Rapala Knot

It is almost pike time.  It took me a while to figure out a good leader/tippet setup for pike.  I ended up settling on 15lb. TyGer wire attached to the fly with a rapala knot.  It is a strong knot with lots of movement that works with mono as well.  Here's how it goes.

Form an overhand loop and thread tag end through eye of hook.

Thread tag end through loop.

Take two wraps of tag end around tippet.

Bring tag end back through the overhand loop and cinch down.

Bunny Split ready to hunt.

It takes a little practice to get the size of the loop right so practice with mono, that knottable wire is expensive stuff.  When I tie this knot with mono I wrap the tag in around the tippet 3-4 times instead of just 2 with wire.  I use about 8 inches of wire and attach that to a small o-ring and then attach 0X leader to that.  Tight lines.