Joe with a Burghfield whacker
Underground big carp slayer Joe Forrester has given us the nod on an alternative leader knot for attaching leadcore to the mainline, here’s the lowdown from Joe:
‘I came across this knot by chance a few years ago. I was unhappy with the strength of a standard needle knot, when tying my leaders on to my rods I’d often have to tie numerous knots to get one that I was happy with. So I had a play round trying to make up my own knot and came up with this, although I’m sure someone has done it before, I’ve never seen or heard of it done this way. It’s essentially a grinner knot around the leadcore and is incredibly strong, I’ve tested on scales and it out performs the Needle knot and the ‘knotless Knot’ and is now all I ever use.
Take some E-S-P Leadcore and cut to your required length, I prefer my leaders to be about 4ft.
Fold the Leadcore about an inch from the end and make a break in the inner lead material
Pull out the inch of lead and you will be left with the hollow braided outer
Get a splicing needle and using the crook on the end slowly feed the needle up inside the leadcore towards the open end
You should now have the needle threaded through the empty leadcore
Using a lighter carefully blob the end of the leadcore, this will stop the braided material from fraying
Get your mainline and hook it into the crook on the needle
Pull the mainline through the leadcore exiting through the side of the leader
Form a large loop in your mainline
Take the tag end of mono and wrap it around the line and leadcore, like you would with a grinner knot
Repeat this 5 times, wrapping down towards the lead end
Moisten with a bit of saliva and slowly tighten the knot down
Carefully bed the knot down so it’s level with where the line exits the leadcore and pull tight
Trim the tag end off
Finished and ready to go