Are You Nuts? Know your Fishing Knots! – The Palomar Knot
Eugene L. 09.08.22
The Palomar knot is one of the simplest and fastest knots out there. It is also a very strong knot inherently due to its design. The doubled line used to tie it makes for very strong breaking strength. This doubling of the line also makes it a great knot choice for braided lines. But every knot has some downsides. Due to how this knot is tied if you are using a leader spliced onto your mainline make sure to pay attention how much leader you have left. Tying this knot a few times will eat into your leader length quickly. Another issue is while this is a simple and quick knot, it can be easily mistied in two ways. The first one is if you accidentally cross the lines in the loop, this will weaken the knot. The other is if you leave the loop under the eye of the hook or lure instead of above the eye with the knot.
Step 1
Double up the main line and pass the end of the loop of doubled line through the eye of the hook. Depending on the size of the hook you can change the loop size but usually, 6 inches of looped line is enough to tie the Palomar Knot. If you are trying a knot on a hook with a small hook eye, pass the end of the line through the hook eye once first, then double back and pass the tag end of the line back through the eye again from the opposite direction. Then leave an appropriate amount of double line outside the hook eye after.
Step 2
Using the double line then tie a loose overhand knot, and make sure the hook is hanging in the bottom of the overhand knot as shown.
Step 3
Hold the overhand knot between your thumb and index finger, then pass the loop of line over the hook. Then slide that loop over the eye of the hook.
Step 4
Wet the line and then pull on both the main line and tag end of the line to tighten down the Palomar knot down. Make sure that loop tightens above the eye of the hook. Then trim the tag end of the line down to about 1/4″.
