Non Slip Mono Knot

Seminar by Fish Alaska’s George Krumm

Non-slip loop knot is used to tie lures or flies to leader material. It can also be used to tie on hooks to be used with tube flies.

The non-slip loop knot is the knot to use if you want to maximize the movement of a fly or lure. The loop allows much more freedom of movement to the lure or fly than a knot that cinches down tight to the eye of the hook. You may ask, does it really make a difference? The answer is a definitely yes!

Case in point: The Publisher (Marcus), a friend of ours, and I were fishing a lake known to produce nice rainbows during the peak of the chironomid hatch. Marcus and I used the non-slip loop knot to tie on our chironomid pupa imitations. We explained to our buddy, who was no stranger to stillwater flyfishing, that he should do so, too. He scoffed at the suggestion, saying he’d caught plenty of stillwater trout on pupa imitations using the improved clinch knot. As it turned out, he had a very long day. At the end of it, Marcus and I had tallied a couple dozen rainbows. Our friend? Zero. Not a single fish. The only difference known difference between what he was doing and what we were doing was the non-slip loop knot.

Flies aren’t the only thing we use this knot for. We also use if for jigs under a bobber, twitching jigs, thin-bladed spoons like Coho Killers in saltwater, and more. It’s strong, easy to tie with both monofilament or fluorocarbon, and you can vary the size of the loop to your preference. We like to tie the loop very small for small flies or lures, but it can be bigger for things like spoons or twitching jigs.

As with all knots that can create friction when tightening, lubricate this knot before you cinch it down. With the non-slip loop knot, you tighten it by pulling on the tag end only at first. This preserves the size of the loop. After the knot is relatively tight, then you can pull on the standing portion to fully seat the knot. And that is how you tie the non slip mono knot.