Topwater Caranx Ignobilis: Giant Trevally (GT) > Tackle & Techniques

FG Knot issues.

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Serge de Bruijn:
Hi,

after watching Duncan's instuctional video of the FG knot I have decided to practice as I (hopefully) have a trip coming up the end of October.
After I had tied a few I thought I'd see if they were strong enough by dead lifting a bucket filled with 10kg's of lead and adding water to it...

My first tied knots were hit and miss but most stayed in tact... but I did notice a bit of slipping and with all of them the burnt piece of leader came off.
Is this normal or am I doing something wrong?
Did manage to lift 19 kgs (do not know how much drag that would be) so they seem ok but I am not too sure.
 

Paul Chan:
Hello Serge,

Can you please post a picture of your FG knot so we can see how it was done up. It might help us to identify what caused the slipping etc.

Regards,
Paul

Serge de Bruijn:
Hi Paul,

I will try tonight... have to get them out of the bin first ;)

Serge de Bruijn:
Photo's :






Hope this helps.

Andrew Susani:
Serge,

There are probably other threads in more detail about FG knots but here is my 2 cents, based on my experience.

I too learnt from Duncan's video, but since then I do things a bit differently.  The main thing is that ALL of the half hitches are pulled up very tight.  I don't wrap the tag end around my little finger like Duncan does, as it starts to hurt after a few minutes, and I don't feel like I can get my wraps tight enough. 

Instead, I do two wraps using his method around the leader, then I carefully grab each strand of braid, pinch the hitches down so it doesn't slip off the leader, and pull both strands very tight.  I hold the scrap end of the leader (the bit I am melting) between my teeth for security when pulling the braid tight.

I repeat this after every 2 hitches, until I have done about 20 or so up the leader.  Then I do alternating half hitches around the leader and main braid line, again, but I pull each one up very tight.

I then carefully melt the end of the leader into a neat little ball.  After that I do about 12 half hitches up the main line, to protect it from the melte end of the leader and also to reduce the hinging effect a bit.

Each knot takes me about 7 or 8 minutes to tie.  A good one will look like this:



Note how tight the wraps should be, not only around the leader, but also butted up against each other.  When I pull them tight, I make sure they snug up against the previous wraps so there is no leader showing at all between the hitches.

Sometimes after casting one for a long time, I get a little bit of separation between the melted leader end and the hitches up the braid.  I don't like the look of it much but I have caught multiple big GTs on knots like this, so it is not the end of the world.  Retie it if you have doubts!



I have a lot of faith in my FGs and once had an almighty struggle busting off a snagged stickbait in 10m of water.  In the end the 130lb leader broke before the FG, which was done in 80lb braid.  It showed no signs of pulling apart either.

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