Treble Hook: Sizes, When to Change Them, and the Single-Hook Waters

A treble hook is three hook points on one shank, joined at the eye, and it hangs from almost every hard lure sold: crankbaits, jerkbaits, lipless baits, topwater walkers and poppers, spoons and inline spinners. Fish strike lures without swallowing them, and three points facing three ways catch a fish that only slaps at the bait. The costs: a treble tears out more easily than one hook buried in the jaw, it hooks the net, the angler and the fish’s eye, and on some trout and salmon waters it is illegal. Below: what each lure really ships with, when to change them, the single-hook rules, and how to get one out of a fish or a thumb.

Rapala hangs #8 trebles on a 2 in (5 cm) Shad Rap and 5/0 trebles on a 7 in (18 cm) X-Rap Magnum. Same scale, same maker, twelve sizes apart.

Sizes, and what lures really carry

Trebles use the same scale as single hooks: numbered sizes get bigger as the number falls, then the aught sizes climb. The table reads what the lure makers hang on their own baits, from Rapala’s and Heddon’s spec sheets, with the gap from Tackle Village’s measured chart.

The makers run a size smaller than the tackle-shop guides: the Tackle Room and Pokey’s call #4 and #6 the crankbait standards and #2 the topwater size, yet Rapala’s 4 in jerkbait wears #6 and Heddon’s 5 in Super Spook wears #4. The guides describe what anglers upgrade to; the spec sheets describe the box. A lipless bait often carries two sizes, the smaller at the back so the hooks cannot reach each other: the 2.75 in Rippin’ Rap ships #4 and #6. Hook makers also differ for the same number; the hook size chart covers the scale itself.

Wire follows water. The Tackle Room’s rule is 1X standard wire for bass, trout and walleye, 2X for inshore stripers, redfish and snook, 3X and up offshore; Rapala builds the X-Rap Magnum with 4X hooks on 3X split rings for that reason.

Bend, shank and wire: what the names mean

Every replacement treble is described in three words.

Round bend or EWG. Bassmaster Elite pro John Crews told Wired2Fish that “round bend trebles have more penetration, so they are better when the bass’ mouth is a little harder, as is the case in colder water”, while in warm water an extra wide gap hook has “so much holding power but don’t penetrate like round bends.” Brent Ehrler puts round bends on topwaters and jerkbaits: “when fish nip at it, they hang themselves.” Mustad’s Triple Grip is the holding bend taken further.

Short shank. Western pro Ken Mah: “I like short shank treble hooks because they allow me to upsize my crankbait hooks without them catching one another by swinging together.”

1X to 4X. The X rating says how far the wire departs from the maker’s standard: 2X strong is wire two sizes heavier for the same hook size. It bends less and weighs more, which matters on suspending baits. The singles that replace a treble are on the types of hooks page.

When to change a treble

1. The points are dull. Run a point across a thumbnail; if it slides rather than catches, sharpen it with a file or replace the hook. Ehrler on stock hooks: “price-point related, semi-sharp fish losers.”
2. A point is opened or bent. Bending it back work-hardens the wire, and it opens again on the next fish.
3. Rust. Replace at the first pit, not the first failure: rust starts at the point, the thinnest steel on the hook. Rinse saltwater lures after every trip, and buy a saltwater finish: Owner’s ST-66 is vacuum tinned, VMC’s Perma Steel and black nickel do the same job, and a bronze freshwater treble pits within a few trips.
4. Upsizing for short-strikers. Texas pro Phil Marks goes “at least one, if not two sizes larger” on his crankbaits for a bigger bite, the distance from point to bend, in 2X wire so the hook does not flex. The Tackle Room’s limit: one size rarely hurts the action, two can throw the balance. Go up with a short-shank hook, or on the front hook only.
5. Suspending jerkbaits. Hook weight sets the sink rate: a heavier treble makes a suspending bait sink slowly, a lighter one makes it rise, and anglers tune jerkbaits this way on purpose. Crews tests any altered bait “in a pool, or in clear lake water”; a bait that rolls or tracks sideways has too much hook on it.
6. Regulations. Where a single hook is required, replace the trebles with inline singles of about the same weight, or clip two points; where barbless is required, pinch all three barbs.

Keep the same size and wire unless you mean to change the action, and check that the hooks cannot touch when the bait hangs still.

Split rings and the pliers

The ring is the weak link nobody rates. SPRO publishes the numbers for its stainless Power split rings: size 2 holds 32 lb (14.5 kg) on a 0.15 in (3.8 mm) inside diameter, size 4 holds 60 lb (27 kg), size 6 holds 150 lb (68 kg), size 8 holds 255 lb (116 kg). A bass crankbait wears a 2 or 3, a musky or saltwater plug a 5 or 6, and Rapala’s 3X rings on the X-Rap Magnum exist because a 4X hook on a 1X ring is a 1X connection. Marks runs rings one size smaller than stock to keep the hooks close to the body and out of each other’s way.

Change hooks with split-ring pliers, the ones with a small tooth on one jaw. A ring opened wide once does not close flat again, so replace it with the hook. The pliers are on the accessories page.

Feathered trebles

A dressed treble carries feathers and a few strands of mylar on the shank, at the back of a topwater or a jerkbait. Topwater legend Zell Rowland told Wired2Fish the feather gives a popper a “breathing” action, flaring on the pause and closing on the pull; Scott Suggs likes the drag, because a bass that pushes a topwater aside on the strike often gets it anyway when the feather slows the bait. VMC’s 8651DT comes in #6, #4 and #2, and Rapala ships one on the Skitter Pop. The topwater page says where popper and walker each win.

Trebles on bait, and where that is illegal

Channel catfish anglers hang cut bait or punch bait on a treble, #6 to #1 by Tackle Village’s chart, because three points hold a paste that slides off a single; trout anglers in some states fish a salmon egg on a tiny treble. The law counts and defines these hooks in ways that matter:

• Michigan law defines a hook as “a single, double, or treble pointed hook” and counts a treble on a manufactured artificial bait as one hook toward the line limit.
• New York caps an angling line at “15 hook points in any combination of single, double or treble hooks.”
• Alaska defines a single hook as “a fish hook with only one point with or without a barb” and a multiple hook as one “with two or more points … (i.e. plugs, spoons, spinners)”; many Alaskan rivers allow only one unbaited, single-hook artificial lure.
• Florida forbids “the use of a multiple hook in conjunction with live or dead natural bait” for tarpon, with the same line in its snook and tripletail rules; a treble is a multiple hook under FWC rule, so a live pinfish goes on a single or a circle hook, never a treble.

The catfish lures page is where a treble ends up with cut bait on it. Never a live baitfish fished for release: the fish swallows it, and three points go where you cannot reach.

Where single hooks are required

No state bans treble hooks outright. What exists are single-hook and artificial-only waters, mostly trout streams, salmon and steelhead rivers and catch-and-release sections, where the regulation reads “single hook” or “single barbless hook.” Read the special regulations for the water; a siwash or an inline single of the same weight keeps the bait running true, and a treble with two points clipped off is legal where “single hook” is the wording.

Many release-minded anglers swap anyway. Hühn and Arlinghaus’s 2011 meta-analysis of 107 freshwater hooking studies put mean mortality at 14.6 percent on barbed hooks and 8.2 percent on barbless, widest on bait and in warm water; on lures the gap is smaller, because a lure-caught fish is mouth-hooked either way. One point in the jaw still beats three in the face, and the barbless hooks and catch and release pages carry the rest of the numbers.

Unhooking the fish, and yourself

The fish. Long-nosed pliers, the fish in the water or on a wet surface, the lure held so the free points cannot swing into you. Back each point out the way it went in; a point through the gill arch or the eye is cut with side cutters, not torn out. A treble costs a dollar.

You. Family doctors Gammons and Jackson laid out the field method in American Family Physician. First cut or tape the two points that are not in you, and take the lure off the hook. If the barb has not gone under, back the hook out. If it has, the string-yank method works without a doctor for small and medium hooks in a fixed part of the body, not an earlobe: loop line around the bend, press the eye and shank flat against the skin, and jerk the line hard and fast, parallel to the shank. Wear eye protection; the hook flies. For a point just under the skin, push it through, cut the barb off with pliers and back the rest out. Anything near an eye goes to a doctor, and check when your tetanus shot was.

Mistakes to avoid

• Two sizes up on both hooks of a lipped crankbait. The bait rolls and the hooks lock together. One size, one hook, short shank.
• A 4X hook on the stock ring. The ring opens before the hook bends.
• Trusting the box. Thumbnail test every new bait.
• Live bait on a treble for release. Single or circle hook, every time.
• Pinching one barb for barbless water. Barbless means all three points; a warden counts points, not hooks.

The hooks hub covers every hook type; the lures that carry trebles are on the crankbaits and lipless crankbait pages, and the pike pages are where the Super Shad Rap’s 3/0 trebles earn their wire.