SANTEC - STAINLESS STEEL CHINU HOOK PACK w/RINGED EYE 45713 FISHING HOOK

Santec Stainless Steel Chinu Hook Pack w/Ringed Eye 45713 Fishing Hook

Chinu (チヌ) is the Japanese name for black sea bream, a fish with a small hard mouth that mouths and inspects a bait before it commits. The hook ground for it answers that behaviour with a short shank, a wide hooking area and a point turned slightly in toward the shank. Short shank means the whole hook disappears inside a prawn or a crab, so there is nothing sticking out for a suspicious fish to feel. Wide gape means there is still clearance left once the bait is on. The incurved point means that when the fish finally turns, the hook rolls to the corner of the jaw and grips instead of levering back out. That combination has made the chinu one of the most borrowed shapes in Asian bait fishing, far beyond the fish it was named for.

Santec builds the 45713 in forged stainless steel, which is the real distinction here. Most chinu hooks are high-carbon with a plating over the top; plating gets nicked, and a nicked high-carbon hook starts weeping rust the same week. Stainless does not, so this is the version for traces that stay tied and boat rigs you make up once and fish all season. The trade-offs are the usual ones: stainless runs slightly softer than hardened high-carbon steel, so check the point after rock and oyster contact, and back the hook out on a release rather than cutting the leader, since it will not corrode away inside the fish.

The point is set offset rather than inline — the right call on a short shank, since the offset gives the point somewhere to bite as the line comes tight from an unpredictable angle. The eye is a 95° turned-up ring, standing the hook up on a snell and taking a knot in heavy fluorocarbon or a wire crimp with no pressed edge to shave the line. Eight sizes run #8 to #20.

Key Features

• Chinu bend — short shank, wide hooking area, slightly incurved point
• Stainless steel construction: no rust, no plating to chip, suited to permanently rigged traces
• Forged body to resist bending against stronger fish
• Offset point for a better hooking angle as the line loads
• 95° turned-up ringed eye for alignment on snelled and bottom rigs
• Ring eye takes heavy fluorocarbon knots and wire crimps cleanly
• Eagle Cutting point with angled cutting faces and a sharp retaining barb
• Smooth low-friction stainless surface
• Eight sizes, #8 through #20

How To Rig It

• Float rig along a wall — Sliding float to a stopper, short fluorocarbon trace, prawn or crab bait, drifted down breakwaters, rock edges and pontoon lines for fish that inspect before taking.
• Light bottom rig — Running sinker above a swivel and 60–100 cm of leader. Do not strike early: let the rod load as the fish moves off and the incurved point does the work.
• Baiting a live prawn — Thread from the tail up through the body so the point exits near the head, keeping the wide gape open. A bait that fills the bend costs you the hook-up.
• Wire trace for toothy fish — Crimp a short single-strand or nylon-coated wire trace to the ring eye for cutlassfish and small mackerel; the stainless hook and wire trace both survive being left rigged.

Target Species By Region

• Southeast Asia — A jetty and estuary staple: mangrove jack, barramundi (siakap) on live prawn, croaker (gelama), kaci (sweetlips), catfish (duri), snapper (merah) and small grouper (kerapu) along rock walls and pilings, plus cutlassfish on a wire trace.
• North America — Sheepshead, black drum, porgy and tautog on crab and shrimp around bridge pilings, jetties and rubble.
• Japan & East Asia — Kurodai and kibire from breakwaters and rock, mejina on drifted bait, and tachiuo on wire rigs.
• Australia, Middle East & Europe — Bream, whiting and luderick in Australian estuaries; safi and small hamour in the Gulf; gilthead bream, wrasse and mullet on Mediterranean and Atlantic rock marks.

Specifications

Material: stainless steel. Eye: 95° turned-up ring. Sizes follow the Japanese gō (号) system — the number rises as the hook gets larger, the reverse of Western numbering. #8 is the smallest here and #20 the largest.

Chinu or iseama? The 45713 chinu and the 45710 iseama share the same stainless build, the same 95° turned-up ringed eye and the same size ladder. Take the chinu — short shank, offset point — for compact baits like prawn and crab around structure. Take the iseama — deeper round bend, inline point — for long threaded baits on still bottom rigs.

Recommended Pairing

• #8–#11: light bream and jetty work, 6–15 lb line on a soft-tipped bait rod that lets a cautious fish take
• #12–#16: general estuary and rock-wall rigs, 20–30 lb braid with a 30–50 lb fluorocarbon leader
• #18–#20: whole prawn and crab for snapper, mangrove jack and barramundi, 30–50 lb braid with a 50–80 lb leader
• Step up leader diameter, not hook size, around oysters and rock; keep a file in the box for the stainless point