Knots to Know for Cold Weather Fly Fishing

The overhead sun was high and bright during one of my earliest, winter steelhead adventures with a fly rod. I grew up in the snowbelt area near Lake Erie, so that big, glowing ball in the sky didn’t fool me. I dressed appropriately for the event, including the addition of mittens with a flap that folded over the backs of my hands. The flaps, when held back by attached Velcro strips, allowed my fingertips to protrude.   

Eventually, a large steelie accepted my sucker spawn imitation and the expected battle ensued. Then it happened. I committed a rookie mistake by trying to net the fish, prematurely, and I had that fish half in the net when it broke free, taking my fly and half of my tippet with it. Making matters worse, I instinctively and quickly thrust the net, and my hand, into the frigid water in a desperate attempt to secure the fish. My right hand and glove were soaked by icy water. 

That’s when I recognized a problem! My fingers were numb, and I could not feel the tippet line I needed to add to the leader. If you have never tried to tie two pieces of thin fishing line together when your fingers have lost dexterity, you may not appreciate the challenge. The last thing I wanted to do was leave my bare fingers exposed to the elements longer than they needed to be. Tying a complicated knot was the last thing I wanted to do, but I didn’t know how to tie simple, quick knots that I could trust to hold and would move freely through fishing rod guides. 

The fact is that even on the coldest days, an angler will eventually need to bear their fingers to tie knots. Expelling large amounts of warming breath across our fingers provides temporary warmth that is never adequate. The best remedy is to know how to tie several, simple, strong knots and tie them quickly even when you’ve lost finger dexterity.  

I do not claim to be the most knowledgeable or prolific knot-tyer on the planet. Tying a new knot does not come easy to me, so I must practice tying it repeatedly. Here are my tips for learning to tie unfamiliar knots. 

Do not attempt tying an unfamiliar knot while using a size 20 hook and 7X tippet line. You are likely to get frustrated and give up! Instead, stage a large crankbait lure (without treble hooks), and a spool of thick, black line normally used for ice-fishing with tip-ups, next to a sketch of the knot you are trying to learn. Stage the items where you will walk by them often, and each time you walk past the items, tie the knot. If you tie that same knot enough times over days or weeks, it will become second nature to tie it when you must. By spreading the lesson over days or weeks, the experience will be embedded in your brain better than by tying it several dozen times during a single sitting, especially if you will not use your new knowledge on the stream until days or weeks later. 

Here’s a bad habit of mine that you should avoid: I tend to glance at sketches and “think” I see it perfectly. If provided, read each step closely and be sure the practice line perfectly matches the sketch at each step. This is especially critical the first few times you tie the knot.  It is more difficult to forget the incorrect way to tie a knot than it is to learn to tie it perfectly in the first place. Let me write that again!  It is more difficult to forget how to tie a knot incorrectly than it is to tie it correctly in the first place. Don’t worry about how fast you tie the knot. Speed will come with repetition.

These are my three favorite cold-weather knots, and they need not be your three favorites. If they are strong knots that you can tie quickly, they have earned your respect. Two of the most obvious knots missing from my list are the blood knot and the nail knot. I struggle to tie them even when the weather is warm, so they are not my personal preference for fishing in cold weather, but if you can tie them well, they work just fine, too.  If you can tie a “good” knot and tie it “quickly,” it’s a good cold weather knot.