Knot Wars

the North American Fishing Club has been doing a series of videos they call "Knot Wars"  where the compare one knot to another and the winner moves on to the next round.  They're in there second season of knot battles.

In 2008 the Palomar was the top knot for tying line to lures where as the uni-uni knot came out on top for the "line to line" category.

http://www.fishingclub.com/ExtraContent/ExtraContentHome.aspx

Here's a the first battle of 2009 between the "no named knot" and the "gryp knot".

I did a test last summer on knots, the Palomar did not fare so well--tested groups of 10 knots with a scale to find breaking point.  The best knot, surprisingly, was the "eyecrosser" with 2 turns thru the hook eye and 3 loops on the Duncan (uni-knot) part of the knot.  Consistently a 100% knot.  Do a search for "knot strength" to see pix and tables of knots.

   Neat thing about the eyecrosser is that is very easy to tie .

   I used to use the Uniknot for tying hooks and spoons, but quit after losing a couple hog chinook to pulled knots.  Went to a Sportshow where they had a knot-tester machine, and the Uniknot pulled out every time (6# test, their machine would not do 20#).

   

I remember that kallitype which is why I posted this link.

Here's the Knot Wars version of Eye Crosser vs Palomar.. they seemed to get different results.  The knots tied for mono knots, but the palomar does slightly better for flourocarbon and much much better for braid.

The San Diego Jam was a fav of mine but busted out..  Looking forward to giving the eye crosser a shot. Nice post B.

Z

The "eye crosser" needs 3 wraps, not 2 as commonly tied..  The Palomar is great for braid, but at least on my gear, broke where the double line goes around the hook eye. YMMV....

  If you're using 50# braid,  a granny knot will probably hold!!!

Kallitype,

I just saw another episode of Knot Wars online.  You'll be happy to know that the "Fish-n-fool" knot as they called it beat the Palomar in current season's final for best line to lure knot.  As far as I can tell the "fish-n-fool" is your favorite the "eye-crosser" knot but with five wraps.   The odd thing is that they tested the eye-crosser last season (with two wraps) and the palomar beat it then (see my posted video above).   

I'm not sure why a few extra wraps makes the fish-n-fool a different knot from the eye-crosser.  Maybe seven wraps is even better then five?  If it is I'm calling it the "NWKA knot".

http://www.fishingclub.com/ExtraContent/ExtraContentDetail.aspx?id=148176

Friction is what breaks a monofilament knot----the extra loops ensure (insure?) that the wraps around the hook eye do not move.  In my tests, the palomar always broke (when it broke) in the loops going around the hook eye, so there must have been some motion .  The eye-crosser with at least 3 loops holds things very still, the line will break away from the knot, indicating that the knot itself is holding fast.

and i'm sticking behind Kalli on the use of the eye crosser as one of the GO TO knots we should all use.. darn thing is tough enough to pull a freight train.. or at least a loaded out T15 with my fat tuchis on it using a medium duty spinning rig and 20lb test snagged on a log [ ask me how i know]

 knot wars is doing too much double speak and berkley influenced testing in my opinion. but then, it's their show.