How to tie an FG knot with Paul Worsteling

Paul Worsteling: I'm about to show you one of the greatest fishing knots ever invented. It's called the FG. It originated in Japan and it's based on the old Chinese finger trap. I use this knot on really big fish. In fact, when I'm down in Tassie catching 300 kilo plus swords, this is the knot I use to join my monofilament top shot to my braided backing. Now, if you want to go GT fishing, it does the same thing. Anytime you want to join braid to mono, this is the knot to use.

It's quite simple. It's taken a year to perfect, however, because you've just got to get your fingers working the right pattern. So first you put your rod in the rod holder and get a bit of tension on that braid. Once you've got the tension on the braid, the mono, your heavy leader, sits over the top of your braid. Form across and it's simply a matter of going over, keeping tension, and then the top one goes over and pulls tight. You literally keep doing this over and then this one over, and each time lock it off, pull it nice and tight 'cause that's what jams into that leader. 27 times I've found works best. Just keep going until you've done that about probably 10 times. Once you've done that, it's a matter of grabbing both of them and pulling the whole knot tight.

So I've got quite a few loops there. I grab both bits of braid, grab that and now I slide that up and down tight, locking that on. And now I continue the process. So that was the last one. Now I go to the top again. Pull that tight. Over and tight, over and tight. So even though you may consider this to be a bit of a tedious process, I'm here to tell you it's worthwhile. I took away Jock the IFISH Apprentice to Bligh Reef in Queensland a few months ago. He hooked the biggest fish he's ever hooked in his life on this knot. He fought that fish. He was puffing and panting. But when you see the results and you know you're not going to get let down by a knot, you know it's definitely worth the pain.

So I just keep working up here. I'm getting so close. 25, 26, 27. Sensational. So the key here, half hitch. Go half hitch under both the braid and the mono tag, back around and pull that up nice and tight. And I find it's good if you just actually do that and give it a bit of a twang, I suppose you'd say, 'cause it actually locks it off. Once you've done that, really important to pull both the mono and the braid away from each other 'cause that helps lock the knot. You can actually even get a boat roller or a pair of pliers, wrap it around the braid and give it a really tight pull just to make sure it's not going to move. So now that I've done my first half hitch, it's simply a matter of doing five more. But alternate over, under. So this one's over the top and back through. Again, pull it up tight. Underneath for the third. And pull it up nice and tight. Over for number four. Tight again. Under for five and number six.

Now, the reason for the alternate half hitches, if you only half hitch under, they actually create a spiral that goes around like this. Whereas if you alternate you get a beautiful straight line of half hitches, and the knot goes through the water and the guide's a lot better. Now, the way to finish this knot. I've done the six half hitches. It's simply a matter of bringing this around, making a big half hitch and going through about six times. So one, two, three, four, five and six. And this is probably the trickiest bit about the whole knot. I've pulled that through. Just a matter of pulling this up nice and doing what we call a backwrap. So I now grab that loop and I physically wrap it back the other direction. So it's almost unravelling itself until the loop at the end joins itself. You'll know what I mean when you see it. You've got a single loop there and I can now pull my tag through and that creates a beautiful little locking off mechanism. And our knot is now complete.

So first I cut my braid tag there. Cut it fairly close. Doesn't have to be too close though. And then our mono. And I cut the mono fairly close, and the reason I do it fairly close is 'cause I now want to melt that little tag. So I get the lighter and I protect the braid with my thumb and index finger. I literally just light the end there so it gets a little bit of a knob. And I just touch it with the end of my finger. What that actually does is it pulls that up nice and tight. And you'll see there, actually acts as a small stopper. That knob at the end literally gets caught on that twisted braid and it creates what I would say would be the ultimate braid to mono knot.

And as you can see, not easy to tie. I said earlier the FG knot probably took me about a year to perfect. But once you get it right, it is so good. It gives you total confidence. Take the time 'cause at the end of the day you've got that massive fish on and you want to know you're going to get it in the boat or on the beach.