Honestly I set the hook into ANYTHING that stops the vibrations suddenly, you catch way more fish doing this but you will lose more baits but with a good lure retriever you don't need to worry, especially with most square bill use being shallow.
When a fish bites it you can't wait and stop reeling to see if its a snag or a fish, you ethier set the hook or lose the fish.
And for removing the trebles, its a good idea but it ussally doesn't work, from my experience the missing weight throws the action way off. I tried it with a friend one day practicing for a tourny and didn't want to actually hook then fish we just wanted to get them to bite