Crankbaits, treble hooks, and flippity floppity stuff

Howdy all,

I just got my Abu Revo SX in the mail (Shelton clothing on the evilbay has the 2009 version for $99).  Sweet little reel.  I was hoping to spool it up with red powerpro to match the red details, but ended up with yellow instead.  Oh well.  Now I have a badass bass stick.

Speaking of, I was wondering if people replace the treble hooks on their crankbaits with something different (I hate treble hooks)?  I know that all of my spanking new rapalas have split rings to facilitate the replacement and/or removal of hooks.  I was thinking that, instead of trebles, that I could put short stinger style hooks on instead.  Would that completely destroy any chance of a hookup?

On a related note, would it work to switch out the trebles, on say, a Kwikfish with stingers?

I would recommend learning to deal with the treble hooks.  The only replacement of hooks on crank baits I do is if they come with crappy hooks to begin with (which happens a lot, sadly) or if I had to alter one of the hooks for some reason (i.e. stuck in finger, crimp the barbs when fishing somewhere that requires barbless...).  Crank baits are designed well when considering where hooks should be placed IMO.  One of the main reasons is that fish don't always come up and hit lures from behind.  In my experience, I would argue that a fish is just as likely to hit a lure at the "head" as it is to hit the "tail".  Crank baits accommodate this by making it more likely the fish will get hooked no matter where it hits the lure, simply by using treble hooks instead of single hooks (I'm assuming this is the hook style you mean by saying "stinger style") and putting two or three hooks on instead of just one.  The split rings on Rapalas are nice and they make it very easy to upgrade to better quality hooks or replace one that was damaged in some way, but you'll probably want to stick with trebles or you might have less of a hookup rate when you get hits.   

Yeah, I figure the lure designers probably know a thing or two more about fishing than I do.

I'm talking about assist/stinger style hooks - short shank hooks attached to heavy spectra loops, like the hooks on alot of the deepwater high speed jigs.

Regarding the Kwiks, replace away!  I catch a lot of fish on plugs (salmon/steelhead PB) every year, and not one of my nearly 100 bugs have stock hooks. Step one take out of package, step two scrap stock hooks. 

Sometimes its just a size (often a downsize) and quality (replace with owners/gammies) change up.  Or for plugs where a lot of natives are in the mix, different combinations of siwash hooks, split rings and swivels are the correct medicine.   Specta loop stingers would not be my first choice, but if you are interested remind me next time we all meet for pizza and I will bring a couple boxes of plugs and show you how I run mine.  There are some real simple tweaks that can make a world of difference in your hook up to fish landed ratio.

Regarding the Kwiks, replace away! 

or any , just change the hooks and check out the action compared to stock, if it looks good go with it and see how it works. I changed to siwash on most of my kastmasters and change hooks on many different lures.

here's something I came up with that just SLAYS the Black Rockfish when they are busting on the surface. Cast into the boiling fish and slowly retrieve.  Don't forget to hang on, the takes are less than subtle . 

Went with this hook configuration as the last thing I wanted in my lap was an angry fish and two large sets of trebles. Tends to be hard on the dry suit among other things     This way I only have one hook point to worry about and its buried in the fishes mouth, plus unhooking them is cake.  If the action was changed the fish don't seem to mind.