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Old 04-30-2012, 08:17 PM
bd- bd- is offline
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Join Date: May 2004
Location: Hendersonville
Age: 50
Posts: 1,874
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Sometimes fish die. That much is unavoidable. I think it's good to be conscientious and try not to kill fish you're not going to eat. But it happens.

I wouldn't worry about making the trebles barbless though. When a fish takes a hook in the gills and is losing a lot of blood, it's usually a fatal wound. I say "usually" - every once in a while fish will survive even a serious gill wound, but most of the time they will die. Making the hooks barbless might make them easier to remove, but usually once the hook tears into the gill, the fish loses so much blood that it's not going to survive.

Treble hooks kind of stink for that reason - the way they hook a fish drastically increases the odds of a hook in the gills. You'll gill hook more fish with a crankbait or an in-line spinner than you will with a single-hook lure like a spinnerbait or plastic worm. But again, that's just part of it - you couldn't exactly make a single-hook crankbait that works well.

One other thought - I don't think there's any point in cutting a line and letting a fish go with a crankbait deep inside its mouth. People claim hooks "rust out," but I have serious doubts that a pair of trebles would rust out fast enough for the fish to survive the experience.

bd
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