Win-d or Wine-d knots - heteronyms

[DerekD]

Hi all,

I’m in a philosophical mood today. The topic of conversation is “wind knots”.

Over the years I have seen the term wind knot come up many times in a fishing context, often resulting in some sort of bird’s nest of the line. Wind is a lovely example of a heteronyms (same spelling but more than one pronunciation). Problem being is that both options are feasible in a fishing situation so I was curious as to other peoples’ interpretation of the term “wind knot”.

Most often I hear people talking about win-d (as in a stiff breeze or rhyming with pinned) knots. When fly fishing this makes sense as the line can be affected in mid-air by a breeze and you can end up with a few overhand knots in your leader or tippet if your technique is not up to par on the day. This could also be applicable to bait casters casting in to the face of a breeze where the lures slows down against air resistance but the drum keeps turning due to momentum and then results in a bird’s nest. For a spinning reel this interpretation doesn’t make sense as the slowing down of the cast weight leads to a slowing of the rate at which line is pulled off the spool.

The other option is wine-d (as in to wind up a clock mechanism or rhyming with kind) knots. The context in which this makes sense is when you are using ultralight lures and  you are not winding the line on to the spool with sufficient tension. On the way out the loose loops (especially with fused braid) can grab other and result in the bird’s nest.

How do other people pronounce the term wind (win-d or wine-d) knot and what is your understanding of the underlying mechanism resulting in the bird’s nest or similar?

Regards,

Derek

[wazatherfisherman]

Hi Derek my interpretation of wind knots is a knot that has developed in braid (only) from "spiralling" in the air. Doesn't happen with mono, knots in mono usually only occur from line twist. Baitcaster/overhead knots are 'wine-d' knots which occur from excessive 'thrown' loops developed by unrestricted revolutions of the spool on the 'out- cast'. Wine-d knots (backlash) form a different shaped knot, which is/are generally possible to "unpick" (with patience!) as they are loops upon themselves, differing from both wind knots and twist- if you get my meaning

Regards Waza

Also just thought of "dropping a loop" which can happen using sidecast reels, the ensuing tangle that results from this can be a session ender, as you need to get well below the mess and also deal with the regular sidecast twist- worse than a bad backlash on a big overhead. This would be an "un-wine-d" knot

Edited November 22, 2019 by wazatherfisherman

[big Neil]

Wind (a noun). the movement of air    pronounced win d

Wind (a verb) an action of turning a handle for example     pronounced wine d

Ok enough of the grammar...just having a bit of a laugh.

As pointed out by Waza wind knots are very different from birds nests (common in baitcaster systems).

Anglers are supposed to be patient people (nature of their sport) but undoing a birds nest is the real test of how patient we REALLY are. Had a bit of practice I have. Cheers bn

[Berleyguts]

It’s all too much for me... I think I’ll just get🍷d. 😜

[TAZ]

The wind knots I was told were wind knots, the ones on spinning reels, nearly always resulted for me with overloaded spools. Line coming off too freely, just virtually peeling off itself when the cast hold was released. 

Im pretty new to bait casters, had overheads and Abu in the past but not the newer type till recent times. I wasn't happy with the casting performance I was getting from my Daiwa Fuego, practiced and practiced, bit better but getting over runs and no great distance to write home about. Then a bloke said to me one day "mate you have too much line on it" Im thinking no there's not its just full and not over done. He then told me to look from the front where the line comes through the reels line guide and is the line coming through unhindered around the bottom two thirds to half area of the guide? Could I see the top of the line level on the spool in that area? My line level was right up the top of eye, it may have even just been coming through the top 1 /5 or 1/4 part of it. He said there was too much friction not enough free movement. Was like the eye was smaller than it really is in use. So I dropped the backing line right off so when I looked the line level was easy in the middle part of the eye. Wow, my casting improved from being less than my spin reel to matching and at times beating it easy. I now can easily cast a softy on a 1/4 ounce jig head further than I was getting on a 1/2 and my overruns greatly reduced. Again my issues were an over full spool. My spool on the Fuego may now look like its a bit under done line wise but it casts now great. 

Edited November 24, 2019 by TAZ