Fisherman's Knot

The Fisherman's Knot is used to join two lines of equal diameter. The knot can be easily tied with cold, wet hands. Though well suited to fishing, there are other knots which may provide superior performance, such as the Blood Knot.

The Fisherman's Knot and its variants developed independently in several cultures. In the first century AD the physician Heraklas described it in an essay on knots for surgical and orthopedic use.

Inuit fishermen tied versions with multiple turns in lines made of baleen. Baleen behaves much like a monofilament, and the added turns kept the knot from slipping, the same weakness the single knot shows in modern nylon line. Triple fisherman's knots tied in baleen and found near Nuuk, Greenland, have been radiocarbon dated to around 1700. Single fisherman's knots are among the knots recovered at Qeqertasussuk, a 4,500-year-old site of the Saqqaq culture in Greenland.

In 1865 the Alpine Journal reported tests of knots tied in Manila rope. Every knot weakened the rope, but the Fisherman's Knot weakened it least of all the knots tested. The journal also described the knot tied as a loop, the form Clifford Ashley later cataloged as the Improved Englishman's Knot (ABOK #1039). Hereford Brooke George wrote in the journal that he did not “wish to maintain the absolute superiority of this knot over all others, though I have never found one so generally useful.”

The knot has been known by many names. The Ashley Book of Knots lists it as the Angler's Knot, English Knot, Halibut Knot, Waterman's Knot, and True Lover's Knot. The Double Fisherman's Knot is also known as the Grapevine Knot.

The Fisherman's Knot is a bend with a symmetrical structure consisting of two overhand knots, each tied around the standing part of the other.

Though associated with fishing, the Fisherman's Knot can slip when tied in nylon monofilament and other slippery lines. If more holding power is required, the Overhand Knots can be made with more turns, as in the Double Fisherman's Knot. It is compact, jamming when tightened and the working ends can be cropped very close to the knot.