A slim body and a powerful crown hook

The hard foam floating sutte is fast becoming an essential item for boat squid fishing, favored by fishermen and anglers alike. It works not only during night squid fishing but also in daylight. Of course it catches squid, but for some reason it is especially good at landing large spear squid (yari-ika) and swordtip squid (kensaki-ika). Fishermen say this is because its slim silhouette and perfectly balanced design let it adopt an "easy-to-grab" posture and "sway in the current" as the tide flows past. With a silhouette and swimming action unlike ordinary floating sutte, it draws in large spear squid and swordtip squid. Its hook is also as strong as the hooks on egi built for bigfin reef squid (aori-ika). Thanks to the powerful crown hook (kanna), you can fight even large fish with confidence.

A dedicated "yari-ika hook" crown hook

The greatest feature of the hard foam floating sutte is the "slimness" of its body. This slimness is made possible by using rigid foamed urethane for the body. With the standard molding method used for common floating sutte like the "bibin sutte," you can reproduce exactly the same shape, but it is difficult to reproduce the same buoyancy. Even if you managed to build a floating sutte with comparable buoyancy, you would have to raise the internal air pressure, which thins the body wall and results in a sutte that is easily crushed by water pressure. Another distinctive point of the hard foam floating sutte is that, despite this slimness, it is fitted with a crown hook called a "yari-ika hook," made specifically for spear squid and swordtip squid. Common floating sutte such as the bibin sutte often use a squid-hook mounting method known as "hand-wound (tegusu-wound)" in order to maintain balance. If you mount a heavy crown hook like a yari-ika hook on such a floating sutte, the hook section becomes too heavy and the sutte ends up tail-down and unbalanced. Achieving this slim body while mounting a strong yari-ika hook, and still keeping perfect horizontal balance, is exactly why the hard foam floating sutte catches spear squid and swordtip squid so well.

Explaining the rigid foamed urethane body

The surface of the hard foam floating sutte body, magnified about 500 times

Observing the surface of the hard foam floating sutte body under a microscope that can magnify it about 500 times is fascinating. Here you can confirm extremely uniform bubbles arranged in a regular pattern, which explains why the hard foam floating sutte is so well balanced. This is a special molding technology KeyStone has cultivated over many years — a purely domestic (Made in Japan) technology.

Explaining the rigid foamed urethane body

The image above, color-corrected to make it easier to see

You can clearly confirm the extremely uniform arrangement of the bubbles. The material rigid foamed urethane produces high buoyancy precisely because the inside of the body is filled with such a uniform mass of bubbles.

Explaining the rigid foamed urethane body

A urethane product made with no technical know-how at all, magnified about 500 times. (Apparently a commercial product manufactured overseas)

You can confirm that the bubbles themselves are small and, moreover, inconsistent. Incidentally, this product's balance was all over the place. In exchange, its price was absurdly cheap.

Explaining the rigid foamed urethane body

A urethane product made with no technical know-how at all, magnified about 500 times. (Apparently a commercial product manufactured overseas)

The image above, color-corrected to make it easier to see. You can clearly confirm that the bubbles are small and highly non-uniform.

Comparison with the No.4 bibin sutte

As you can see, the slimness is different. As mentioned earlier, the hard foam floating sutte is made of rigid foamed urethane. The bibin sutte has a hollow plastic body. The action produced by this slimness draws in large spear squid and swordtip squid. The hook mounting method and the light-emitting method are also different. They may look similar, but they are entirely different floating sutte. To make the most of its slim silhouette and keep the same balance even after a full day of use, the hard foam floating sutte is wrapped in cloth rather than cotton. One cause of buoyancy imbalance is that cotton and cloth absorb seawater. The foam floating sutte does away with cotton and uses a low-absorption, water-repellent-treated cloth. Because it is not wrapped in cotton, it also has the advantage that the cloth is not easily torn even when bitten by squid or pufferfish. So does that mean the bibin sutte does not catch? Not at all. The bibin sutte is an indispensable item for spear squid and swordtip squid fishing. Depending on the situation, the bibin sutte may actually catch better than the hard foam sutte. You need to use them according to conditions, and we recommend using both together in the same rig.

There is a reason fishermen choose it.

Hirado in Nagasaki Prefecture boasts an astonishing swordtip squid catch. There is a fisherman there said to have the No.1 catch in the area. What surprised me when I boarded his boat was that almost all of the sutte he uses are "hard foam floating sutte." Why does he use nothing but hard foam floating sutte? "Because they catch, so I use them." A wonderfully simple answer. I also often hear stories like this. A fisherman happens to pick up a hard foam floating sutte floating on the sea, and happens to try using it. And what do you know — it catches remarkably well! What maker is this sutte from? — and it becomes a talking point among fellow fishermen. To be blunt, they cost more than blow-molded sutte. But they catch well. That is why fishermen buy them too. There is a reason fishermen choose them.

Comparing pink glow (luminous) with ordinary luminous

The pink glow luminescence used on the "hard foam floating sutte," "Kensaki SP" and "Uki-Pla." As the photo shows, it emits light completely differently from ordinary luminous (glow). So when does it prove effective? Suppose a charter boat carries eight anglers sharing the deck, each rigged with five lures — that means 40 sutte directly beneath the boat. What if just one of those 40 sutte emitted a completely different light? It would surely stand out the most. Several years have passed since this color was released; it is a color that catches well and has built up a solid track record, yet there is no doubt it still holds untapped potential.

The choice as a dropper

The hard foam floating sutte is slimmer than ordinary blow-molded sutte. In other words, it is less affected by water resistance. The lead-sutte (ika-metal) game, which you attack with light tackle, is a delicate style of fishing, so water resistance becomes one of the nuisances. But with the slim body of the hard foam floating sutte, there is less resistance as it sinks and less resistance during jerking. In the lead-sutte game, where you have to detect the faintest bites, it becomes one of your greatest weapons.

COLOR CHART

Price, Specs & Other Info

・"Hard Foam Floating Sutte" Total length: 115 mm (body: 85 mm), 2 pieces per pack, open price