I'm new around here and new to fishing as well. Appreciate any suggestions!

I bought a few new crankbaits (BassPro "The Egg") tonight and ran into some issues with the treble hooks. I had success early on with them, but found the double treble hook arrangement to be a little awkward. The crankbait is so short that the treble hooks catch each other fairly often. Also, my wife hooked a bass solid in the lip, and also in the gill - took some patience to get both out and kind of seemed like overkill to me.

So, questions:

1) Have any of you experienced similar issues with a crankbait and removed one of the treble hooks? If so, did you remove the tail or belly hook? Did this affect it's effectiveness?

2) Have any of you replaced the treble hooks on a crankbait with single hooks (I'm seeing them called "Siwash hooks", but not sure if that is correct terminology)? Does this affect effectiveness?

You could try the shorter shaft and smaller sizes of mustad kvd trebles. Replacing the hooks will give your lure a different action though because the balance has changed. But this could work in your favor. A little more weight in the front or back of your crank could change the wobble to the presentation the fish can't resist.

Cranks draw reaction bites. If you use single hooks, you will lose fish.

If you are going to start experimenting with switching treble hooks, invest in a good pair of split ring pliers!

Take the rear hook off and replace the front hook with a larger hook and see how you do ,sometimes it helps and sometimes it doesn't.

i replace all of my spook hooks with #4 gamys and i also change the split ring with owners.

Cranks draw reaction bites. If you use single hooks, you will lose fish.

What do either of these two things have to do with one another? Nothing, that's what.

Patrick Sebile can't be all wrong in his use of single siwash hooks. We do it a lot in saltwater to no adverse effect, it will work in freshwater, too. The largest objective is finding a hook that is sized properly.

I put VMC Barbarians on most of my lures some I have downsized hooks on one or 2 of my bigger 2.5 size cranks..

I don't replace hooks until it's absolutely necessary, even when I have a broken treble with 1 or 2 hooks on it. Siwash hooks are very popular in saltwater, more so on spoons than lures. I have a few windcheaters( bomber lure) when hook replacement was needed I went to single hooks.

I replace the trebles on ~half of my lipless baits, putting the Mustad triple grip 2X (#4 on front, #6 on back). The hooks are a little stickier and shorter, and they do give a slightly different action to the bait (better, IMO).

Sounds like you need a treble with an extra short shank. I'd recommend the Mustad KVD hooks. They probably have the shortest shank available. These are also the Triple Grip design and are stickier than any other treble I've tried. They're expensive, but well worth it!

I've written about my search for the perfect treble in my blog.