JW.

6 in one, Half Dozen the other when it comes to either. I like the Bimini Twist. And I use a 50 Turn Bimini on my Kayak rods.

Make sure before you roll the twists that you lube the line with plenty of Spit. after you have finished the knot, just take the time and pull the twists out with your thumb and forefinger.

Cheers

HF

I like plaits on 30# and heavier line, biminis are easy and quick on 20# and below.  I'll use a bimini on heavier line if for whatever reason I need to tie a short double fast, it can be tied real fast if you need to. 

As for the twists that happen when tying, work them up the line into the body of the double section.  If you're having a fairly longish double it's not a completely bad thing to have the double strands twisted together (not severely twisted of course, but just so they don't come apart). 

I'm not a huge fan of the cats paw but realistically most any knot you tie in a double line will test over 100% of rated line breaking strength. 

cheers - dustin

im with dustin on this one the 30plus for plaits 20down for twists.....

when tying a plate just make sure you nip each line into place once you have finished it should have a slight curl off to one side this will let you know its tight as the last thing you wont is when it come through that top roller or guide it bunches up this is could of been a world record fish.......

and cats paws are crap...... learnt that after jigging with them 4 - 5 fish and one side or the other would let go.... use a uni knot it wont let you down........

Both knots are only as good as the person tying them!

Tests on a line tester reveal the truth. A plate is marginally better.

But a bimini tied well and flossed at the main line is as good.

Failures i have seen have been at the point where the plate meets the main line. Some people double twist on start up and i have seen the line break there.

It also depends on the line class you select. Lighter line and biminis are far more compatible.

Find a line tester and start tying! 

xiaphius,

Xiphias gladius Linnaeus......

Plait, plait, plait...........nothing else for me unless it's 10kg or less then a basic spider hitch will do.

Tone E,

        Nothing wrong with no double but you do loose the option of "locking" up when the double is on the reel. A double can also protect from line chaffe or tail smack from a big fish or a tail wrapped fish.

Hi Guys,

Refer to an article on this subject in Blue water Mag from either Feb or March this year.

They concluded that a poorly tied Bimini is still better for stength than a well tied plait. That does it for me.

They used several people using several classes & brands of nylon. each person tied a bimini & a plait. These were then tested over a line tester. The results were as stated above.

Fairly conclusive I would say. Grab the article & read. Xiaphius you have made a sweeping statement about line tests favouring the plait. Produce your results. as i said above the methodology used by Blue Water would on the face of it appear to be sound & mirror results that I achieved several years ago on much simpler equipment than that which they were using.

Cheers

odin

Hi everyone , that's a fascinating bit of info!  I haven't read the article yet, kinda hard to get Bluewater here in London.  I am prepared to accept thier results but on the other hand feel compelled to point out maybe a few points.

One of the good things I always felt about the plait was that it stretches a little under pressure.  I don't know how to simulate this but I always felt if you put the line under great pressure for several hours and then tested the results, the cushion the plait gives you might make a bit of a different.  To be fair, I don't know for sure. 

One thing I do know for sure the bimini is not an altogether easy knot to roll up for the 80 and 130 line classes, and if you're doing a long double line it is not as handy to tie as the plait.  It is also bulkier and that's not an issue if you are fishing with Big Foot rollers, Wind On rollers and big roller tips, but if you're fishing say 80# or even thick diameter 50# on a 50W stand up outfit with standard Aftco HD rollers you can have trouble with the bimini passing through.  Roller tip too, if you're not careful.  The plait is narrower and can help solve those problems.

I'll never say the Bimini is not a good knot and some great captains favour it and use it with much success.  However, for much of my own fishing I've come to trust and favour the plait.  I would guess that a properly tied double is also one of the least likely components of your rigging to fail so until I start busting plaits I'll stay with them.  But each to his own.

cheers - dustin

Hi Dustin,

I have used both systems over the years & have now come to favour the bimini after a couple of spectacular failures with the plaits over extended fights. Interestingly they both failed at the initial turn around the mainline. 1 on 24 & the other on 37kg. I have come to surmise from this that over an extended long fight that this initial first turn becomes a stress point. i may be wrong as i have only ever had a plait fail the two times so this is not really a good basis for a theory based on the facts presented I know, more just a gut feeling. As you know a large part of what we do is a confidence thing with our gear. If you have confidence then you will probably make the right move. If you dont then you will probably cock it up.

Incidently one thing that I do that has saved me a couple of fish over the years & this works with Plaits as well as Biminis is at the Cats paw knot joining the wind on to the double is that I bind the two legs of the double together with waxed thread. If the fish manages to smash one of the double lines this prevents the line from slipping throught the Cars paw & loosing the fish.

Cheers

odin

To me it's the system (bimini's and plaits are not really knots) that you get to know best and have confidence in.

Go for whichever you wish.

However one point about plaits. Don't tie them too tight, there simply is no reason to, plus too tight and they fail. Though in saying they'll fail, if you go over line class then the wekest point should break, shouldn't it.... If you tie them tight and they bend linke a bannana then you have uneven tensions on the ends that will work against each other.

I use plaits, not super tight ones, but not too loose. We fish extreme drags without problems. At 80% the top of the plaits do buckle, but so what, they don't break, and don't slip.

Peter, I find if you don't get the plait reasonably tight the top of the plait starts to get very loose. I hear you that this may not lead to failure, but just looking at it and I can't bring myself to put it out again.

I find if the plait is tight enough to look like a banana when first tied, once it has had any strain , even towing a lure , it staightens out and then holds its shape. Take your point though that it shouldn't be to tight, or are you saying that even a banana finish is too tight?

I have seen some guys start the plait with a semi knot at the top and can understand that if the plait was tight this would put pressure on the top of the plait.

While I have your ear, I've had some fun lately working out the best way to join briad and mono and have finally settled on a technique that sees a single plait tied using both lines in the one plait. This seems to work really well but is a pain to do. All other knots I tried , including those recomended by the braid manufacturers break significantly below line weight as the much thinner braid seems to cut the mono. Do you have any advice on this issue?

Peterw 

Hi everyone,

Interesting to hear everyone's experiences.  I agree if I had two plaits bust I would be pretty wary about using them, until I started busting biminis!  Assuming there's no issue with knot tying (prickly subject I know but knots do occasionally get rushed and mistakes happen), whenever I've tested double line knots to break point the line always broke about an inch to half inch in front of the beginning of the double knot.  Odin - just wondering - did you get part of your knot back, or a busted tag end with a bit of curl to it, to confirm it was a failure in that portion of the knot? 

As far as plait construction is concerned, I find it pretty hard to tie a plait super tight, especially on thick lines like Amilan!  It's very hard for me to avoid some plait distortion at the very top of the plait on full drag. I don't really like the look of it, but it hasn't failed YET!  Admittedly we didn't fish them on really heavy drag so that would have been more forgiving on the line.  (Didn't prevent us from catching fish in about as quick time as all the other boats)  Some other boats did use a good deal heavier drag on fish than us, mostly using plaits, and I never heard of a broken plait. 

I'll always cut off the double and often something like 30-40 feet of line, and retie every evening after catching a good fish.  I don't know how many fish a double will stand before it fails and I don't want to find out!

With the bimini I always thought there was potential for the knot to unravel if the outer layer of twists somehow got busted, although to be fair, it would be very hard to achieve this.  I believe that's partly why some crews floss the whole length of the bimini, but that's only really practical for heavier lines.

cheers - dustin

Hi Dustin,

On the 2 plaits that I have had fail both had an identical slight curl on the break so i have assumed that this was at the point where the first turn was around the mainline at the start of the plait. A reasonable assumption on my part but I stand to be corrected if anybody can give me a better explanation.

Will we be seeing you down here again next season. maybe this time for a longer stay so we can show you some real kiwi hospitality.

By the way I totally agree with you about changing the nylon after a fish. I run top shots over dacron & will change them every night if a rod has caught a fish during the day. 200m of nylon is cheep insurance for the following day.

cheers

odin

Hi Odin,

You're probably right... it's been a couple years since a few other guys and myself did the break tests on the dock with 30# line and a scale and I don't recall what the busted tag ends look like. 

One reason I'm sure why a lot of folks don't like a plait that deforms is that, presumably if it is loose enough and the slippage is pulled back into the main line section it could experience stress that would cause it to fail under extreme tension, thus the necessity for a tight series of plaits to lock that section.  Maybe this could also explain what happened to your plaits Odin?  As mentioned I still do experience a slight amount of plait distortion on heavy lines when a fish is fought on full drag.  Nowadays I like to pull off several yards of line under full drag after the knot is tied so that if any distortion happens it'll happen then rather than on the fight when you can't see the knot!

I don't really feel it's necessary to junk the whole topshot and I like a long enough topshot so I can cut back a few times before needing to junk the topshot.  Most of the stress, I think, seems to come on the last 30 to 50 yards when the fish is fought on a short line, little stretch and often under heavy drag.  That section will almost always have to go.  If however a lot of the topshot gets chaffed as can happen with junk in the water etc then the whole thing needs to go.

I'll be back, as the Terminator said, as soon as I can, but maybe not next year.  I'm thinking now I'd like to time my visit around the Houhora One Base.  That north cape area sounds pretty amazing - and i'd definitely like to fish the west coast too! 

cheers - dustin

Pete to join spectra to nylon just use hollow spectra and splice it. If your using solid either get a brass ring or the ring from a ball bearing swivel, squeeze them down and tie appropriate knots. They shouldn't foul in the guides if they are small enough in the first place and sqeezed to an oval shape.

Retiring doubles and discarding line isn't really neccessary with a few brands of line these days unless there are visable signs of deteriation. But on the upside the more you tie the better you become at the knots and plaits / biminies.

Pete

Quite a few years back, a skipper in Cairns showed me a different method to do doubles and I have used it since without any problems. Simply get about 3m of dental floss wax thread (use dental tape not dental ribbon, it is slightly thicker and moulds together when tied. Johnson & Johnson make a dental tape that is good). Anyway, put a hitch in the end of the wax thread to form a loop, then measure out the length you want your double to be. Feed one end of the thread loop through the other, pull tight. Carry on tieing the mono strands together with half hitches in the wax thread over both strands of mono. After about 5 half hitches, separate the mono and do a half high around each strand of mono. Then repeat with 5 over both strands and 1 around each until the binding is around 150mm long finish with a double hitch. We use it on 15, 24 and 37. 

Hey sorry I didnt explain it very well. I will email you a diagram. As it is not a knot it retains 100% line strenth. Use Dental Tape which is slightly thicker than normal floss/ribbon and it will never slip. The only down side is that it takes a long time to tie. We had inconsistancies with the bimini twist and since changing to this we have had no problems. It is slim and goes through the guides well.

Cheers Adam

Matt nice to know that 'sunset' is part of the routine. What kilo's you pulling at sunset??

Tight's relative 'eh... and comes with experience to some extent.

Great figures. Steve Hall has been keeping me up to date on the adventures of the Ultmate. Keep it up!!

Adam Scott sent me this great picture of how he makes a double using dental tape. It's all clear, now. Thanks Adam.

Well I've made a double using Adam's method and it looks pretty good. like Adam said, it does take a while to tie.

In the past, being cack-handed, I've gone without a double, rather than have a suspect one (unless a quality tier has made one for me). Not keen on the catspaw, either. A Palomar is so simple and strong and will hold on at very close to line weight x 2.

After I was shown it I was a little suspect that it may slip, so I tested  it with scales until it broke, I cut the main line under the knot so the tag end had all the weight and tested it again. It never slipped even with the mainline cut and didnt brake at the start of the knot either. So you can have confidence that it retains 100%.

Good luck with it.

Cheers Adam