It doesn’t matter if you’re five-years old or fifty, if you want to begin fly fishing youhave to learn the basics. As they say, you’ve got to learn to walk before you can run. Well, if you’re going to learn to fly fish, you have to learn to tie your backingto your fly reel before you head on out to the water.

Step one may very well be the easiest step you’ll ever take when tying a flyfishing knot. Simply thread the tag end of your backing around the spool hub ofyour fly reel. Do this two times and then bring the backing out between the reelpillars. Then tie a knot at the end of your backing just like in the picture shownbelow.

Please note, we’re not using actual backing in the following pictures. We areusing a much thicker string so you are able to see the details of the knot-tyingprocess.

When tying the backing to the fly reel, step two is about as easy as step one. Simply take the backing and tie an overhand knot around the standing part of theline as shown below in pictures C and D.

You now want to tighten the overhand knot (picture E) and draw the backingthrough the knot (picture F) so the knot tightens up against the hub of the flywheel (picture G).

Now that you’ve tied your backing to your fly reel, simply spool the backing tightlyand you’re fly reel is ready to go. As you can see, while tying your backing to your fly reel is a very important process to learn, it’s also a very and doesn’t take long at all to catch on to.