I remove the barbs on the rear hook of all my plugs. Stripers and smallies are head hunters, so the vast majority hit the head anyway. Barbless rear hooks means an easy release for the fish if that treble gets caught lesswhere in the body (of the fish or me!). A friend of mine crimps the barbs on the front hook too. Says as long as you keep pressure on the fish, no problems. Says it often gets a better hook set that way.

Andrew