How to Attach a Fluorocarbon Leader to Braided Line

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How to Attach a Fluorocarbon Leader to Braided Line





  

[Introduction]

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0:44 This morning out on the river we talked about using the Houdini nine inch shads. Wind seems to have picked up a little bit so we came inside here to duck out of the wind and I just wanted to take a few minutes to talk about the type of equipment that we use.

As we said earlier I use a seven foot medium heavy rod. I really like the backbone that I get out of it. Still got a soft enough tip to where I can work some of these lures and get the exact action that I need out of them. But the rod has the strength that I need when it comes time to fight some of these nice fish. 

I have on the rod a Team Daiwa Advantage 3000. You'll notice for the type of fishing that we're doing this reel is not very big. And the reason for that is I've got braided line. One of the biggest advantages to a braided line these days is this decreased line diameter. This 30 pound braid I have right here is roughly the same diameter as a six or an eight pound mono. So that means you can use much smaller gear and still get that line capacity that you need for some of these bigger fish. Even this small reel here has a very strong drag, very smooth, waterproof so we can use it to fish in all types of weather. 

2:02 I'm a huge believer in fluorocarbon. There's days when we're fishing in pretty clear water where I guarantee it makes a difference in the number of fish you can put in the boat.  Day to day, it make not make a big difference. But over the course of a season, as much time as we spend on the water, I guarantee it's going to put more fish in the boat.

I'm going to show you how I attach my fluorocarbon leader to my braid. A couple of ways of doing it. A lot of guys like to use a barrel swivel. That works fine. The problem is, especially if you're fishing at night, if you're not very aware of where that swivel is as you're reeling your lure up, a lot of times it gets into the tip of the rod, puts a little bit of a nick in there that you don't even realize is there. It acts like a razor blade going through this braid.

I prefer to tie direct. I use a form of an Albright knot and I'm going to show you that knot right now.

2:51 I get asked all the time how long my leaders are. To be honest with you, I never really measure. I pull about an arm's length off, which I guess is probably four and a half, not quite five feet long. You can go longer. There's really no need to. As clear as the water gets here a short leader like that is fine.

Like I said, I make a form of an Albright here where I'll make a loop with my fluorocarbon. I put a little bit of a crimp in it here just to make it easier to tie. Take your braided line and I run it through the loop we just made. And I'll pull a tag end of abut six inches or so. I hold both pieces of fluorocarbon, and the braid, in these two fingers and then I wrap around six, seven times. There's three, four, five, six and seven. It does take a little bit of a practice here as you're winding these on to get the spacing even, spread them out nice.

4:03 Once I get my six, I switch hands and now we're going to go back up the same number of times. There's two, three, four, five, six and seven. The key to terminating this knot is to go exactly the opposite the way you can in through that loop. You have to go back down out the same way. If you don't that knot is going to slip every time. So we take our little tag end here and run it through that loop...so that when you tighten this down, both pieces of braid should be running parallel to each other. There we go.

And just wet the knot. And as I start to tighten down, you'll see these two pieces start to compress the fluorocarbon leader. And I grab that fluorocarbon leader in my teeth and help cinch it down. And we end up with a very nice, tight knot that we can trim the tag ends down. It goes in and out of the guides easily.

5:14 Another thing I do is to add just a tiny little drop of a super glue just to keep that knot from slipping. This is called Zap a Gap. Just a single drop on that knot. Let it set up for just a second here and then I trim my tag ends up. So that when we're done, this is what the knot looks like. It's that small, very compact. It goes through the guides very well.

6:06 Okay, so we've got our fluorocarbon leader attached to our braid. Now we're going to tie on the Houdini shad. I use a simple clinch knot and all that is is running it through the eye of the hook, pulling a little bit of a tag end off and I'll wrap it six times. We take the tag end and we run it back through the loop that we just created and tighten it down. Always wet your knot and I'll actually use, especially with this heavy line, I'll actually use my fingernail to help tighten the clinch knot down so we gt it as tight as we're going to here. Really sock that thing down and then trim it up.

You don't want to trim it and then have it tighten up, just that little bit extra and have that knot slip. Right now that's it. There's no way that knot's going to slip. That's it. We're rigged and ready. Let's go fishing.

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7:16 [Closing]

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