Learn to Tie a Blood Knot When Fly Fishing

Video Transcript

"Hi! I’m Jim Dowd with Zoar Outdoor. I am here on behalf of expertvillage.com to talk with you about fly casting and fly fishing. The next knot I would like to show you is called a blood knot. This is a wonderful knot for attaching two pieces of leader together, such as leader and tippet or tippet to tippet. As you can see, it is a very compact knot and it allows the knot to smooth smoothly slip through the line guides if necessary. It is about a 98 percent strength knot, meaning that it is 98 percent as strong as the original material itself. Here is how you tie it. With 2 contrasting pieces of material just so you can see it well, you overlap the 2 pieces in an x just like this, and I pinch it between the thumb and finger with one hand, thumb and index finger and then make 5 turns—1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, 5 turns—and take the end and put it back where the x was just like that. Then I grasp with the other hand and pinch it all together so that I can just resume the process with the other end. I make 5 more turns—1, 2, 3, 4, and 5—and now where the original first piece end of line is projecting out from the center part, take the second and put it through in the opposite direction. So now you see that the ends are sticking out in opposite directions. This next part is very important. Snug it down by pulling on the ends and the leader and the tippet at the same time so it gets snug, and at this point now if this was nylon, leader to tippet I would moisten it with saliva. Then you just slowly gradually draw it down. The knot becomes tight on itself, and there you have a blood knot. This is an excellent knot and with practice, it will take you just moments to tie it. "