Try replacing the treble hook with a single hook on the spoons for salmon.
I have some Moonshine brand spoons that I replaced the treble hooks with single hooks on. One of the wonder bread moonshine high speed spoons can be seen along side the large dare devil spoons in this thread
Came across this article the other day when I was researching putting single hooks on my spoons and possibly other lures. I thought it was interesting.
Single Hook Lures for trout just make sense! Most trout anglers release their catch. Barbed treble hooks cause much more damage than barbless single hooks, and increased post release mortality.
www.finesse-fishing.com
I went back and re read the article I linked in that thread, and is often said the devil is in the details, see what I did there? The perception is that barbless hooks single hooks as opposed to barbed treble hooks have a lower post mortality rate in catch and release, but, that is only true with small fish, the use of single hooks when catching larger fish increases post release mortality according to two scientific studies. Here’s an excerpt from that article.
Single Hook Lures
I used to fish small streams when I was younger and caught a lot of those small rainbows and browns and using a single barbless hook’s definitely would have made releasing them easier but mostly those fish got eaten as they were pan size.
One a recent salmon fishing trip, trip report forthcoming, the first salmon I caught had all three treble hooks embedded in its mouth, it was a smaller 3.5-4# fish, a yearling, even though all three hooks were embedded in its mouth I was able to get them out without the fish being significantly injured so it went back to the deep and sped away from the boat quickly. Definitely hard to get all three barbed hooks out but I’m also meat fishing. You can just barely see the lure at the top of the picture. As an fyi, these land locked chinook salmon have a two year life span, some live three years before they return to the hatchery to spawn and die, the largest salmon taken from Lake Oahe was 22# as I understand it.
The second and third fish I caught were big enough to keep, and the second fish had the barbed treble hooks come out of its mouth whilst in the net. That’s the only lure that worked the whole four days I was there.
The third and last fish I caught. Between the two there was enough for Mothers Day dinner for 11 people.
I also had another look at the hooks that
@MilesPrower suggested and will probably get some of the Gamakatsu magic eye and give them a try.
One of the hook companies that
@MilesPrower linked, Owner hooks had a treble to single hook conversion chart.
So far I’ve yet to catch a Laker or salmon on those single hook spoon set ups shown in the other thread.
