Sun protection: the cheapest gear you own and the most used

Why fishing is a high-exposure activity

Three things stack up, and none of them is obvious from a weather forecast.

Duration. Fishing sessions are long. Four to eight hours outdoors is normal, and it is usually in the middle of the day.

Reflection. Water reflects ultraviolet light. You are exposed from above and from below at the same time, which is the part people underestimate — sitting under a boat canopy does not protect your face from what comes off the surface.

No shade. Open water has none, and you cannot move to it without leaving the fish.

The consequence is that clothing, rather than sunscreen, is the practical answer. Fabric does not need reapplying, does not wash off when you handle a fish, and does not get greasy on your hands.

What UPF actually means

UPF is Ultraviolet Protection Factor, a rating for fabric. It describes what fraction of UV passes through.

UPF 50+ is the practical ceiling and is what most fishing shirts publish. It is worth knowing that an ordinary white cotton t-shirt is roughly UPF 5, and considerably less when wet.

Unlike sunscreen, the rating does not degrade over a day. It degrades over the life of the garment as the fabric thins.

The four items

A long-sleeved UPF shirt. Counterintuitively cooler than a t-shirt in direct sun, because it stops radiant heat reaching your skin and the fabric wicks. This is the single highest-value item.

A wide-brimmed hat. A baseball cap protects your face and leaves your ears and neck exposed, and those are common sites for sun damage. A full brim covers both.

A neck gaiter. Covers the neck, ears and lower face, pulls up or down in a second, and can be soaked in water for evaporative cooling on a hot day.

Polarized sunglasses. Below, because they are doing two jobs.

Sunscreen still covers the gaps — the backs of hands and the underside of the chin, which catches reflected light. Water-resistant, and reapplied.

Polarized lenses: two jobs, one of them safety

Job one: seeing into water. Light reflecting off a surface becomes polarized in one plane. A polarizing filter blocks that plane, which removes the mirror effect and lets you see through the surface.

The practical difference is large. With polarized lenses you can see structure, weed edges, drop-offs and often fish. Our pond page and bank fishing page both depend on reading water, and this is the equipment that makes it possible.

Job two: your eyes. A hook traveling at casting speed, redirected by wind or a snapped line, is a genuine hazard. Anyone who has fished for long has a story. Glasses are the barrier, and it costs nothing to wear them.

This is why they are on the essentials list on our fly starter page too — fly casting puts a hook past your head twice per cast.

Lens color, which is a real choice

Amber or copper is the general freshwater answer. It increases contrast, which helps in the variable light of a lake or river.

Grey reduces brightness without shifting color, which suits very bright open conditions.

Yellow is a low-light lens for overcast days and dawn.

If you buy one pair, buy amber. It is the most useful across the widest range of freshwater conditions.

Cheap non-polarized sunglasses with a dark tint are worse than useless for fishing: they reduce brightness without removing glare, so you see less into the water while your pupils open wider. Polarized fishing sunglasses are the category to look at, and the polarization is the specification that matters rather than the brand.

Testing whether lenses are actually polarized

Worth knowing, because plenty of cheap glasses are labeled polarized and are not.

Hold the glasses up and look at a reflective surface — a car windscreen, a shop window or a phone screen. Rotate the glasses ninety degrees. If they are polarized, the reflection will visibly darken or brighten as you turn them. If nothing changes, they are just tinted.