stainless steel hooks on lures

[Outcast189]

what is everyone's take on stainless steel treble hooks on lures.  have had alot of stock trebles bend, rust and break over the years.  i was thinking about replacing all my stock trebles on my stick baits with stainless steel trebles.  my question is there is obviously a difference in color between a stock bronze colored hook and stainless steel, would fish shy away from lures with stainless steel hooks, or would they be more productive because they would give a certain flash from the silver color of the stainless steel?

[Sk8man]

I honestly don't think the color of the hook is a significant factor...it is primarily the action of the lure and perhaps the color or size of it. Although I have replaced all my flutter spoons and other spoons with single Mustad siwash SS salmon hooks, I have retained the original hooks on all my stickbaits to preserve the action of the lures which in some cases are highly sensitive to changes per se. (e.g. Rapalas). There may actually be an additional advantage to keeping on the original trebles as they are in most cases not as large nor as brittle as the stainess trebles and have a slight amount of "give" in them so that the hook doesn't pull out as easily (provided you don't HORSE) the fish) or tear the mouth of some fish (e.g. rainbows with delicate mouth structure). It is my belief that at least for the stickbaits it is not worth risking the change in action and unless you have a scale that weighs minute quantitative differences in hooks you can't be sure that won't happen.

[Mortigan]

I know many of the guys fishing from the west side of the lake change their stickbait hooks at will, removing the front treble completely and putting a larger one on the rear. They want them to run higher in the spring.

[Don Supon]

With stickbaits I wouldn't change the hooks. If rusted or bent, replace with identical size and weight to prevent changes in lure action.

 

Never heard of removing front treble to make a stickbait run higher, but that is wisely done to bananna baits (kwik fish) with rear treble replaced by single hook- point up or sideways. Spring fishing in shallow water, I know of some that try to make stickbaits run nose down by direct tying to eye (no snaps, etc) and adjusting the knot to top area of the eye. This would cause the stickbait to run tilted slightly nose down and possibly get a little deeper, or at least bring the middle and rear hooks up higher to lessen bottom hookups. 

[Tim Bromund]

we don't remove the front treble to make them run higher, we remove the front treble because 90%+ of your bites come on the back hook anyway, so all the front treble does is tangle in the net.

 

Tim

[Captain Carl Bish]

I remove the front hook on those with 3 hooks because the front hooks end up in the gill plate of a hooked fish causing the fish to twirl in the water. From my limited experience Rusty hooks are a result of improper storage, solve the storage problem and the rust will go away.