Eight years+ using the FG knot to attach braid to leader, it’s still the best leader knot I know of, but I am finishing it off slightly differently these days

I walked past my rod rack yesterday and said my usual good morning to the rods and reels sitting there, but blow me down if one of the rods didn’t do a little jiggle in the rack, and was that one of the reels winking at me. I looked around to check that my wife and two girls weren’t watching me, and I then walked over to the Slammer 3500 which is sitting on one of the rods and raring to go. Was that really a wink the reel gave me, or is my head so fried at the weather conditions out there being so bloody awful (I’ve got gear to test and I love bass fishing at this time of year IF we can get out there) that I imagined an inanimate lump of hardcore spinning reel winking at me? I took it as a sign and I stroked the reel a bit, and then on up the leader and lo and behold I found a nasty bit of frayed area in the braid. So it is worth stroking your favourite setups from time to time……………..

And as I set myself up to cut the damaged braid off and tie a new fluoro leader on, I went into FG knot tying mode without even thinking about it. The end of the braid is clamped in my teeth, I get the tension I need in the line via the rod tip, I grab my spool of fluoro, and I start putting those thirty turns (fifteen completed X-wraps) in there. I tie the first half-hitch and then I pull the living hell out of the knot - this is THE most important step to me, and whilst I have changed the next step fairly recently (details in the paragraph below), this is how I have been finishing my FG knots for years. On go another couple of half-hitches, I cut the leader tag right down tight, put another couple of half-hitches in, then I finish the FG knot off with a 3-turn locking knot and leave a bit of a tag. Tying the FG knot here at home or out on the rocks in windy conditions is as natural to me these days as it is tying the end of my fluoro to my Breakaway Mini Link lure clip via my “four up and three inside the loop” variation of a Uni knot that I have used for nearly thirty years now.

I have heard about the “Rizutto finish” to an FG knot for a fair while now, but the few videos I watched on YouTube looked pretty complicated to me and I left it alone. A while ago though I got talking to a mate of mine who I used to do a lot of bait fishing with, and he was telling me how he uses the FG knot with a Rizutto finish when they head out to Norway and fish for the big halibut and coalfish and so on. If he can tie it, surely I can was my thinking, so during the last lockdown (how much do you hate the words lockdown, bubble, and social distancing, and how much are you looking forward to hopefully never having to use them again one day relatively soon?) I went looking for an easier to understand knot tying video and I found the one above. Skip to 1:52 and then watch through to 3:12 for the instructions on tying the Rizutto finish (the bloke in this video has very intense eyes!). It may look complicated, but once I got the hang of it it’s a fair bit quicker for me to finish my FG knots off like this. As per the paragraph above, this is how I tie my complete FG knot now, and it doesn’t take long at all - the end of the braid is clamped in my teeth, I get the tension I need in the line via the rod tip, I grab my spool of fluoro, and I start putting those thirty turns (fifteen completed X-wraps) in there. I tie the first half-hitch and then I pull the living hell out of the knot - this is THE most important step to me. I now tie a Rizutto finish, leave a bit of a tag on the braid, and my FG knot is done.

You know me. I am completely up for trying new rods, reels, methods, locations, lines, lures and so on. I live for trying new stuff out in my lure fishing and I don’t like standing still, but when it comes to the knot I use to attach my braid to my leader, I went back through my blog and found out that I have been using the awesome FG knot not for more than eight years now. I would still recommend using the video above as the easiest way to go tying those cross-wraps (I follow the video up until 3:10 and I then take over with my finishing as described above, I put thirty turns/fifteen complete X-wraps in), but over the first few years of using only this leader knot I guess I came round to tying it precisely as I described in the two paragraphs above. I put thirty turns in there (fifteen X-wraps) because in the early days of putting I think twenty turns in I had a couple of FG knots unravel for no apparent reason. I searched around online for any info I could find and the consensus was that lighter braids like what we use (when compared to say GT fishing) fare better with more turns in there. I have put thirty turns in ever since and I have never, ever had a single problem with the FG knot.

Now I get the various arguments against needing to use a leader knot as strong as the FG knot when we are fishing for a species such as our bass which aren’t exactly big and they don’t exactly break many mainlines or rods with their power alone. I get that trying the FG knot is more complicated and time consuming than something like the Improved Albright or Uni to Uni. A lot of us here fish for bass, and as much as we love ‘em, tarpon they ain’t. I caught plenty of nice bass just fine before I ever started using the FG knot. But my argument for using the FG knot is a very simple one - why the hell not use it? Why spend potentially a decent bit of cash on a modern braid and then put a lesser leader knot in there that simply can’t take full advantage of how amazing these modern mainlines are in terms of diameter versus strength? Why allow your leader knot to be even remotely a weak point in your setup by using a knot that isn’t as strong as the FG knot? I know that pulling a knot in your hands to test it out isn’t really a proper fishing test, but I do know that I will cut my hands with a #1 braid to a 20lb fluoro leader tied via the FG knot, whereas I would back myself to fairly easily snap an Improved Albright or Uni to Uni in my hands. Does this really matter when you’re out fishing in the real world for our glorious bass? Well that’s not actually the whole point to me, and whilst I don’t want to bang on about that bass I was lucky enough to catch the other day, I trusted every single aspect of my setup when I hooked that fish and pulled the living hell out of it. I spend the money I do on braids and fluoro leaders, and because I like lure fishing for bass with a leader, I simply can’t see the point of not using the best connection between mainline and leader when I know how to easily tie a knot that is much stronger than what I used to use over eight years ago…………….