How-To Tie a Snell Knot

The Snell Knot is an effective knot for many heavy cover fishing techniques like flipping, pitching, and punching which employ heavy gauge hooks, large weights, and thick lines. Designed for increased power and hooking ability, the Snell Knot offers anglers a couple of critical advantages when fishing areas that are choked with vegetation. First, the knot is affixed to the shank of the hook rather than the eye, allowing your preferred punching weight to kick the hook point up on the hook set, dramatically increasing your hook-up ratio. Additionally, the knot is protected from impact damage resulting from repeated casts as there is no weight-to-knot contact.

Before we jump in, it's important to note that a sealed or welded eye hook is necessary to avoid situations where your line slips through the gap on the hookset and compromises your knot, hindering its effectiveness.

Whats Needed:

17lb - 25lb Fluorocarbon Line
50lb - 80lb Braided Line
Heavy Duty Hook with Closed Eye

Keep scrolling for step-by-step instructions for tying the Snell Knot!!

Start by inserting the line through the front of the eyelet. Avoid inserting the line through the back of the eye as it will create a reverse Snell Knot, severely hindering your ability to hook a fish. Once your line is threaded through the front of the eyelet, create a large loop behind the hook, leaving enough slack to wrap your tag end around the shank in the next step. Once your loop is made, pinch it to the hook’s shank just behind the keeper.

Next, while pinching your loop in place, take your tag end and wrap it around the shank above the keeper four to ten times, wrapping towards the hook’s line tie. Take care to keep your wraps even and not overlapping.

After you have completed the wraps around the shank of the hook, maintain control of the line to prevent the wraps from unraveling while you run your tag end back through the loop you created in Step One. Once through the loop, lay the tag end along the shank of the hook and hold it in place.

Complete the knot by lubricating and then pulling your mainline tight which will close the loop. You can now trim your tag end.

While there are other methods to tie the powerful Snell Knot, this is by far the simplest and quickest way we have found to execute the process. Offering near infallible performance and optimized hook-up ratios, the Snell Knot is a crucial tool to keep in the arsenal for any angler looking to flip structure or cover in their favorite body of water.