Practice. Take a length of fishing line, a hook with the point cut off or buried into a cork, and practice. Practice until you can tie each knot correctly.

Always wet your knots with saliva as you pull them tight. This prevents damage to the line and allows the knot to pull tight.

Trim knots closely with a nail clipper. A good knot, pulled tight, will not come loose. Close trimming prevents the knot from catching snags or weeds. Do not burn the tag end—heat damages the line and knot.

When you're learning knots, the tag end (sometimes called the working end) is the end of the line used to tie the knot. The standing end is that part of the line coming from your fishing reel.

Line is cheap. Always leave a foot or more of the tag end for tying knots so that you can tie them properly.

Pull up all ends when tightening the knot. With some knots this will be only the standing end and tag end; with other knots it might be three or four ends.

Once you find a rig that's working (a combination of weights, hooks, swivels or floats used for a particular type of fishing) don't lose it.