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Should You Replace Your Trebles With Singles?

phil32990


With even more draconian restrictions on striped bass fishing on the table for next year, we as a fishing community (recreational and rod and reel commercial) need to start taking matters into our own hands and do everything we can to change how we are fishing this upcoming season to protect this vital resource before the fisheries managers do it for us.

One easy thing we can all do, according to the best science, is look at the hooks we use on our commercially available lures. Having a full suite of 3 trebles on a 6 inch swimming plug isn't really necessary- more hook points don’t actually translate into more fish or better hook ups they way people think.

We understand this might seem completely counterintuitive. It did to us, at first too. But, the more we researched and learned about this issue, the clearer it became. We always thought, like nearly everyone did, that a fishing lure with two trebles has to offer more hooking ability, and that has to increase hook up success, right?. Logically, the same lure with two traditional single hooks has less than half the chance of a hook finding purchase in a fish's mouth.....


Well, truth be told, a fisherman probably will get one of the many hook points of a treble to catch...and that's great, at least at the start of the battle. . the catch is, exactly what happens after the initial hook up. This is where some of the many benefits to fishing with single hooks begins.


First advantage to singles: once hooked, fish are more likely to remain hooked for the entire battle with singles. Once the hook is set, a single is much larger than the three small hooks on a treble, which often lose purchase in a hard fight. Where a treble point might hook shallowly into the jaw or lip, a single has a much easier time of actually going all the way through, making it much less likely to be thrown because of leverage. Fish can exert much more leverage on a treble than they can a single.


Second advantage; appropriately sized singles will not only be bigger but will likely also have a larger diameter- bending or straightening is alot less likely than occurs with trebles.


Third — and perhaps, more important than everything listed above— singles are unassailably less damaging for catch and release. Anyone who has fished for schoolies with lures rigged with trebles knows about all the gill and body hooking that goes on . The mortality rate of those fish is off the charts-even if they swim away and appear ok. The research clearly shows that if you catch 10 schoolies on a good spring outing, four or more are going to die if you fish trebles.

Also, one large hook can be backed out much more easily and quickly than multiple trebles.

Lastly, the opportunity of hooking yourself is dramatically diminished. I have only ever had to have treble hooks removed at the hospital, never a single .

Once a fish is in the boat or on the beach, three sets of treble-hooks whipping around can be tough to negotiate. It’s much easier with two singles, at least one of which is presumably in the fish.Now you only have to worry about one other barb swing around on a fish that doesn't cooperate neatly with being unhooked.


The recent trend of switching out trebles for singles is definitely catching on in the Northeast as many of our hook makers are now, marketing top-quality single hooks suitable for replacement on plugs in sizes that work for our striped bass fishery. The fishing tackle buyers for the Goose have made certain that for 2025, we will have a huge stock of quality single hooks for changing out baits in stock.

Lure manufacturers themselves are just now offering their best lures pre outfitted with the correct inline singles. Some major brands that have already jumped on the bandwagon..., Rapala is outfitting many of their saltwater models with premium VMC single hooks.

Other manufacturers have quickly followed suit- including Shimano and Savage Gear.


We at the Goose are leaning on all our lure providers to adopt and jump on this trend for any lure used to primarily target striped bass.

There will be scenarios or certain fishing situations where using treble hook lures right out of the box, and even times when using them makes the most sense.You aren't a criminal or a bad human being fisherman if you elect to use them. We are just asking here to be mindful and where you can reasonably make the substitution over to singles.


The Goose Hummock and the future striped bass fishery thank you for considering.


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