Sea trout are the usual target when I go fishing on the Indian River flats south of Vero Beach. They’re fun to catch, there are plenty of them around and they make a tasty dinner. While I often use live bait, mostly shrimp this time of year, I also like the action of a top-water plug. It’s always a thrill when a big trout—or snook or redfish or bluefish, who cares?—smashes the surface.

But there’s a problem. My favorite top-water lure, Heddon’s Super Spook, comes equipped with three big treble hooks hanging below. If I even walk within three feet of a rod sporting one of those babies I find either my skin or my clothes impaled. What’s really amazing is that a fish can hit one of those lures and not get hooked. More often than not, though, I get a hookup and when I get the fish in the boat it takes several minutes to get all the barbs out of the fish without simultaneously getting them into my hands. One hook will have the fish in the mouth, while another has a grip on the gills, an eye or even in the gut. Most of the time that doesn’t matter since Mr. Trout is destined for the dinner table if he’s of legal size. If the fish is too small or too large, I sadly toss him back to meet his fate as crab fodder when the multiple wounds take their toll.

This time of year, though, trout are not in season so any I catch are going back. I hate the thought of that Super Spook lure inflicting mortal wounds on a fish that won’t be on tonight’s menu, so I’ve begun to transform my lures from fish killers to something at least a little more likely to save a fish’s life. Using split-ring pliers I remove the treble hooks and replace them with 2/0 Owner bait hooks. Now, instead of nine sharp points looking for fish flesh, I only have three. Granted that’s two more than if I were fishing a live shrimp on a circle hook, but a lure without any hooks won’t catch any fish.

The changeover to single hooks doesn’t have much effect on the lure’s action as far as I can tell. Close observation of an original and a modified lure indicate that the original with its treble hooks floats a little more down at the stern than the one with all single hooks, but I still get that “walk-the-dog” action that seems so provocative to trout. Do I miss more strikes? You bet. Do I deal death to fewer fish? Absolutely. That’s the point. When trout are back in season, I’ll switch back to trebles, but for right now, “do less harm” is my motto.