Treble hooks and night fishing

[Mobasser]

This year, if everything works out, I plan on doing some night fishing again, as I have in years past. On past trips, I fished treble hook baits whenever I needed to. Black 5/8 Jitterbug, Devils Horse, and similar topwaters, along with lipless baits also. I may be lucky, but I never had any injuries from treble hooks, in unhooking fish. But, I've heard some stories of guys who will not use treble hook baits at night, for the obvious reasons. For the night fisherman, what are your thoughts or opinions on trebles at night?

[scaleface]

I fish crankbaits at night .

[A-Jay]

An organized / neat boat is a must. 

It will help keep me from tripping & going over the side and stray trebles will inevitably find some skin at night. 

Both are highly undesirable. 

I use the same rods & reels at night as I use during the day.  

I can & do bump up my line size / mono leader a little at night – just because I can.   

When I first started my night ops, I fished the tried & true night time baits.  The Black Baits ~ (Jitterbugs, Buzz baits, Spinnerbaits etc.) and they worked well and I still fish them today. 

But what I have found is that any bait (and any color) that will catch them during the day, will catch them at night.  The caveat to that is, whatever bait you choose, still needs to be presented effectively. 

 But when I learned to present the right jig, at the right place & time at night – I may never fish another bait at night again.   

I will admit that the spinnerbait is still one of my favorite / effective night baits.

A-Jay

[Jig Man]

Not me.  Getting a treble out of my finger when it was light was hard enough.

[flyfisher]

I fish out of a kayak and I fish at night pretty often.  I don't limit myself to certain baits because of treble hooks or not having treble hooks.  I do keep my cockpit area more clear though at night, normally i lay a rod or two at my feet to facilitate ease of grabbing.  

I also use my fish grips to land fish if i see the treble hooked bait could be an issue when landing.  

[NJBasstard]

Fish grips always at night, pliers (if needed) and a headlamp to turn on once I've landed the fish. 

[looking45]

you can always try swapping out the trebles for inline hooks

[Fishes in trees]

I've done my share of night fishing.  Not lately though.   Enough of that.  I know that when you're night fishing, having light when you need it is important.   Losing your night vision when you turn on the light sucks, but sometimes you need to.   Red filtered lights help alot.   I wear glasses all the time anyway.    Every time I go fishing, I make sure I got glasses and a long billed cap.   Every so often, a crank gets stuck and I yank and it comes straight back at me..   When that happens, I duck my head a little bit.   Over a dozen times, I've had the crank bounce off the bill of my cap.   No cap  and that bait bounces off my glasses.   Glad I had that little bit of armor.  Other than that, I've never stuck myself with a treble seriously while fishing.

 

I have seriously stuck myself with a crank while I was putting away stuff for the day - ran a treble though the palm of my hand enough that it wasn't backing out - at all.   Fortunately I had the correct gear available and I ran the hook all the way through my palm that the barb was exposed and then cut the hook at that point  with a set of mini-bolt cutters.

 

Everyone thinks that they can do that with a set of pliers, but let me tell you , with the blood oozing out all around and having to use your off hand, the extra leverage of the mini bolt cutters comes in real handy.

 

OK, enough of the war stories, the original post had to do with night fishing with treble hooks.  I'm 60+ years old and over the years I've acquired & maintained all the appropriate tools necessary for night fishing.   I wouldn't have any issue throwing cranks or any other treble hook bait at night if I felt like it.  However, if I didn't have all the gear ( appropriate lights, bolt cutters, hat, eye shields, etc ) I wouldn't do it.

At this point I'd just quote Jim'ny Cricket "Let your conscience be your guide." and say you do what you want.

[Bluebasser86]

I avoid them as much as possible while night fishing. I follow the same game plan as @A-Jay. Don't get too many rods out and don't leave stuff laying all over and accidents are less likely to happen. Still, I've dodged my share of baits flying back at me (a 130 plopper my BIL was throwing a couple years back was the last one), it's not a good feeling. When I do fish trebles at night, I don't get crazy with hooksets on topwaters, usually just reel into them, and I play fish out and net them.

[PhishLI]

I keep both long and short Rapala fish grippers on me. Short for single hook baits and long for trebles. They can get you with a single hook too.

[NHBull]

Good habits during the day create safe habits at night.

A-Jay hit all the important parts and my rules of thumb...No more than 2 rods on the deck at a time.  All fish get the net. grippers and needle nose for treble hooks.  My spacial awareness at night is not what it used to be and old eyes and hearing issues get amplified too.

In an effort to improve my skill, I plan to do a LOT of night fishing soon!

[Harold Scoggins]

On 4/4/2020 at 8:19 AM, flyfisher said:

I fish out of a kayak and I fish at night pretty often.  I don't limit myself to certain baits because of treble hooks or not having treble hooks.  I do keep my cockpit area more clear though at night, normally i lay a rod or two at my feet to facilitate ease of grabbing.  

I also use my fish grips to land fish if i see the treble hooked bait could be an issue when landing.  

Headlamp, fish grip, net. We own the night!

[scaleface]

I have a great head lamp that fits on the bill of the cap . Bought it at wal-Mart but now cant find it . It had  red and green lights   and  easy to use .I either have to find it or buy a new one . The red light got used a lot   . Lithium batteries are the way to go . 

[PhishLI]

Here's a good, or bad depending on your perspective, night fishing treble hook story. The victim is a member of this group. I won't share pics of the incident. He may, but I doubt it.

 

One lake we fish is ringed by trees. You'll find telephone poles laid right at the shoreline parallel to the water where they made periodic cuts in the treeline to provide access for bank fishing. He was alone one night fishing with a big treble bait at one of these cuts. He hooked into a solid 5 pounder. He knelt down and reached over the pole to unhook the fish using both hands. The bass shook and drove a huge treble hook into each of his thumbs. There was no getting out of it. It's quite a long walk through the woods, over a footbridge, through some more woods then back to the street. None of that mattered because it was impossible to to lift the fish which was also totally pinned.

 

Lucky for him he always has a bluetooth on his ear and he was able to call someone nearby. Unfortunately that someone was 40 minutes away. So for 40 minutes he was trapped at the water's edge in the dark hunched over a telephone pole with a 5 lb bass connected to him that would thrash every now and then, and could do nothing about it but wait. When the rescuer arrived he took the occasion to video his walk from the car to the scene including narration. He got the bass free of the hooks, but there wasn't a chance of getting the hooks out of patient X's thumbs. 2 hours in the waiting room at emergency while still thumbcuffed by a swimbait, then horrible needles in his thumbs so they could cut the hooks out. All true. Caught on tape.

[Mobasser]

I agree 100% on a good headlamp. I used to walk banks and cast at night years ago. At the time, all I had was a small AA flashlight, which I kept in my pocket.Later I bought a good headlamp. It made a huge difference.

On 4/4/2020 at 7:38 AM, A-Jay said:

An organized / neat boat is a must. 

It will help keep me from tripping & going over the side and stray trebles will inevitably find some skin at night. 

Both are highly undesirable. 

I use the same rods & reels at night as I use during the day.  

I can & do bump up my line size / mono leader a little at night – just because I can.   

When I first started my night ops, I fished the tried & true night time baits.  The Black Baits ~ (Jitterbugs, Buzz baits, Spinnerbaits etc.) and they worked well and I still fish them today. 

But what I have found is that any bait (and any color) that will catch them during the day, will catch them at night.  The caveat to that is, whatever bait you choose, still needs to be presented effectively. 

 But when I learned to present the right jig, at the right place & time at night – I may never fish another bait at night again.   

I will admit that the spinnerbait is still one of my favorite / effective night baits.

A-Jay

I also agree with A- Jay on this one. Spinnerbaits have worked great, as well as jigs and t rig plastics. All single hook baits, and fishing as weedless as possible is always good, especially at night

 

 

52 minutes ago, scaleface said:

I have a great head lamp that fits on the bill of the cap . Bought it at wal-Mart but now cant find it . It had  red and green lights   and  easy to use .I either have to find it or buy a new one . The red light got used a lot  a lot . Lithium batteries are the way to go . 

Those big blade CC spinnerbaits, should be a killer at night. And , safe to use too.

[JustJames]

Like @Bluebasser86i avoid to fish treble hooks as much as possible day time or night time. Day time if I don’t have fish grip no treble hook, night time if I don’t have net or good landing spot no treble hook. 
I have converted the lure you listed to in-line single hook successfully. 
Headlight, I recommend “Coast Light” with  at least dual lens or triple lens. I always have red/green light on (last 4-5 night on 3 AAA). The green light is brighter than red, enough to unhook and re-tie, no bugs no eye adjustment. It is bright that flash on my phone wouldn’t come on.

[NHBull]

1 hour ago, scaleface said:

I have a great head lamp that fits on the bill of the cap . Bought it at wal-Mart but now cant find it . It had  red and green lights   and  easy to use .I either have to find it or buy a new one . The red light got used a lot  a lot . Lithium batteries are the way to go . 

please share when you get it.....thats exactly what i am looking for.  hard to find the bill clip-ons

[PhishLI]

1 hour ago, Bass_Fishing_Socal said:

Headlight, I recommend “Coast Light” with  at least dual lens or triple lens

I use and like that light also and carry two with me. I keep one around my neck, as shown in the pic, because it's stationary, and in that position it's far better for me when re-tying and rigging. I put the 2nd one on my head just for walking in and out of the lake.

 

[Catt]

Well y'all know this dumb Cajun is gonna do things slightly different!

 

I seldom if ever throw lures with treble hooks unless I'm alone or with someone I truly trust.

 

I seldom keep more than 3-4 rods on deck day or night, at 69 yrs old I'm still capable of getting a rod out in under a couple minutes.

 

I don't worry about using a white light, yes it takes a minute to adjust after I use it. If i were flying an F-22 Raptor i might be concerned but I'm throwing a lure.

 

I throw the same lures, in the same colors, on the same structure as I do during daylight.

 

K.I.S.S. ?

[WRB]

I haven't night bass fished in few years now. When I did it was a night charity tournament usually with my son, wonderful memories.

As Catt said keep it simple with a minimum amount of tackle after dark. Yes, I have used treble hook lures at night, usually during the dusk to dark period with deep diving crankbaitsand rat wake baits. I tapped a flash light to the net handle to switch on when netting bass in the dark regardless of hook type, made it easier to net the bass and remove the hook. Safety out weighs the loss of vision for a few minutes.

Looking back 90% of my night fishing was using jigs, T-rigged worms and spinnerbaits.

1 rod out on the deck is all you need at night, prevents a lot of accidents.

Don't think treble hook lures are safe during day light, I never hooked myself at night only during day time.

Tom

[A-Jay]

I've been using this model in both sweet & saltwater for a long time.

The one-handed operation is important to me.

 

 

 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00064YL78/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

 

A-Jay

[Catt]

I prefer a cap light that clips on top of the bill of my cap. Again I don't worry about night blindness because my eyes at least are back to normal in a couple minutes. 

 

I also use a Brinkmann Q-Beam Max Million III for running at night.

[whitwolf]

Things have been covered quite well. There are two things I will add. No matter the bait you're throwing, day or night, wear your PFD! The other thing, if you're fishing at night you durn well need to know the lake well. It's an entirely different place at night. 

 

As for the original question, I have no problem throwing treble hook baits at night.

[Catt]

1 hour ago, whitwolf said:

The other thing, if you're fishing at night you durn well need to know the lake well. It's an entirely different place at night. 

 

I can't tell ya how many excellent boaters I know that got turned around at night.

[Bluebasser86]

16 minutes ago, Catt said:

 

I can't tell ya how many excellent boaters I know that got turned around at night.

I've done this on small lakes I've been on hundreds of times. Things just look completely different at night and if you've got your head down fishing and running the trolling motor for an extended period of time, you can turn yourself all around without realizing it.