Adding a cushion to a snell knot

[maxpowers]

I love snelling my circle hooks as I like the way the hook and line are on the same plane.  However one of the drawback of snelling is that as pressure increases the coils are rubbing against the sharp end of the hook eye and often resulting in the line fraying and eventually parting.  I tried the power snell and it seem fine but i still see the problem with the pressure on the line causing it to rub hard against the sharp eye of the hook.  To wit I decided to tie a 4 turns uni stopper knot and cut of both tag ends.  Then proceeded to snell the hook.  This eliminate the main line from contact the hook eye and greatly increase the knot strength.  I tried it with 20 lbs Trilene big game and got more than 20 lbs of pressure on the knot before the line parted.  Trilene big game typically break at higher than stated breaking point.

[Dave Bentley]

Very clever, the simplest things are often the best.

[philaroman]

neat idea...  which snell knot do you use?

[BMITCH]

Any pics of this knot?

[Bryan Young]

Very interesting.  I need pics to make sure I understand though. Sorry, I'm a visual person.

[maxpowers]

I will try to add pics later but essentially there are 2 knots with the sacrificial uni knot butted against the eye of the hook and the snell butted against the uni knot.  I have tried different snelling methods and they all worked fine with the cushion.  My thinking is that weakness of the snell comes from the uni directional pull which stressed the mainline as it connect to the hook.  The sacrificial uni knot distribute the stress over more surface area.

[Dominick]

Aaargh post a picture.  I don't understand.  Dominick

[Ron Jones]

I can't figure out how you tie a uni around the shank of a hook? I'd really like to see it.
Ron

[maxpowers]

hopefully the pics help a bit.  all i had with me were 15 lbs test line and a light mutu circle hook.

[Ron Jones]

Got it, you are basically putting a collar on the shank with a second piece of mono, I missed that. I actually like that a lot. Do you run the main line through the eye at all?
Ron

[maxpowers]

I do run the main line through the eye as it help with the hook set.  In theory you could bypass the eye which would make the knot stronger but I don't know if that will diminish the hook up or not.

[Dominick]

I got it now.  Thanks for the pics.  Dominick

[Ron Jones]

I've never tried it with circle hooks, but when I learned to snell my grandfather made me fish with the eyes clipped off, makes you learn to tie a good knot fast!
Ron

[maxpowers]

i don't know what the amount of pressure needed to deform the hook but the snell held fine on 15 lbs high seas mono.

[BMITCH]

Got it, you are basically putting a collar on the shank with a second piece of mono, I missed that. I actually like that a lot. Do you run the main line through the eye at all?
Ron

OOOOOOOH! I get it. Two pieces of mono. I would have never thought of that. Gotta try it. Thanks for posting the pictures.
Bob