When it comes to connector knots, I’m definitely a blood-knot guy. I know how to tie the surgeon’s knot, but I just prefer the look and feel of a blood knot, which is perfectly symmetrical and in-line. The folks at Trouts Fly Fishing in Denver have launched an educational video series hosted by director of education and guide Courtney Despos–who appeared on Tom Rosenbauer’s podcast last year–who walks you through some of the basic skills required to get started in fly fishing. Here, she teaches you how to tie the blood knot, which allows you to connect two pieces of monofilament or fluorocarbon of different or similar diameters. It’s a great knot for building a tapered leader or adding tippet to the end of a leader.
An option to consider is the relatively new Infinity Tipper knot. Superior to Blood and Surgeons in my experience. The ITK is easier, faster, stronger, and a much better on stream knot as it is super easy to tie with even 6X or 7X tipper splices. Give it a try and you’ll never look back.
Infinity Tipped knot
I’ve never seen anyone else do this, so maybe it’s bad advice. However, I’ve found it helps a TON if, after you’ve completed your first set of 4-6 wraps and are looping the tag end through to create the hole, to wrap that tag end around your finger. This keeps the loop from closing. In the video you can see she had a really small opening to insert her last tag end. It’d be tricky to do that with 7x. But if you wrap the loop around your finger the hole will be big enough to easily work with.