Does it ever bother you that your line-to-leader connection hangs up in the guides? Do you often get tangles when you cast? Does your floating fly-line tip sink? Do you wonder why the big one nearly always gets away and why fish often stop rising when you present the fly to them?

The four or five connection knots of the fly-line system (backing to fly line, shooting head to shooting line, leader to fly line, tippet to leader, and fly to tippet) can have a dramatic influence on your success. The smaller and stronger you can make each connection, the more efficiently you can avoid tangles; make good casts and presentations; fish the fly; and strike, hook, fight, and land fish successfully. That's a pretty broad statement, but using the smooth system of connections that I'm going to describe has made me a much more successful fly fisher over the last 20 years, especially when going for big fish on light tackle. I'm sure this system will help you improve your fly-fishing efficiency as well.

Smooth, knotless connections slide easily through the guides and prevent accidental break-offs when a fish runs expecially when fishing with long leaders where it is necessary to reel the leader into the tip guide to land the fish.

The stimulus for this article began 59 years ago when I received a special gift from my Dad (who didn't fly fish). It was a warped bamboo fly rod with peeling varnish and a rusty single-action reel that he purchased from a pawn shop in Dubuque, Iowa. The reel had an old, thick, level fly line with neither backing nor leader attached. This was of no particular concern to a nine-year-old who knew nothing about fly fishing; no concern, that is, until I took the little bee-colored chenille-and-hackle panfish fly that I'd purchased for ten cents off a card display in a local hardware store and tried to tie it to that thick fly line. The line was too big to pass through the size 8 hook eye, and it was the only fly I owned!

My grandmother saw my dilemma and proposed a simple solution. "Let's just tie a smaller piece of fishing line that will pass through that little hook to the big line." She then cut about three feet of black, braided line off granddad's baitcasting reel and connected it to my fly line with a granny knot about the size of a small pinto bean! It worked great, except the knot wouldn't pass back through the tip-top guide. So, I never disassembled my fly rod.

Six decades later a lot has transpired to make me appreciate good fly tackle; tapered fly lines; soft, knotless leaders; and small, smooth, strong connections. Nearly every day, however, I meet beginning fly fishers who face similar challenges with their connections as I did long ago. Let me improve and simplify things.

Best-Case Scenario
The fly-line system would, theoretically, work best if all connections were fused as one smooth, knotless fly-line unit. That's the premise I used when I began to develop a no-bulk, smooth-junction, no-knot connection system. The knotless, tapered leader solved one part of the equation for me. Knotted, tapered leaders can be tangling nightmares because there are so many points at which the leader can catch on itself, especially for new casters.

Using a knotless leader, I bonded the butt section inside the fly-line tip with a flexible, strong epoxy. This knotless connection passed through the rod's guides and tips like magic. With knots and loop-to-loop line-to-leader connections, the leader is difficult to cast or pull through the guides and cannot safely be pulled inside the guides while landing big fish. Even the smoothest knots can hang up. No matter how long the leader, my knotless connection can be pulled smoothly in or out through the guides when landing a fish or tying on another fly. If the leader is inside the guides when a fish lunges away, the leader zips right back out, almost friction free. I landed more larger fish than with knotted or loop-to-loop connections. This connection almost eliminated my big-fish losses and made it possible to use the lightest, longest leaders and smallest flies. With a similar smooth connection, I joined my fly line to the backing. I also formed a soft, smooth loop using the core of the fly line for shooting head and shooting line loop-to-loop connections.

The flexible two-step epoxy I used for my first knotless connections was somewhat messy and slow to cure. Bill Hunter, Tom Schmueker, and Joe Robinson introduced me to a better bonding agent that had just come on the market: Pacer's Zap-A-Gap. This quick-setting, one-step cement has amazing strength and flexibility. It also has a thick viscosity, which makes it easy to use, and it is 100 percent waterproof. Robinson had a group of knotless connections checked for wet endurance by a professional testing company. These tests showed that the bonds maintained 97 percent strength for over two years in fresh and salt water.

MATERIALS

Zap-A-Gap (1/4 ounce bottle is ideal). No. 8 or 9 crewel needle. Pin vise or small pliers to hold needle. 100-grit sandpaper or emery cloth. Nippers. Sharp razpr blade. Zap-A-Gap is sold at most fly shops and hobby shops, as well as fly- fishing mail-order catalogs and websites. The 1/4-ounce bottle fits nicely into kits and vests. To prolong its life, keep it refrigerated when you don't plan to use it regularly. You can also use Zap-A-Gap to coat nylon and fluorocarbon knots (it makes them smoother and stronger); patch pinholes in your waders; and for dozens of other gear, tackle, and home repairs. Pin vises are sold in hobby shops, art-supply stores, hardware stores, and fly shops. Crewel needles and needle threaders are sold in sewing departments everywhere. You can also obtain a Whitlock Zap-A-Gap Kit with accessories and a color instruction booklet for about $25 at Umpqua Feather Merchant dealers or you can order one from www.davewhitlock.com/. We also have a knotless connection DVD available on our website.

Over the years since then, Joe Robinson and I pooled our efforts to develop the best, quickest, and simplest procedures for these connections. Forming the connections takes about 3 to 5 minutes each and about 20 to 30 minutes of practice to learn-about the same time it takes for traditional knots or loops. Then subtract the time and frustration you will save by avoiding tangles or fish break-offs.

How Strong Are They?
Emily and I have done hundreds of Zap-A-Gap demonstrations and usually someone raises doubts. "You wouldn't trust that on a big fish, would you?" "How about saltwater?" "You wouldn't trust that on a 100-pound tarpon, would you?" I answer that I would if only Zap-A-Gap is used and the directions are followed precisely. This connection is a weld of the combined strength of the fly-line core and the material glued into it. When professionally tested, breakage occurs outside the connection on the leader, backing, or line before it separates where the two are bonded by Zap-A-Gap. A tapered leader tip or tippet is always weaker than the butt section and will break long before anything happens to the knotless connection. Over the last 20 years of using this connection for all my fly fishing in fresh and salt waters throughout the world, I've yet to have one single break or pullout at line-to-leader or backing-to-line connections. On only a few occasions have I had someone tell me they had a failure with the Zap-A-Gap connection. When questioned, they usually have substituted some other cement for the Zap-A-Gap or deviated from the instructions.

We regularly encounter people who say that the connection won't work for them because they often change leaders on stream using loop-to-loop connections. We suggest that they use a Zap-A-Gap loop in their fly line, which reduces weight and bulk at the fly line tip and doesn't hinge like some other stiff loop connections.

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