Carpenter Gammas are one of those finely tuned baits that almost demands using the recommended trebles for them to swim right.
However, from trail and error, plus comments from august members of this board, it seems that replacing the tail treble of a Gamma with a single does not affect the action of the bait,
too much.
Then why use a single you may ask. The benefits of single Vs trebles has been discussed and I will not delved into it, suffice to state that when hooked up on a single, the chances of the fish staying connected is better.
In choosing the tail single, I have tried, as closely as possible, to find a single whose weight would be as close to the treble it was replacing.
This will mimic the weight and buoyancy of the Gamma, BUT it will not match hydrodynamics and drag of the treble.
I have thought of adding a small rubber skirt to the tail hook to bring the drag coefficient up BUT for aesthetics, (I think travesty) decided against it - it would be like adding side skirts to a Ferrari
. Furthermore without a flow tank and hydrodynamic modeling it would be guesswork.
For those who, decide to do the same, I would like to share some of the weights of the trebles recommended and weights of some of the more commonly used singles. The list is by no means complete and exhaustive, but a start. I would also like to invite others to add on to the list.
Hope this tiny bit of information may come in handy to guys who like to tweak their Gammas or other baits.
Gamakatsu GT Recorder Trebles
Size weight(grams)
5/0: 12
6/0: 16
7/0: 20
Owner Trebles ST 66
5/0: 10
Owner Trebles ST 76 TN
5/0: 18
Singles
Owner SJ 41
11/0: 8
13/0: 12
Owner SJ 43
11/0: 10
Owner Jobu
8/0: 10
9/0: 12
10/0: 16
Owner Hyperwire split rings (because you need 2 to orient your single upwards)
#10: 1.4 (weighed 10 and averaged)
#11 1.8 ( ditto )
Cheers
Ben