Dressed Treble Hooks


Dressed Treble Hooks are very useful to enhance the action and appearance of topwaters, crankbaits, jerkbaits, other hard baits, and spoons. If high quality hooks are used they will also help you catch more fish. Buggs Magic Trebles were designed for these reasons. We’ve come to think of the combination of rabbit strips and flash as “Magic” when it comes to our jigs, and the same could be said of our new dressed treble hooks. There are three main reasons they’re so effective: They Attract Fish, Present a More Realistic Profile, and Increase Your Ability to Hook and Land Fish! Read on to learn more.

High Quality Hooks, Catch More Fish

We’re going to start with how Dressed Treble Hooks increase your ability to hook and land fish. But we have to insert a qualifier here. Only those trebles tied on high quality hooks will do. When designing Buggs Magic Trebles we found the best treble hooks on the market, Gamakatsu. They are super sharp, strong, corrosion resistant, and especially suited to saltwater and freshwater fishing.

The hard baits you’ll find at big box stores are all rigged with treble hooks. But in this ultra competitive environment, many manufacturers will not use the best treble hooks. It’s also hard to rig baits for any and every scenario fishermen will run into. A small topwater like a Super Spook Jr. could be used to catch 2-3 pound largemouth in farm ponds. But it could also be thrown in the shallows of Southern Louisiana at 40” bull redfish. Pretty big difference here in the demands that will be put on these hooks!

One of the demands will be from big, strong fish, and another will be because of the saltwater itself. It’s just hard on your equipment. Rust is common, even if you’re careful. Most of the time your hooks wear out before your hard baits and spoons will. So whether you choose to change out your hooks and split rings first or to wait until they begin to rust, high quality treble hooks and split rings are essential.

EWG vs Round Bend

Another way they’ll increase your ability to hook and land fish is the way the hooks are made. Two common options in treble hooks are the round bend and the EWG, or extra wide gap. The round bend is just like it sounds, and the hook points are straight up, right in line with the hook shank. The EWG is pretty self explanatory as well. The gap is wider than the round bend, and the hook points in towards the hook shank slightly. Here’s the difference when you fish them.

The round bend treble hooks will make it easier to hook fish, but there will be a greater risk that fish will throw the hook. The EWG treble hooks will make it harder to hook fish, but they’ll stay hooked a little easier. The differences here aren’t huge, they’re slight. But the information is useful nonetheless when you’re choosing Dressed Treble Hooks.

We took these differences into account when designing Buggs Magic Trebles. For inshore saltwater we’re offering two sizes. First is a Size 4 2x strong hook. These work best for redfish. They’re a bit smaller and have a round bend. This will help you hook redfish. And the strength will come in handy if you find big fish in shallow water. Second is a Size 2 EWG. These work best for speckled trout. They’re a little larger and will be harder for trout to throw when they give you a bunch of head shakes. As I mentioned before, the differences are slight but they’re good to take into account when choosing your hooks.

The last option is a Size 2/0 4x strong hook. Talk about a monster! These will handle just about anything you can find, including Tarpon, Big Snook, Grouper, Snapper, Jacks, Giant Trevally, Peacock Bass, and more.

Split Rings and Pliers

I’ve mentioned split rings a few times now. They look like the rings that hold your keys, only smaller. They’re used to connect treble hooks to your hard baits and spoons. This is a very important connection as well. Split rings have to be suited for the task and of high quality. Giving them the eye test is one way to go about it. They should look matched up to the hook wire and should not be open at all. High quality split rings will snap back closed once you’ve rigged them. Worth Co. is the industry leader in split rings, and those are the very ones we’ve chosen to offer with our Buggs Magic Trebles. It’s best to change them out every time you change out your treble hooks. This task is almost impossible without quality split ring pliers. We found the best ones we could, and they’re made in the USA from stainless steel.

First, Get the Right Profile

Now let’s talk about how dressed treble hooks help you present a more realistic profile. I’m convinced that a realistic profile is the first thing to think about when choosing artificial baits. By that I mean the lure you’re throwing needs to have the same shape as the bait you’re trying to imitate. Now most hard baits come rigged with bare treble hooks and are streamlined in the rear. And almost all hard baits imitate baitfish. And baitfish all have tails. You’re with me, right? Putting a “tail” on your hard bait, giving it a more realistic profile, might just help you catch more fish!

I know some of you are thinking, “But Heath, I’ve been catching fish on bare treble hooks for years! What gives?” I’m certainly not saying bare treble hooks won’t work, but I’m convinced that Dressed Treble Hooks will work better!

Now with crankbaits and other short hard baits that imitate shad, the longer profile dressed treble hooks provide might be a drawback. But there’s only one way to find out! And the potential drawback of the longer profile might be eliminated by the sweet action and attraction of the Buggs Magic.

Action and Attraction of Dressed Treble Hooks

And that brings us to reason number three. Dressed Treble Hooks provide extra attraction to your hard baits and spoons through the materials and flash they’re tied with. When designing Buggs Magic Trebles we used the magic combination of rabbit and flash. Rabbit is super durable, comes in a wide variety of colors, and absolutely looks alive in the water! All of those hairs give it a ton of action, far more than you’ll get from feathers or bucktail. The durability is tremendous as well. The rabbit we use is strips of hide with the hair attached, tanned and dyed different colors.

We pulled out all of the stops on the flash as well. Buggs Magic Trebles are tied with three types! Krystal Flash is a crinkled fiber with a medium stiffness. We use a colored Krystal Flash and a UV Krystal Flash on every one of our dressed treble hooks. The theory behind UV reflective materials is that they’ll shine brighter and be more visible to game fish. Lastly we tie in Flashabou, and flash material that is extra limp and is super reflective. A long time ago fly fishermen realized that trailing flash on flies made them more effective. Why not bring that same idea to hard baits and spoons?

We talked about the rabbit and the flash, now what about the colors? How about eleven of them? From white to black and everything in between, you’ll have fun picking your colors of Buggs Magic Trebles. There are two schools of thought on colors, realism and accent colors. Most baitfish have a tail that matches the color of it’s back. And the back of a baitfish is the darkest part. So there are plenty of dark colors available, including Black, Gray, Olive, Crawfish Orange, Blue, and Tan. The other idea to use a bright accent color for the tail. Why? Because we know it works! So Yellow Chartreuse, Green Chartreuse, White, Red, and Hot Pink are available as well. The fun part is experimenting with colors to enhance your baits. It might be different depending on the season, body of water, or fish you’re targeting!

Conclusion

We just talked about how Dressed Treble Hooks enhance the effectiveness of your hard baits and spoons. They attract fish with the action and flash, present a more realistic profile, and the high quality hooks will help you hook and land more fish. We took all of these things into consideration when designing Buggs Magic Trebles. We hope you’ll try them and let us know how it goes!

We’ve added a video to the Buggs Fishing YouTube channel showing you how to change out your trebles, the differences between round bend and EWG hooks, and all of the available colors. We hope you’ll check it out and get back to us with any comments or questions. You’ll find all of the Buggs Magic Trebles in the online store in addition to high quality split rings and the best split ring pliers on the market.

Questions?