Braided Loops
In salt water fly fishing, how you attach the different components determine if you lose an epic fish or get a photo at the end of the struggle. Depending on the wrong person to set up your gear can deal a fatal blow to your tackle. Conversely, taking the wrong advice from a well-intentioned fresh water angler, or using the wrong materials and techniques to set up your own gear, can also result in failure.
One place that gets more than its share of stress is the leader to fly line connection. If you consider that this junction gets stressed every time you hook a fish, you can understand why you might want to pay some extra attention to it. On top of that, consider that this often becomes the most over-used part of the fly line because it is constantly being stretched and fatigued twice for every false cast. I inspect my "front of the line" connections before each trip and give them a quick once over every time I string them up. I look for cracks in the fly line at the point of transition from line to knot or braid depending on the fly line used. If using a braided setup I check the condition of the served floss to insure it is still intact and not unraveling or frayed. I then check the condition of the knot itself or the braided loop to see if it is deteriorating in any way. Any conditions I find are noted and repaired at the earliest convenience, usually by full replacement through cutting off the bad component and creating a new one.
I like to use braided loops both at the front of the line and at the back of the line, where it meets the backing. When properly constructed the braided loops travel through the guides with only the slightest bump at the tip of the rod. They are a definite improvement over any nail knot, needle knot or folded over fly line loop. Each of 3 methods just mentioned exhibit larger profiles as they pass through the tip-top and guides and will create considerably more stress on the line system than the braided loop method. This may not seem important unless you have just spent the best part of an hour trying to get a 60 lb. Dorado to the boat and all of a sudden the fly line to leader junction wants to hang up in the rod.
Other problems with the knots are they will not always hold securely on sinking lines. For instance, you can't use a needle knot on an intermediate line due to the impossibility of threading a needle into the monofilament core of the line. You also don't want to use nail knots on a sinking line as they can be pulled off the core of the fly line if enough pressure is applied. Keep in mind that a nail knot will only secure to the last ½ inch or so of the line. You also then run into the issue of line kick due to mismatched mass profiles of the leader and the end of the fly line. If you are not familiar with these issues, read the page on Leaders & Sinking Lines.
Braided loops offer a greater degree of security at both the front and the back of the fly line by using a "Chinese finger puzzle" type of compression. As more pulling force is applied to the braid it compresses tighter around whatever length of line is inside the braid. This is considerably better than the ½ inch of hold a nail or needle knot would apply. As mentioned before they also have smaller profiles as they pass through the guides, and the profile they do have is smoothly tapered.
If constructed correctly, the last inch or so of the fly line would be inserted into a double sheath of braid. That doubled sheath allows the end of the fly line to remain unsecured from the braid and allows the braid to stretch to its fullest, therefore providing the most compression, while maintaining pressure on the fly line. I only apply some pliable contact cement (Pliobond) on this portion of the braided loop. This keeps the end of the fly line from absorbing water and allows the line move if necessary to conform to the stretched braid.
Some people will tie down the end of the fly line inside the doubled sheath of braid, with nail knots and mono, thinking it needs to be held in place. But careful examination reveals that the compression applied as the braid is stretched, is more efficient if the extra knot or knots are not applied. It is possible that when a knot secures the end of the fly line within the doubled sheath of braid it would hamper the braids ability to stretch, and therefore to compress to its fullest extent, if there were slack in the braid when secured.
Coming soon are videos showing how to create a braided loop.
