There is little debate that the FG knot is the strongest leader to braid knot and the one that will give you the least grief passing through the guides on even the most finesse rod. The reason more people don’t use it is because it can be complicated to get the hang of.
While I might not be the best angler in the world, I taught myself a method of tying an FG knot from the first time I picked up a rod back in late 2018. I started by searching youtube, watched the first video I came across and then tied my first FG without too much difficulty. I modified my process a little over time and settled on a method that allows me to tie the knot quickly and easily even in difficult conditions. I’ve even been known to surprise people by tying an FG while travelling at 80km per hour across a lake.
I recently attended the Women’s Recreational Fishing League FlattyX tournament at Lake Conjola and shared my method with a few people there who asked if they could record me tying it so they could use it to learn themselves. I promised I’d create a video to share, so here it is.
One day I ‘ll try to redo the video as the quality isn’t great and I don’t have any video editing software at the moment, but hopefully it’ll give you the idea. Because the 4lb leader I use for Bream fishing is so fine, it’s a little hard to see on the video so I created a second video which is linked at the end to show the main part of the process using brightly coloured cord.
Happy knot tying!