For the record, I don't consider myself a trout fisherman at all.  Ive caugt maybe 20 in my lifetime.  Over the weekend, my son and I visited a lake in Arizona that had been stocked a few weeks prior.  Through advice, I used a carolina rig set up with a small 3 pronged hook and powerbait.  Towards sunset, we were catching trout on every cast and 90% of the time the fish almost swallowed the hook.  A guy next to us wanted the big ones, but it was very difficult to unhook the small ones.  Were we doing something wrong here or is it just normal given the type of bait/hook used?

I assume you aren’t releasing these fish into a frying pan? If the fish are inhaling like that, you could switch to a single, barbless, hook. At least, if they inhale that, you can remove the hook faster with less damage to the fish. If you keep good pressure on them, you won’t lose many. Even if you do, if they are hitting that well, it won’t matter.

19 minutes ago, Scott F said:

I assume you aren’t releasing these fish into a frying pan? If the fish are inhaling like that, you could switch to a single, barbless, hook. At least, if they inhale that, you can remove the hook faster with less damage to the fish. If you keep good pressure on them, you won’t lose many. Even if you do, if they are hitting that well, it won’t matter.

Thanks.  Sounds like I need to change hooks.  I don't eat trout and want to release them without harm.

Don't use power bait. They'll swallow it well over 50% of the time it seems. Even if I use really sensitive rods and braid they'll still manage to swallow it all the time. I don't eat them either, so I just use spoons, jigs, and other lures instead so they can't swallow the bait. It's more fun catching them that way anyways.

 

This ^^^^^^
And don’t even touch the trout with your dry hand or lay down on the ground either if you wanna release them. It is even more anal in trout community than bass for catch and release type. If I go for trout fishing all of them come back home with me lol.

BTW I was gonna ask you and your son to join me at Santa Ana river for trout, I guess not now, lol.

Agreed....switch to jigs, small spoons & spinners instead.