How To Tie A Rapala Knot

The rapala knot, or a very similar knot, the non-slip loop, is a useful knot for when you need to present the lure or the fly with a bit of movement. In other words, it's not being held rigid by the line, it's not going to sink with the line, it's going to dive aside from the line. So, that in other words, if you've got a heavy fly, for example, it's going to dive for cover when we start retrieving, a situation that I've found very useful when going fishing.

The first part of the knot is creating an overhand knot. There's the overhand, forget about that for the moment. Picking a fly, hook or lure, thread the hook, and then we've got to come back into that initial overhand knot.

We come back into it the way the line comes out, so we can see the fly, the line is coming out of the loop that side, come around the loop that side, and go back in that side. And that's quite important. Now, if we pinch that and get it, shuffle it so it gets closer to the hook, then pinch it off and then four turns - as with many knots, four turns is pretty standard - and then you can carry on completing the knot by going back through the center of that knot.

Now, this is quite important: the center of that knot and then specifically, it's like a pinch knot. Sling that, pull it down, and split it out if it seems to be over-wrapping itself, keep spraying that knot out, sling it down, sling it down and then tighten up both ends. And what we end up with is a barrel and a loop.

And if I trim that away, you can see the shape of the knot, that's exactly what we hope for when we want to present the fly with free movement, a nice loop knot where the fly can swim freely, and it doesn't tighten up like some loop knots so you can fish again once you've caught a fish and released it, you can fish again and that loop will always remain and it's as strong as any blood knot, clench knot, never lost a fish on that knot. .