your cast. Overtime, snags and fly changes will shorten your tippet, so you'll need to add more.
BONUS TIP: Use the Triple Surgeons Knot to add a dropper to your nymph rig
Before using this tactic, ensure that your region and waterbody allows you to fish multiple flies. When nymphing, either under an indicator or with tight line / Euro techniques, adding a second or third fly can drastically improve the likelihood of hooking up with a fish. A simple way of doing this is by adding droppers to your leader, using the Triple Surgeons Knot.
