Wind knots in leader or tippet

auriemma

auriemma

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Joined
Apr 6, 2011
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When you get them in the middle of your tippet or leader and they have already sinched down tight, do you ...

A. let them go wait for them to break?

B. stop fishing and replace the leader and/or tippet immediately?
 
No brainer choose B.
 
If it's in a furled leader of heavier part of a leader butt, I disregard until the end of the day.

If it's in the tippet, I agree with the above.
 
agree with the above. also, depends what I'm fishing for...
 
With 4X and above, I'd think a single overhand knot isn't going to decrease strength of the leader much, but would be wary of one in 5X and thinner, particularly if your leader ties itself in a knot close to the fly.
 
Depends on the situation. On a brookie stream or a stream where I'm otherwise not expecting any big fish, I let it go and don't worry about it. If I'm after big fish, I change right away.

And here's where laziness comes in. Many situations I'm catching typically smaller to medium fish with an outside chance at a big one anytime. I should change right away. I don't. I usually wait until the next fly change or whatever, and do it then.

But to be honest. It's been a LONG time since I broke off on a fish. Years probably. So I'm probably less concerned about this kind of stuff than I should be. It's gonna bite me sometime.
 
Agree with the above. I've never lost a fish to a wind knot breaking...but that may just be circumstance to a degree. FWIW, in my experience furled leaders don't seem as prone to these and if you get one in the tippet you've attached to it no big deal, just replace the tippet...better than a whole leader IMO.

I've only had one fish all year break off and that was directly attributable to my own laziness. I was fishing a small warm water stream for sunnies with dries and came to a deep hole at the mouth of the stream. Switched to a small woolly bugger to fish the hole and didn't switch the 5x tippet. Battled a 15-16" Smallie for a minute or so until I got him close enough to try to land him...he made his final run and was gone. Should have been my best Smallie of the year, but I wasn't expecting him there, and didn't swtich up the tippet. Some of the 3x or 10 lb mono I was carrying would have landed him easily. So again, it's circumstances to a degree, but as pcray alluded to, you really never know when the big one will strike.
 
I lost a nice trout several years ago because I was too lazy to change my tippet that had developed a wind knot. Never again! I take the time to change it now. That fish broke me off right at the wind knot. :cry:
 
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