Sharpening and Changing Treble Hooks

This guest post on Sharpening and Changing Treble Hooks was written by Todd Hollowell, FLW Tour Pro and Host of the WFN TV show the “Bass Dr.”If you are like some fishermen, you’re sometimes hesitant to use lures that have treble hooks because you have had fish come off on these lures before. Whether it was a crankbait or a jerkbait, something happened and the treble hooks didn’t stay hooked up. Have you ever thought that the hooks you’re using could be the reason why?Today’s prescription of the week will help increase your percentages of landing fish on treble hooks by keeping your hooks sharp.

First, always keep a hook sharpening tool in your boat, like a simple hook file. Occasionally throughout the day, check each treble hook on your bait to make sure each hook point is razor sharp. The hooks on a quality crankbait, like a Reaction Strike RSC2, come straight out of the pack razor sharp. But as you are bumping this crankbait off of rocks and wood throughout the day, occasionally it will get hung or stuck and cause the hook to become dull. Take your hook file out and run it away from your body down the hook towards the point a few times until it’s sharp again.Next, once you’ve filed your hook down to a certain point – it’s hard to get it to sharpen any further. At that point, you simply want to change the hook. To do this, you’ll want to keep a small box of extra treble hooks in your boat. Grab a new treble hook and a pair of pliers. Use your pliers to pull the split ring back and start to remove the old hook by moving it about halfway around the split ring – but before you take it completely off, go ahead and get your new treble hook started onto the split ring. Simply work the new hook around until the old hook falls off, and the new hook latches into places once it makes it around the split ring one full turn. And there you have it – a brand new treble hook, changed in just a few seconds and sometimes that can mean the difference in catching that one extra fish during your day.For more tips like these, visit Todd Hollowell online at www.bassdr.com or www.toddhollowell.com. See you on the water!