So i'm a bit of a luddite when it comes to friction knots....PR knots need an expensive tool and from what i've seen can be fiddly. FG knots seem better but when I tried I couldn't perfect it, and even when they did seem good they could come loose over time. Not to mention recently when I did have a mate do the PR for me I seemed to suffer tip wrap fairly commonly when casting - something that pops up in discussions about friction knots a little bit it seems. Stacks of people use them successfully but I struggle so I started looking for a new knot...
Anyway it's knot ;)easy to come up with something new these days and someone has probably done this ages ago but it's new to me and I haven't seen it on here before so thought i'd post it up.
The knot is essentially a catspaw as done with braid to a twistie but in this case it's to single strand.
So we start with a simple bimini loop - straight forwards
I tried to make this so it was easy to tie on the boat. Keeping the leader on the leader roll pull out say 4 inch length and loop it back on itself and secure. In this case i've used tape. I like the idea of blob of blu-tack for this (it could also be used later...)
This part requires a bit of knowledge of the catspaw but essentially pass the bimini up through the loop you've created with the leader. Now holding braid tight loop the leader around one leg of the bimini 6 times. Make sure none of the loops fall off the end of the loop of trace and around the braid itself. Sorry, that's a bad description and will confuse first timers but just look up instructions for the catspaw.
Holding both legs of the bimini loop evenly pull the knot tightto the tip of the trace loop. Notice how it sits nicely along both legs of the trace and is not bunched - this is vital
This bit is nifty in that you just use the trace holder as a knot tightening grip...in this case i'm working directly off the reel but usually you'd have the braid wrapped around a gloved hand I suppose.
So you end up with a catspaw as you would with a twistie but in this case it's single strand with one long tag end.
Next step is trim this tag end. Do it on as flat an angle as you can achieve, this will help streamline the connection for casting. I also like to hit the tag end with a lighter and roll it to smoothen and add a knob. I didn't have a lighter in this case but below it is a knot that has been hit with the lighter and used to catch a few fish. Oh yeah, this is where the blu-tack would come in handy again as you could mold it around the knot and just leave the tag end exposed which would protect the rest of the line/knot from accidental damage.
People like the friction knots as it is a low profile connection which means you don't have to double the leader. In the picture knot 7 above that is 200lb leader and 100lb braid - I was casting it on a FCL Labo 81 Extream and can honestly say it was not noisy or an impariment to casting at all - I also never had a single case of tip wrap. That knot landed three fish up to 111cm and was used over three days of fishing and still looked great. For me it's quick to tie on the boat, doesn't require any tools and so far has no negative sides to it when casting.
I've attached an old sketch up of the twistie to braid catspaw connection which may help some people out who are new to that knot which this is based on.
