Tie your own rigs.

This article is designed to help you tie your knots correctly and reliably, look carefully through all the different knots shown, practice them until you can tie them perfectly before you actually start using then on the bank, you really don't want to lose fish due to bad knot tying it really knocks your confidence.

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Before you start, two small but important tips.

1. Before pulling knots tight, make sure your line is wet this will help your knot pull down smoothly and will stop any friction/line damage when using nylon lines....
2. Wherever possible pass your line through the swivel or hook eye "twice" this will ensure excellent knot strength, the knot is the most common place for a hook link to snap. follow these tips and it won't happen to you.

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The Knotless Knot the easiest and quickest way of making a hair rig and perhaps the first knot you should learn. First - cut the hook link material you are using to around twice the length that you want your hook link to be, if you are using a coated line such as Snakebite as a combi-link (stripped of its coating) you will need to strip back around 6 inches of the coating. Next - tie a loop in one end as above by using a simple overhand knot, finish with rig glue if you want. Next - pass the hook link through the eye of the hook making sure that the loop end is on the top of the hook and the free end is passed back through the eye towards the barbed side and pull it though until the hair with the loop on the end is the length required, this will depend and many things, bait size, feeding confidence expected from the fish, difficulty of the fish and more besides.... you'll learn all this as you go along. Next - now you have the required hair length hold it in position and whip the line round the hook towards the barb and finish off roughly inline with the hook point, pass the line back through the eye of the hook towards the barb, don't forget to wet the line. Then pull tight - you'll be left with a nice neat hair rig, finish off with rig glue for extra security.

The Palomar Knot This is great knot for tying swivels and hooks to your hook link, very easy to tie and very reliable. Simple double up the end of your line and pass it through the eye of your hook or swivel, tie the looped end round in an overhand knot, pass the looped tag end over the hook, wet the line and pull the whole lot tight. Bare in mind that this knot might not be suitable for tying hooks when using thin lines.   The Four Turn Grinner Knot Another excellent knot to use when tying swivels or hooks, tied correctly it's very strong, very neat and very reliable. Pass you hook link through the eye of the hook or swivel twice, loop the tag end down towards the hook, pass your line round your hook link and back through the loop you have made four times, wet and pull the whole lot tight and you'll be using one of the best knots available.