Sufix Stealth Skin Hooklength Material
Introduction
Sufix Stealth Skin is a strippable plastic coated braided hooklength material available in green and gold colours with quoted breaking strains of 15 and 25lb. I've been using it as my main hooklength material for the last 15 months.
Properties
Stealth Skin is claimed to have an ultra fine diameter, high abrasion resistance and a stiff removable coating. The coating is easily removed with a finger nail, coin edge or a suitable blunt edged implement from the central core of braided hooklength and may be knotted with the outer core intact or removed. As always it is best to lubricate the knots when tightening, especially when tying a knot with the plastic core still intact, otherwise the coating may fracture and create a hinge effect - fine when you intend it - not so good when you want the coating to remain. It's best to leave some excess material when you trim the knot, as with the coating intact you may experience some slippage if the knot is not fully tightened. The inner material is fairly limp - but not as limp as other some coated brands available.
Knot Strength
As usual, with all lines I take a look at, I set about testing Stealth Skin for strength. A number of hooklengths were made up using Size 6 Owner 50188's, Size 8 Nash Fang hooks and ESP Size 9 swivels. Knotless knots were used at the hook end and 5 turn Grinners (twice through the eye) at the swivel end. The coating was stripped at the hook knot but left intact at the swivel end.
Pleased to say that the 15lb rated Stealth Skin went a few pounds in excess of the stated strain, with some evidence of the Owner 50188's opening. There was evidence that after severe strains of testing, the unstripped plastic coating at the swivel had become stripped which created a hinge. I'd noticed this when I started using this material, but as I usually use a small length of silicone tubing over the material and front eye of the swivel to create a stand-off, this was forgotten. Worth mentioning anyway.
In Use
After using this material for 15 months, it's become my general hooklink material. The colour does tend to wash out of the central core resulting in a cream colour. As previously mentioned the outer plastic coating can be a bit on the fragile side.
Conclusions
A good general coated hooklength material which has become one of my firm favourites. For this review, I will not draw the almost inevitable comparison with Kryston Super Mantis. Both Stealthskin and Mantis are good hooklink materials which have their uses.
Perhaps I'll do some critical comparisons between some coated hooklink materials at a later date.
Price
Available from the BFW shop at £9.95 for 20m - in both green and brown colours.
Go to the BFW On-Line Shop
A Stealth Skin Caught Lump
Bob Gill
29th January 2004