THE ANGLAR - PRAWN HOOK 4205 PRAWN FISHING

The Anglar Prawn Hook 4205

Prawn fishing means two things: catching prawns — giant freshwater prawn (udang galah) and pond prawns, on a float rig and a small natural bait — and threading a prawn on as bait for fish. The 4205 is the workhorse of the Anglar prawn range and it does both. It is the barbed spade-end model at full size span: slim high-carbon wire, a chemically sharpened offset point, a pronounced retaining barb, and a flattened spade end in place of an eye, in black nickel, across nine sizes from #7 to #2/0 with twenty in every pack. Put beside the barbless 4204 it is the same hook with the two things that hold a fish rather than release it: a barb that stops a thrashing prawn backing off, and an offset point that finds purchase when the take comes side-on.

Key Features

• High-carbon steel — rigid enough to resist deformation on a slim wire profile
• Chemically sharpened offset point and a sharp retaining barb that holds through sudden runs
• Flattened spade end for snelled rigging, with no eye to bulk out a small bait
• Black-nickel finish — dark, low-glare, added protection against surface corrosion
• Nine sizes including #1/0 and #2/0, twenty pieces in every size

How To Rig It

• Snell the spade end — There is no eye to knot to. Lay the tag along the shank, whip six to eight turns down over it toward the bend, pass the tag back through and pull tight so the line leaves on the point side. Make traces up at home and check the whipping each session.
• Live prawn as bait — Pass the point through the horn on top of the head, in front of the dark spot behind the eyes — that spot is the brain and hitting it kills the prawn. To sit the bait lower, hook side to side through the second segment from the tail.
• Dead or peeled prawn — Thread the hook in at the tail and up the body so the bait lies straight along the shank, bound with bait elastic where pickers strip baits.
• Float rig for prawns — Small float, one micro split shot, snelled hook on a short fluorocarbon trace. Fish just off bottom and lift smoothly when the float dips; the barb holds, so no hard strike is needed.

Target Species By Region

• Southeast Asia — Giant freshwater prawn (udang galah) in Malaysian and Indonesian rivers, tiger prawn (udang harimau) in brackish stretches, and the prawning ponds of Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand (bo kung). The larger sizes fish live prawn for barramundi (siakap), mangrove jack and grouper (kerapu) around jetties and mangrove roots.
• North America — No comparable prawn fishery; a snelled bait hook for shrimp under a popping cork for redfish, speckled trout and flounder, and small sizes for panfish.
• Japan & East Asia — The spade end is the standard Japanese bait-hook fitting: tenaga-ebi (long-arm prawn) fishing on rivers and canals, live-shrimp rigs for seabass and rockfish, and Taiwan's prawning ponds.
• Australia, Middle East & Europe — Prawn baits for bream, whiting and flathead in Australian estuaries; shrimp for hamour in the Gulf; snelled spade-end hooklengths for roach and bream in Europe.

Specifications

Listed largest to smallest. Western numbering: the number falls as the hook grows, and /0 sizes are larger again — #7 is the smallest, #2/0 the largest. Material: high-carbon steel, black nickel.

Choosing within the Anglar prawn range. Six models, separated by two decisions — barb or no barb, and spade end or ring eye.

The 4205 is the full-span barbed spade — the same fitting as the 4208, but carried through the /0 sizes and packed in twenties, and the direct barbed counterpart to the 4204. Take the 4206 instead if you would rather knot to a ring eye than snell.

Recommended Pairing

• Prawning: short 1.2–1.8 m prawn rod, small float, 4–8 lb mono straight through
• Supple 4–8 lb mono or fluorocarbon for the snell — stiff leader whips onto a spade end badly
• Light bait fishing: 1000–2500 spinning reel, 6–12 lb line, 10–20 lb fluorocarbon trace
• Smallest sizes for pond prawns; #1 and the /0 sizes for large udang galah and live-prawn baits, with 15–30 lb leader around pilings and roots