Fishing Sunglasses

[blauner335]

Looking to get a new pair of polarized glasses for fishing and was wondering if anyone had any suggestions or had a pair they really liked. Been doing some research and I think I have narrowed it down to a pair of Smith Techlite Polarchromic or one of the Costa shades. My main concern would be what color lens do you recommend? Leaning towards Amber/Brown for river/stream fishing, but I never really experimented with lens colors in regards to seeing fish in the water.

Thanks!

 

[ryansheehan]

Amber the way to go, makes seeing in and out of the shadows much easier. I love my Maui Jim(more everyday use)but also own a pair from Orvis that I use most of the time on the water.

 

[jifigz]

My suggestion is to by a cheap pair. I like sunglass warehouse.com. They have a bug selection and you can find whatever style you please. Just make sure that they are polarized and all will be good, I feel that there are many more important places to drop money in fly fishing than on glasses.

 

[jifigz]

I do agree on Amber lenses though. I love my polarized Amber aviators.

 

[IdratherbePhishing]

I think fish idiot will agree with me here. Yellow polarized lenses are tough to beat.

 

[Reeder]

I always liked amber as well. I also agree with going cheap because I lose them and scratch them all the time.

 

[gulfgreyhound]

Check out Native Eye wear with interchangeable lenses. Son likes Oaklies, I have Kaenons as well that I use when fishing offshore. Just get the strap? that will save them from dropping in the creek . GG

 

[MKern]

I have a cheap pair of strike kings that are really dark (but I have really sensitive eyes- like I squint even at dusk). The wife bought me a pair of oaklies for xmas from the site 6pm pretty cheap.

 

[blauner335]

Thanks guys - I have been going the cheap route for sunglasses for the last decade and it seems like I end up buying a new pair every year with the easily scratchable plastic lenses or the frames falling apart. Hopefully the Smith's with the glass lenses and beefier construction will be able to last me a few seasons. Looking forward to seeing better with the Amber lenses as well!

 

[troutpoop]

I was a die hard Maui Jim wearer for many years. I still have a few pairs.
Last year I bought a pair of the Oakleys with the polarized shallow water fishing lenses. I really like them as well.
I have also used some of the cheaper Smith glasses which I keep as back-ups. I like them too.

My advice would be to go somewhere to try on different colors of lenses to see what you prefer and go with a quality lens.

 

[pcray1231]

Amber or copper seems best to me. Note, "green mirror" is not a green lens, it's typically amber, green is just the reflector. Light transmission is important, look it up for contenders. 10-14% is pretty typical for many, but frankly is too dark for evenings, or for small stream fishing under a heavy canopy. So they end up being useful for only mid day, big stream work. Something closer to 20%, or beyond, helps a lot. Even high teens is a large improvement over 10 or 12, though you'll still take them off a few minutes earlier while waiting for a spinner fall.

Glass is huge for scratch resistance and clarity but not impact resistance, so they aren't safety glasses. Straight polycarbonate is the opposite, sucks in clarity and scratches easily, but count as safety glasses. I'd go for glass. Though many high end makers make harder plastics that fall in between on all measures, and vary considerably which way they lean. High end makers often have material choices, too. For Maui Jim, for instance, they make poly, glass, and MauiPure is their tweener that leans toward glass, while maui evolution is a tweener that means toward poly.

I've never understood the logic of going high end and then choosing poly. Yeah, it's cheaper. But still much more than other poly lenses. And will scratch just as quickly. Scratch resistant coatings are limited in what they can handle, the material underneath is what matters.

I love Maui Jim and Costas 580 lenses. They infuse lenses with certain elements that block specific wavelengths, which makes the rest of the colors pop. It works. Colors are brighter. But it is a bit of a parlor trick, and you can decide whether it's worth the extra price. The polarization of those two are great, but so are Smith, Kaenon, Native, and the like. Just stay away from Luxottica stuff (Ray Ban, Oakley, and all the fashion brands), which use inferior polarizing filters.

As always, fit means everything. Don't even think about getting a pair without trying multiple models on, and ensuring you can't see light out the sides or top. Don't worry about lens color while trying on. You can typically order that model with whatever lenses you like.

 

[Fishidiot]

IdratherbePhishing wrote:
I think fish idiot will agree with me here. Yellow polarized lenses are tough to beat.

Yep - yuh beat me to it.

Yellow lenses are indeed tough to beat and are at their best under cloudy or low light conditions. The only real drawback to yellow lenses is that they're hard to find.

 

[gulfgreyhound]

There is a rose colored lens that is also good in low light. The glare is the problem and better Polaroids cut that down a lot. GG

 

[afishinado]

Fishidiot wrote:

IdratherbePhishing wrote:
I think fish idiot will agree with me here. Yellow polarized lenses are tough to beat.

Yep - yuh beat me to it.

Yellow lenses are indeed tough to beat and are at their best under cloudy or low light conditions. The only real drawback to yellow lenses is that they're hard to find.

I fished with Dave W / Fishidiot last winter at Big Spring. It was cloudy and near the end of the day (low light). We were standing together spotting fish in the run below the ditch. I could see fish, but they were just sort of dark shadows. Standing next to me, I couldn't believe that Dave could both spot fish so well and even ID the species. (I've always known Dave to be an honest guy, but little did I know he was cheating at the time!)

He handed me his yellow lense fitovers to wear and voila!...I could spot the fish easily and see all the colors.

(I ordered me a pair the next day.)

 

[blauner335]

pcray1231 wrote:
Amber or copper seems best to me. Note, "green mirror" is not a green lens, it's typically amber, green is just the reflector. Light transmission is important, look it up for contenders. 10-14% is pretty typical for many, but frankly is too dark for evenings, or for small stream fishing under a heavy canopy. So they end up being useful for only mid day, big stream work. Something closer to 20%, or beyond, helps a lot. Even high teens is a large improvement over 10 or 12, though you'll still take them off a few minutes earlier while waiting for a spinner fall.

Glass is huge for scratch resistance and clarity but not impact resistance, so they aren't safety glasses. Straight polycarbonate is the opposite, sucks in clarity and scratches easily, but count as safety glasses. I'd go for glass. Though many high end makers make harder plastics that fall in between on all measures, and vary considerably which way they lean. High end makers often have material choices, too. For Maui Jim, for instance, they make poly, glass, and MauiPure is their tweener that leans toward glass, while maui evolution is a tweener that means toward poly.

I've never understood the logic of going high end and then choosing poly. Yeah, it's cheaper. But still much more than other poly lenses. And will scratch just as quickly. Scratch resistant coatings are limited in what they can handle, the material underneath is what matters.

I love Maui Jim and Costas 580 lenses. They infuse lenses with certain elements that block specific wavelengths, which makes the rest of the colors pop. It works. Colors are brighter. But it is a bit of a parlor trick, and you can decide whether it's worth the extra price. The polarization of those two are great, but so are Smith, Kaenon, Native, and the like. Just stay away from Luxottica stuff (Ray Ban, Oakley, and all the fashion brands), which use inferior polarizing filters.

As always, fit means everything. Don't even think about getting a pair without trying multiple models on, and ensuring you can't see light out the sides or top. Don't worry about lens color while trying on. You can typically order that model with whatever lenses you like.

Really good information - Thank you. The Smith glasses I am looking at are automatically adaptable to light so it has a variable light transmission between 14-20%. I thought that would help as a good all around lens. The Costa 580's are also on my list.

 

[pcray1231]

Yellow lenses aren't uncommon at all. Though often from the front they appear light green or pink or very light Amber. They are certainly all yellow heavy for the base tint.

I have the Maui HT (high transmission) which are yellow with a hint of greenh. Costa sunrise, Smith low light igniter, are others. Just about every fishing centric company has a low light lens version, which are almost always a yellow base.

Transmission is usually in the 20`s, though in theory could go up to 40% or so (a polarizer blocks 50% and is neutral gray, so any tint on top of that.....) And yes, streamside they probably get more use than traditional sunglass tints. Morning, evening, winter, or under clouds, they are better. The ideal is to have 2 pair, one for bright, one for low light. Most get the bright lens first. But if your primary purpose is fly fishing, I recommend the low light pair first. They are at least usable in bright conditions. Dark lenses aren't usable in low light.

Regarding the polarchromatic lenses, generally they suck in regards to polarization. Just hard to make that combo. But I can't speak for Smith's version on experience.

 

[geebee]

i have done a ton of sightfishing for stripers and land locked salmon i n the northeast, and for bonefish in Eleuthera and Grand Cayman.

I have flying fisherman yellow lenses - calcutta - $30.

and Hobie's mayport motions - grey/smoke - $50.

contrary to popular opinion, polycarbonate is a lot better these days, and i keep em pouched and away from keys to prolong their life.

i've done the oakley, costa, smith optics thing - great if your on a boat, and you have them on a lanyard, but otherwise they do get stepped on, dropped, dropped into the water, and in one case vanish off a pub table into a young ladies handbag (i think).

whatever price bracket you choose, get the sports wraparound style, or the ones with side blinkers. a dark brimmed hat helps.

i find that both the above glasses help me spot fish on Big Spring creek that people often walk past.

cheers

Mark.

 

[Mike]

Rose-colored glasses are the ones that some seem to wear at the Tully.

 

[Fishidiot]

Mike wrote:
Rose-colored glasses are the ones that some seem to wear at the Tully.

:lol:
Well, it's not as if we didn't have this one coming.

 

[Swattie87]

I've had 5 or 6 different pairs of Natives. I typically buy them off STP or other online discount retailers at around $50/pair. Happy with all of them, but they typically die violent and untimely deaths. One went flying off the tonneau cover of my truck after I left them there. Two pairs got knocked off my head by a branch never to be seen again...one of which was near the top of a waterfall on a steep Carbon County stream. $50/pair is about what I can stomach cost wise for something I typically replace at the rate of one pair per year or so. Natives fit this bill well and are a good value IMO.

I currently have two pairs. One with gray lenses in the 10-12% VLT range and one with copper lenses in the 16-18% VLT range. The gray ones are better for driving or as any everyday pair, where the copper ones are better for fishing. As the others have mentioned, it's kind of tough to find a single "do it all" pair. The additional light transmission that makes a pair better for fishing can make them too bright as an everyday pair. My copper ones are passable in most conditions when they're the only ones I have with me, but are too bright for comfort on a sunny day Winter's drive through a snow covered landscape.