Rigging for Salt Water

Setting up your tackle for salt water fly fishing can be something of mystery for many when they first get into it. The lines are different; many of them sink, and people talk about grain weight instead of line weight. The rods are often heavier and have pretty beefy lower sections compared to the fresh water rods. The flys are in aught sizes, meaning they have size numbers like 1/0, 3/0 and 5/0, instead of 10, 16 or 20. The knots are different and you need to understand their importance to keeping all of your tackle intact.

You should realize that there are a number of different knots and connections that people use in the salt for different tasks. The knots and connections someone might use becomes a personal choice. For instance there are numerous ways to tie the fly to the tippet, and people can argue for hours over which are the best for the job. In the end it boils down to which knots and connections you trust. Trust is a key component of all tackle setup and is a good reason to either set up your own tackle or find someone with years of experience who is willing to set it up for you. Some fly shops have personnel on staff with extended salt water experience. These are the people to approach over the others in the shop who are trout specialists.

Here I present how I set up my tackle and what I teach to my students. Over the past few years no one who has used these techniques has suffered a lost fish due to failed connections, except in the knot from the twisted leader to the tippet. I soon discovered the reason for the failure and solved it by doubling the end of the tippet before tying the knot. (See the Tippet to Leader video).

I owe a shout out to the late Bill Nash of California who self published a small booklet on tackle systems for fly fishing. Bill was a knot nut and spent way too much of his time testing knots, connections and differing ways of tying them. Once he found a good combination he took them fishing... on big Tarpon and billfish species. It was in this booklet that I found most of the techniques shown here. I have made a few small changes to his systems but for the most part these could be called his systems.

The Problem Areas

The problem that you have to confront when rigging for salt water is how to insure that you have a system that will stay intact as long as possible when under long periods of strain. If a failure occurs you want it to happen at no other place than the tippet. This of course is ignoring any failure due to line being wrapped in rocks or coral, etc. If you can't keep the failure from happening at the tippet, you want it to happen at the next least expensive component.

Here are the points of failure possible, in order of ideal point of failure and expense of material involved (excluding the price of the fly):

The knot at the fly is where we want our connections to fail, always. Unfortunately this may not happen for the following reasons: The connection from the tippet to the leader is faulty. The surface of the tippet becomes damaged and breaks The connection at one of the other junctions is faulty and you loose more than just the tippet and fly, not a good position to be put in if it occurs above the leader.

Always inspect your knots carefully and insure that any wraps are tight and even. Consult different sources for techniques on tying knots and then practice them before you get on the water. If you have a failure, inspect the break and try to determine if the knot came untied or broke within the knot. One indicates that your knot was not seated firmly and came unraveled while the other indicates the knot was not firmly set and slipped a bit into a break.

Somewhere mid tippet is the second most desirable place to have a break. You can determine this type of failure by inspecting the break in the line. The surface of the line near the break will feel rough and the line will have split ends, the same as people can get in their hair when it is stressed. This will often occur on larger species such as billfish and Tarpon, but can also occur on smaller species with sharp teeth or abrasive jaw structures like the Ladyfish we encounter in Baja (think Rainbow Trout on steroids). In a situation of billfish, toothy critters and Tarpon a bite tippet or bite section of larger diameter line material can be added to the end of the lighter tippet to help alleviate the problem. This will be covered in the page discussing the Slim Beauty Knot.

If you do not have the need of a bite tippet you can just add additional tippet material to what is still there by using a Triple Overhand Knot for a fast and reliable fix.

The knot from the tippet to the leader is next most desirable place for a problem. If you have failures here you need to take a look at how you tie this connection. The most common cause would be failure to properly seat the knot at that junction. A quick fix, but no replacement for tying the knot correctly, would be to apply a product like a UV resin (UV Knot Sense) or cyanoacrylate glue (Super glue) to the knot. Though some depend on these types of products I don't use them. The cyanoacrylate glues don't stand up to certain sheer forces due to the material being brittle when dry. The UV resin products that I have used turned cloudy and softened a bit when submerged.

The leader is a key component and any knots used here must be closely inspected upon tying. If you build a leader from differing diameters of flat mono or flouro materials, it is particularly important that you check you leader knot for signs of failure. Don't just look at the knot to the tippet, it could be one of the knots higher up the leader could be coming undone due to improper tying.

If you are having failures of the Twisted Leaders, as shown on this site, then you need to take a look at the instructions again. It would be nearly impossible for a properly tied twisted leader to fail before the tippet failed.

The connection from the leader to the fly line should never fail. It should always be strong enough to withstand forces the leader and tippet cannot. I recommend using properly constructed Braided Loops for all of your salt water gear 8 weights and up.

If you are using a nail knot here you are guaranteeing a failure because a nail knot can be pulled off the fly line when enough force is applied. Some smallish salt water species can put more stress on the line than most any fresh water fish, so the nail knots are fine with fresh water fishing but I won't use them on my salt water gear. If you were not aware of it you should never use a nail knot (or needle knot) on an intermediate sinking line (the clear ones). These lines are made with a monofilament core with a plastic coating and any attempts at applying a nail knot will result in the coating separating from the core and the knot slipping right off the core of the line. A needle knot is a waste of time since the needle cannot be inserted into the center of a piece of mono core; consider attempting to inset a needle into a thick piece of mono.

When using braided loops, keep on mind that these connections can be stronger than the fly line itself. Though most deepwater lines contain 80 lb. test core materials, some may only contain core materials of 40 lb. test or 30 lb. test. If you are using 50 lb. test braided loop material (as recommended) it should be obvious that the line may fail before the loop connection.

Also see the discussion on Leaders and Sinking Lines.

The front few feet of the fly line is the next place a failure can occur. Since most lines, floating or sinking, have some taper in the front section it is feasible for that area to fail before the thicker section of the fly line. There is a fairly remote chance of this actually happening, though. It is more likely that a break will happen where the line junctions into the loop, braided or otherwise. Check the outer coating on the lines for cracking directly behind the loop, over long use and high speed casting the coating can become fatigued and crack. If you detect this, inspect the line and determine how far up the fatigue or cracking occurs and cut the line just above that point, next tie in a new fresh loop.

If you only use your lines a few days a year it will take a few years for this to occur. But, I do a fair amount of grass casting to keep my arm in shape and my techniques on target, and it is possible to make more casts in a couple hours of practice than in a 2 or 3 days of fishing. Because of this I check those often for signs of a break.

The connection from the rear of the fly line to the backing will seldom be a problem but there are a couple of concerns. If the rear loop on the fly line is insufficient to the job, it can fail. I had an instance where one of the people with me on a Baja trip had his local fly shop set up his tackle. They used double uni-knots, one to connect the fly line to the backing and the other to connect the backing to the fly line. This had worked fine for them for years and none of their customers had complained. The problem was that the shops past clients, and the shop people who tied up the tackle, only went after Bonefish. This person ended up loosing two fly lines, two years in a row, because the fly line uni-knot came undone while fighting fish.

Another concern is to have the junction as smooth as possible. You don't want large knots that could get hung up on the tip-top or snake guides on your rod. Any bulky knot, like a uni-knot, on the fly line is not smooth. It is barrel shaped and can become hung up on the smaller guides enough to cause too much stress on the tippet, leading to a failure. A good solution here is to use a braided loop on both the end of the fly line and the backing.

Another good solution shown to me was by a friend who used a hollow braid backing. In this case he would insert the fly line into the inside of the hollow braid and secure it to the fly line. This may be more desirable for the smoothness of the transition of the line in the guides than my method, but as it is, I hardly notice the end of the fly line leaving or coming back into the rod.

Somewhere in the backing a failure can occur. This is most likely going to be caused by abrasion of the line or a manufacturing fault. It is possible to abrade the backing in a number of ways: in the rocks, along the bottom of the boat, or careless handling of the reel. Though the line companies try hard to maintain close tolerances in manufacturing, it is possible to end up with some defective product on your reel. Here is where I opt to use the largest diameter backing possible while maintaining enough length of backing to suit my needs. All of my backing is gel spun and 50 lb. or 65 lb. test. This allows me to feel safe even if the manufacturing specs wander as much as 20%. To me using a 30 lb. test backing is cutting things to close and asking for trouble. I would rather spend a little more for piece of mind than have a days fishing ruined by failure of the wrong component.

Maybe just as important when considering the backing is to make sure the backing is on the reel tight enough. If the backing is wound too loosely you will see the backing bulge in the openings of the reel spool. In this case it will be possible for the backing to be loose enough for the spool to over spin during a high speed yank on the line. What you end up with is a mess like the one in the photo at the top of the page. The layers of line get caught up in one another and some strands become reversed in the spool. This leaves the angler with a good amount of work ahead of them straightening things out. To avoid this make sure the backing is wound on the spool under sufficient tension to avoid the bulges

The arbor connection to the backing is one to pay special attention to. Though you will probably never get completely spooled, it does happen. Since this happens mostly in deep water your captain should be backing the boat toward the fish a long time before you run into this problem. But if you end up reaching the end of your rope, so to speak, you want that Arbor Knot to hold as long as possible. Don't use the standard Arbor Knot used in trout fishing. You know the one where they tie a knot on the end of the line and pass it though an overhand knot, then tighten everything to the spool. It just isn't up to the job.

What you want to use is a combination of a Bimini Twist Loop and a Uni-Knot, assuring the Uni-Knot is tied in the correct direction. You want to make sure the Uni-Knot is tied so that the standing end is aligned to the diameter of the spool and not to the radius of the spool. Tying it incorrectly can cause the line to be broken by the Uni-Knot itself at less than the breaking strength of the line. Tying it correctly aligns the standing end along the diameter of the reel so that if it does break it breaks at full strength. You can see this setup on the Arbor-Knot Video.

With all of the possible points of failure that exist, you can see why the more experienced salt water anglers obsess over their tackle connections. Hopefully this discussion will convince you to either become obsessed or find someone else who is already obsessed, and willing, to set your gear up for you. But keep in mind that it is bad form to complain about broken connections if you're too lazy to do it yourself.