Expensive angling sunglasses have so far been a bit of a humming and hahing thing for me. I love gear and generally covet gear. But sunglasses are something else. There are a couple of problems. I tend to break them, but that’s probably because I’ve been using $25 plastic framed ones. More importantly, my diminished eyesight means problems with close vision. I’ve always had both glasses and contacts, but I’ve gone through periods wearing almost exclusively one or the other. I wore contacts exclusively from around 2007 up until the beginning of 2015. Then I switched back to glasses. The main practical reason is that I’ve never been able to get bifocal contacts that actually work for close vision, but the progressive bifocal glasses I got work really well. I can’t see getting prescription fishing sunglasses sorted out, so since I started fishing again I’ve been using the bifocal contacts with non-prescription sunglasses. This has been murder, as I can’t see to tie knots, and the only solution has been to resort to flip focal magnifiers, which are a major pain.
A recent post by Tom Davis at Teton Tenkara changed things for me. He wears eyeglasses and recommended sunglasses which fit over top of them. I had only a vague idea that such things existed, but I went to the manufacturer’s site, printed out the sizing sheets, figured out the best fit for my glasses, and ordered an amber pair, the best all-round for most fly fishing. I wore these during the two days of fishing at the cabin ten days ago. Perfect. I can mostly actually see to tie knots without removing the glasses/sunglasses, but can see perfectly just by taking them off. They worked so well I ordered a second pair with yellow lenses for low light conditions. The only thing remaining to sort out is effective pairs of retainers. I guess I’ll need two, one for the glasses and a second for the sunglasses. But after a year of squinting through the flip focals I felt vaguely human and normal again when changing flies. I would have thought over-glasses sunglasses would be clunky, but they’re not at all. They also exclude light from the side. And at ~$50 a pair, they don’t break the bank, versus the $200+ things most fly fishers are told they need these days.
