What knots do you tie for your swimbaits? How about to attach a floro leader to the main line? I tried the blood knot but it kind of makes me nervous to cast a $50 bait with a not-so-sure knot! A bummer to say the least x( x(

Blood knot on the leader. Improved clinch on the bait itself. I've never had one of these knots fail me, so I stick with what works.

Uni knot when using straight braid. Although I dont do it much, when Im using a braid to fluoro, I use a back to back uni. The previous post is something Ive tried, but dont like the way it looks when tied.

I use the back to back uni for the leader to braid but I have a couple of tips. Use at least seven turns on braid then set the knot with leather gloves on really tight. Then a drop of super glue and it will never fail. You can trim the tags to nothing. For the lure either a Palomar (the only 100% strength knot according to Kreh and Sosin) or an improved clinch with two turns through the lure eye.

Yeah, I like the improved clinch with the two turns like you said. I always hear good things about the palomar, but how in the heck do you tie it with a swimbait?

I also rarely use leaders anymore these days. Most of my rods are spooled with straight florocarbon so there's no need.

The uni to uni is a great knot for connecting braid and fluoro but I'd suggest putting a little Loon Knot Sense around it. For everything else a palomer knot is my choice. I put my line through brutal conditions trolling for browns and this uni to uni has never failed me, the knot sense really helps the knot from fraying especially when it's icy.

I think Floroucarbon is great stuff however I don't bother with leaders when fishing swimbaits. I fish it on straight mono Ande or Izorine Premium. I use the San Diego knot and if I'm not mistaken the breaking strength on the SD knot is rated at like 90-95% of the line strength. I believe it is the one of the strongest if not the strongest knot although lately I have been tying a double looped version of the SD knot. When I'm done tying the double looped SD it cut the ecess line in three places. I could explain it but it would probably just lead to confusion. The SD knot is good enough I have been fishing swimbaits (mostly saltwater) since the later part of the 80's when they first became popular and using them on straight mono has never let me down. Make sure to wet the line before pulling the knot tight to prevent any possible weakening.

I'm just currious personally I've had problems with pulling the hooks on fish using braided lines have any of you guys fishing the braidlines experienced that problem? I supose scaling down to a softer more forgiving rod for fishing swimbaits on braids might help prevent that or I supose it could load up the lure a little harder when that fish decides to jump and throw it back at us. Wow with braid line and a heavy enough lure that could lead to decapitation ok probably NOT but a serous hooking is very possible.

JerryG

Yeah, I believe a softer rod will improve your strike to catch ratio, if you're using treble hooks. But I'm a firm believer that a rod with the stiffness of a pool cue will do a better a job of setting the hook and landing a fish when using any kind of line.

http://www.stripersurf.com/knot_terminal.html

Been using it for several years now and it does not slip and I use f/c and/ braid but no leader.

Dan

I don't use braid for my swimbaits, just mono. So I would be attaching mono to f/c. I have been using the palomar for my baits with no breaks yet :7