The Nail Knot

The Nail knot is a useful knot for tying the backing onto the fly line.

It is tied by obtaining a small tube. One like you find on canned air works great. Place the tube alongside the end of the fly line. Place about six inches of the backing from your reel alongside these two.

Leaving about an inch still beside the tube and the end of the fly line, wrap the backing neatly and tightly around the tube and the fly line 5 to 7 times toward the reel.

Pass the backing through the tube.

While holding the wraps with one finger and thumb, pull the tube out.

 

While still holding the wraps, carefully pull the backing on each side of the knot to tighten. Let go of the loops and tighten again. After the knot is tight, pull on the fly line and backing to test the knot.

If the knot was successful go ahead and trim the ends.

You can put fly tying head cement on the knot to make it smoother so it will go through the guides more easily.

Note: you can also use a nail instead of the small tube by working the backing alongside the nail under the wraps.