Trebles

[sam-cox]

After reading the resent and very interesting articles in Boat Fishing magazine by Jim O, Donnell on Josh Simmonds boat I find myself facing a dilemma.

 

The float fishing with large live mackerel for bass using a treble hook in the nose looks excellent, but the use of trebles just don’t feel right (I did try this from a pier this weekend) especially as I like to return most of my fish.

 

Having said that I dapperly use trebles when using lures for bass, sometimes even two trebles on some jointed models.

 

I would be interested in others comments on this.

[Ken Davison South Wales]

After reading the resent and very interesting articles in Boat Fishing magazine by Jim O, Donnell on Josh Simmonds boat I find myself facing a dilemma.

 

The float fishing with large live mackerel for bass using a treble hook in the nose looks excellent, but the use of trebles just don’t feel right (I did try this from a pier this weekend) especially as I like to return most of my fish.

 

Having said that I dapperly use trebles when using lures for bass, sometimes even two trebles on some jointed models.

 

I would be interested in others comments on this.

 

I always use a treble nose hooking a live mackeral or as you say on a lure, unhooking is not a real problem and have released fish after being caught on a treble without a problem.

[sam-cox]

I also have no problem un hooking fish when using trebles.

But there is less room for error. For example if you miss-judge the take and hit the take a bit late, this could result in having to retrieve the hook from deeper in the fish.

[five bellies]

Hello Sam,

 

I tend to flaten two out of the three barbs when Pikeing athough most of mine is done on the fly these days, holds well and eases unhooking,the fresh water lads are very carefull as a rule with their fish and useing trebles for preditor fishing is common place with them as you know, if its good enough for those lads its good enough for us I say.

[sam-cox]

Fair comments, I think I will carry on using them but only for large mackerel baits. The small pout baits seem to work fine with a short shank, thick set, wide gape 3/0 to 5/0.

[Leon Roskilly]

Trebles can be kinder than singles.

 

If more than one hook engages, any extreme forces during playing the fish are spread over two (possibly, but rarely, three hooks), whereas with just a single hook all the pressure is on one point that can more easily tear a fish's mouth, or act like a cheese cutter.

 

Long nosed pliers means that you shouldn't have a problem with deep-hooked fish (you can go in via the gill covers), and there is a John Roberts disgorger, excellent for removing trebles that are taken deep.

 

The real problem comes when a line breaks, or a snap off, means that a baited treble has been left to 'ghost fish'.

 

Then the treble left in a fish can snag the fish's next meal, or even stitch its gullet so that it can no longer feed.

 

A precaution when using trebles is to always use gear strong enough to ensure that anything hooked is landed, and not to risk loosing baited tackle amongst snags that can be picked up by a fish later.

 

A single hook doesn't present these problems.

Edited October 2, 2006 by Leon Roskilly

[Toerag]

You don't need to use trebles when baiting with live mackerel, simply hooking the mackerel in through the mouth and out through the top of the nose in front of the eyes with a 5/0 Varivas Big Mouth or Razorclaw Big Bend works fine. If I can hook 80%+ of bites on the drift at 3.5knots then anything slower will be a doddle.

[coddy]

Kevin Nash sells semi-barbless trebles. One hook is barbed, the remaining two are not

[ColinW]

I don't really like the dirty great trebles on a lot of US lures, but some just don't work right if you change them to smaller ones or singles. It is a real pain when a schoolie takes one and gets all three hook points embedded, even with barbless, but you can usually get them out without injury using forceps. Livebaiting is going to sort out bigger fish which are easier to unhook because there's more room, but I'd still use fairly small heavy wire ones with two barbs squashed flat, same as I use for pike.

[Scotty T]

You don't need to use trebles when baiting with live mackerel, simply hooking the mackerel in through the mouth and out through the top of the nose in front of the eyes with a 5/0 Varivas Big Mouth or Razorclaw Big Bend works fine. If I can hook 80%+ of bites on the drift at 3.5knots then anything slower will be a doddle.

 

I'm with Toerag,

 

Never felt the need to use a treble when livebaiting

 

Scott