What Trebles are best for you?

Its amazes me that we can spend over $25 on a Jerkbait and yet we still change the hooks! No big deal though because i've been replacing hooks on my Jerks for over 20 years and have spent countless hrs playing around with different hooks trying to find the perfect one. Losing fish on Jerkbaits is just part of the game, but with some adjustments you can tilt the odds of getting fish to the net in your favour. The two main types of trebles we'll be examining are the EWG's (acronym for Extra Wide Gap) and the traditional round bends. The EWG trebles have great locking ability and by that I mean, once a barb has penetrated, it locks in making it harder for a fish to throw the bait. The downside is because the points are slightly angled in, its harder to get an extra hook in the fish that may be swinging along its side. Just try sliding an EWG along a flat surface and you'll see what I mean. On the other hand, the round bend treble has less locking ability because of the angle in which it enters in, but with this style you have a greater chance of getting a second or third hook into the fish during the fight. When I have a fish near the boat with only one hook in it, I've used a technique where i turn the rod tip in the opposite direction as the fish swims by in hopes of sticking a second hook in and it works! Colour is another consideration when choosing a treble. Many manufacturers make both the EWG's and Round Bends in Black, Bronze, Red and Silver. I'll say this bluntly. There's no proof that the colour of your trebles make a difference. We've had 3 guys in the same boat with different colour trebles on the same bait and we could never come to the conclusion that the colour of our trebles helped one angler catch more fish than the others. Having said that, i'm a firm believer that confidence is a large part of your success on the water or whatever you do, so if your confidence is red, then use red! I carry all colors in my box. I believe both red and black are harder to see and if I'm looking for more flash, then i'll put Bronze or silver hooks on. Does size of the hook matter?? Well the answer is maybe. Small to medium sized baits generally come with size #6 hooks while larger baits in the 5" range or bigger come with #4's. I believe that sometimes a bigger hook gives you a better hook up ratio. The problem with going up a size from a #6 to #4 or a #4 to a #2 is that you will get way more hooks tangling while casting. You also need to consider that the added weight will slightly kill the action of your bait and will also make a suspending bait sink. I tried going the opposite with the tiny #8's and although they penetrated the smallmouths rock like jaw extremely well, they broke too easily which resulted in many lost fish. In conclusion, both the EWG's and round bends have positive and negative attributes. Although i use both, 80% of the time i prefer round bends. Both Gamakutsu round bend and Owner's ST-36's are exceptionally sharp, strong hooks that stay sharp and will rarely snap on you. Having said all that, everyday is a different day and when you think you've figured it out, you inevitably realize you haven't! If you love fishing Jerkbaits as much as I do, get out on the water and experiment! Thanks for checking out my page and hopefully i've given you something to think about! Nick