Striker Ice suit review
We LOVED these suits.
First, it was appearance. They look sharp and well-made at first glance. Then it was fit. You put one on an average body like mine (6'2", 210 lbs. long arms) and it fits nicely with room in the sleeves for both width and length plus coverage of the butt. Unlike Arctic Armor and Ice Armor, the hood detaches so you an actually wear a snowmobile helmet or other head wear that tips forward with those suits without removeable hoods. The brim of the hood is wire formable. Not just a floppy thing that curls up in the wind when you are on the snowmobile. There is reflective piping all around the jacket for night visibility. From talking with designer of the clothes who was standing at our front counter in our store, Red Rock, it appears that they will actually offer customer service and warranty just by calling them up. Ice Armor is a bit on the bureaucratic side to get customer service when you need help and Arctic Armor is not always very friendly. And yet, both do have legitimate warranty issues from time to time but they both tend to stick it to their non-sewing, non-repairing, retailers like me to take care of problems. After retailing several hundred suits of both companies, I can't say I'm a thru fan of the way they handle problems with their products. I have higher hopes for Striker Ice. You never see the actual designer of the clothing show up in your store. Never happens for little guys like us,anyway; until now.
 |
 |
Stiker Ice - 200 grams Insulation, Heavier shell, Floats. All other whistles and bells are the same. Available as you see it, Gray, Black. The gray is actually a darker gray. Photos not doing it justice. |
Stiker Ice LITE - 100 grams Insulation, Lighter shell, Floats. |
I was a huge fan of Clam Ice Armor. It's still a good suit, made well and generously cut. You can actually fit clothing under it, but it doesn't float. We also sell a TON of Arctic Armor. AA floats and until now Arctic Armor was the only floating suit on the market. And, because they were the ONLY floating suit on the market, they pretty much called all the shots as to their cut, design, and how they handle warranty issues. Let's just say that after many years of selling only one float suit with some strong merits, we were thrilled to find a new design. And DESIGN is the key word here!!
First of all, the designer of the garments, Shawn Knodt is a motor head. He likes to ride snowmobiles with his family of four. The motor industry was some great design features to bring to the ice fishing table because if there is anybody who knows about wind, these are the go-to guys. Shawn not only came up with a great ice fishing suit with unbelievably innovative features, he designed a great floating ice fishing suit, to boot!.
This Striker Ice Lite is anything but light. Oh, sure, the outside cloth is a little lighter than the Striker Ice regular suit, but to compare it has about the same insulation as a Frabill Ice Suit or a Clam X Suit. That's pretty warm for a LITE suit. It has 100 grams of Striker's proprietary insulation plus the float layer. Lots of well-thought out pockets throughout along with internal mitt pockets, matching cell phone pockets, and more interior options, On the front of the parker there is an external access Napoleon pocket for your sunglasses or what ever and there D rings sewn into the chest pockets to store ice picks for dragging your butt out of a sling. "Easy-to-grab-with-mitts-on" zipper pulls on each D ring bearing pocket so when you are floating in the water and ensuing chaos, you can unzip and find your ice picks which are tied into your front pockets. No more fumbling with them around your neck and you wondering where that little string is as the water seeps up your bib legs to hit your private parts. Trust me, you'll have enough on your mind. Ice picks in matching front pockets is as smart as it gets. Plus, you can just leave them inside the jacket for good. NO more looking for the picks next season.
Back to Redrockstore.com catalog
Another design feature that NOBODY has anywhere out there address the breathability issue. NOBODY - Not Clam, not Frabill, not Snosuit, not Arctic Armor, not Northface has addressed breathability like this in ANY ice fishing suit out there. Everybody is always talking about how their suit is "breathable". Well, I have worn Clam (blue suit) a lot and it is fairly breatable even though breathabililty of suits tend to conk out at any temp less than 32 degrees F. For the most part, due to wearingthe proper clothing underneath - wool and polyester fleece NO COTTON EVER - I've had fairly good results because the air can go up my sleeves and come out my neck taking moisture with it. But that's not a float coat. None of the Clam suits are float coats. In order to float there has to be some sort of closed cell material that traps air and floats you. So, if the material is made up of a zillion little sealed bubbles in plastic sheet, how does hot body perspiration get by the bubbles? Well, I suppose you could punch holes in the float material but not enough to make it very breathable than still float. So you punch some holes in it and it breathes - a little. For the most part, it doesn't breathe very well. ut on Arctic Armor and work up a slight sweat. You will be venting by unzipping your collar in a little while if it warms up. At the end of the day when temps drops, note the frost in the elbows and between your shoulder blades. Your inner layer feels damp and if you were goofy enough to wear a cotton hoody as do most of the ice fishing world, it's pretty damp, cool and won't dry. Not a lot of moisture gets past the floating part of the parka and bibs so there is a trade-off. The best clothing you could have on for traveling is cross-country ski clothing which is where my background comes from with a solid 17 years in the industry. XC skiers know how to dress for the long haul on foot or by ski. But for sitting around and not moving in XC Ski clothing to fish means that you should bring along a body bag - they slid well on ice. In summary, float material does not breathe worth a darn and you gotta walk to the other side of the lake which is going to make you sweat. What to do?
Get a Striker Ice Lite or regular suit. The designer brought some elements from his knowledge of the motor world and did this: He put the insulated breathable liner inside the waterproof, "breathable" windproof out shell and added the most unique ventilation system I've ever seen into the parka. Basically, because of the unique way it is sewn, there is an air circulation space that runs between the entire insulated layer that is up against your body and the floating shell that allows you to stand in the wind. You can't eve see it unless you look for it. I've never seen anything this cool before in outdoor clothing. Then, just to make sure in variable temps that you have enough opportunities to ventilate and not get your insulating liner sweaty and cold, he put in "pit zips" that are integrated into the unique ventilation system as well. We dealt with a lot of fancy-schmancy clothing in our former XC ski world lives and have never seen anything like this, ever. And, instead of putting in stiff neoprene cuffs that never seem to fit me right so I leave them hanging open and I'm always fishing them with my gloves, the Striker Ice suits use thinner, more comfortable Lycra. Wrist slides right through, and the glove slides right over. The design of this suit just keeps going and going. We were blown away. We figured it was just going to be some ordinary, nice windproof, waterproof, breathable suit. Boy, were we off!
Moving on to the bibs. This feature is by far the best you will be able to find anywhere. You can spend far more money on Frabill's Snowsuit and it won't float. It will be tailored nicer than other suits but will do pretty much the same thing. It won't come close to the Striker Ice suits. Nothing on the market comes close to these bibs. Not only are they insulated and padded in the knees and butt, they also have a zillion pockets. But, unlike Arctic Armor bibs where you have your reach through pockets and find yourself getting soaked when sitting in the rain in the spring as the water runs down the parka and through your reach thru pockets completely soaking you for the rest of the day, Striker puts a buttoned flap over the reach-thru's. Let it rain. If some water makes it to the buttoned reach-thru pocket under the main buttoned covering flap, well, it must have been really raining. With Arctic Armor, you end up sitting in an interior puddle and waterproof works both ways.
But the covered reach-thru pockets are not the big deal. Next is the zipper. Now, I don't know how many guys, when responding to the first call of Mother Nature find that their fly zipper on their bibs is very accommodating with the need to go. After essentially digging through several layers of clothing, gateways and passages beneath you almost find yourself testing the waterproof nature of your waterproof bibs from the inside which is far less desirable especially if the day has just begun. Well, the current ice fishing suits on the market are all about looking good and accommodating less, but Striker puts a 2" longer zipper down the front so whippin' it out can actually be accomplished more easily when it's appropriate to do so. That right there is worth a lot especially to beer drinkers. Then, when the deed is done and all parts are put back in their proper places, unlike ANY fishing suits out there, the outside flap for keeping wind out pops back into place with FRIGGIN' magnets!!! That is SO cool. Just a quick swipe and you are locked up tighter than a drum on Parade Day! Nobody has this anywhere in the ice fishing world!
Back to Redrockstore.com catalog
But the longer fly zipper and magnetic wind flap are not the most exciting part of Striker Bibs. No, it gets even better. With Clam Ice Armor, you gotta buy the suit and the bibs. For the most part, this has worked well for most people but some folks are just plain hard to fit for a variety of reasons. It would be nice to be able to order separate parkas and bibs as needed in both the gray X suit and the Blue regular suit. But, no, after selling them for a zillion years, Clam is STILL not changing their ways. Same thing with Frabill's Ice suit. Arctic Armor allows buying separates. But none of these guys and not Vexilar or Strikemaster suits - none offer variable length bibs. This, they've patented.
Unlike all other bibs, Striker Bibs come with the ability to make pant length adjustments to more closely accommodate varying inseams. If you need a 2X bibs but have shorter legs, with everybody else's bibs, you bunch up your bibs on top of your boots and drag the cuffs in the back while walking. Striker Ice, instead of "just putting up" with the obvious and well-known problem in the industry, designed a bib that can actually roll up or down as you need it to get much, much closer to your desired pant leg length. You can choose from three different settings, adjust, and forget. You don't even know they are there. Even the little adjuster tabs have a hidden snap to tuck them away so you don't have extra crap flapping around your feet. Top off this incredibly unique ability to adjust the bibs for length without the presence of a seamstress with the FULL, DOUBLE ZIPPER side-zips and the magnetic wind flaps on each leg and you, too, will be blown away. You can use the double zipper to allow venting of your bibs! Plus, when you go to pull them over your boots, you don't need to take your boots off. That means you can easily pull this suit on when you get to where you are going. Now, Frabill's Ice Suit has full, single -zip legs, but no snow flap. Ice Armor Bibs zip up to lower thigh and they put a really sticky fleece-like liner in them so try getting a fantastic pair of Ice Armor boots into them. I do it every weekend all winter long - put on my blue Ice Armor bibs, unzip the legs as high as they'll go and then put on my Ice Armor boots. There is no other way to do it unless I dance around the basement like a cripple penguin and work up a big sweat. The designers at Ice Armor can't seem to figure it out. Until Striker Ice came along, only Frabill has come in with decent side zips in the bibs. Arctic Armor ends at the knee with kinda skinny legs in their bibs to begin with, and pulling Arctic Armor Plus with the fuzzy inside is like playing Twister with yourself. Not to mention that AA Plus suits always run a tad small and their arms are skinny. If you put on a fleece layer beneath an AA Plus suit (green and black) you'll know what I'm talking about. Arctic Armor regular suits (red & black, all black, and camo) are much easier to put on due to their slippery nylon inside.
Striker Ice puts slippery fabric inside where you need it because they know that even though it's very nicely insulated, it still may need a layer underneath it that is if you go out and play in -35 F real temps or colder. You might want to put on a fleece layer if you'll be sitting around at -15 degrees F or colder real temps.
From what I can see, I think the Striker Ice Lite suit will take you down to about -15 degrees below and may require a layer when sitting still for extended periods at this temp. The Striker Ice regular (also has a heavier outside cloth than the Lite version along with 100 more grams of insulation in the liner) will probably take you down to -25 degrees F real temp before you need to put on a fleece layer. These are temperature ranges all subjective based on what I got to see and touch in thh complete Striker Ice Line and my own experience in cold weather living in NE Minnesota for my whole life.
Back to Redrockstore.com catalog
The advantage to this suit is all the incredible features and benefits plus the part that they float. Go ahead and compare prices. Do the math. I think after many great years of service, I may have to retire my Ice Armor blue suit. I still think it's a great suit but I kinda want the whistles and bells plus the increased insulation of the Striker Ice suits. I don't care if they float because I know how to stay out of trouble, but that is an added, significant benefit.
One more thing: No more searching for your fishing license or cell phone or keys. Stiker Ice puts a handy, zippered, forearm pocket on the left sleeve. I keep losing my license somewhere in my Ice Armor bibs. It's always a self-pat-down when the conservation officer stop by the popup.
Summary: We love this stuff and believe it will do what it is supposed to do very nicely and at a very fair price! - JB-
Back to Setthehook.com/icefishing
Back to Ice Fishing Suit Reviews at Setthehook.com
