For some, the process of choosing sunglasses can be difficult and frustrating. For others it is educational, an adventurous experience- searching, reading, inquiring, trying, feeling, fitting, seeing, looking, and finally, choosing. The process does not have to be confusing or overwhelming. If you’re aware of just a few important points you can not only make the process fun, but also insure you will actually choose the glasses that will best suit your needs.

A polarizing lens, essential for fishing and highly desirable for driving, acts something like a microscopic set of blinds, eliminating all wavelengths of light that are not parallel to the lines of the filter within the lens. By doing so they eliminate glare, making it possible to see into the water, and reduce eyestrain on the wearer.

It is essential to understand what the “right” glasses are. Simply put, the best sunglasses are the ones that you will actually want to wear when outdoors.

Drew Simmons of Smith Optics says, “Choosing the right glasses comes down to three things- fit, lens color and material, and frame style and color.”

Fit and comfort are crucial. Take time to try on sunglasses and consider how they feel. They should be comfortable and secure. If you’re a fisherman they should eliminate most light that might come in from around the periphery of the frame. They should not be sliding down your nose, pinching your temples, or hurting your ears. A high performance polarizing lens does not protect you if it’s not on your face. Your glasses should fit so well that you forget they are there.

Lenses present a more complex topic. First of all, lenses are made of either glass or one of two types of plastic. Optical quality glass lenses provide the clearest vision because they are ground and polished like a fine camera lens, so the surface of the lenses are free of any imperfections. Optical-quality glass sunglass lenses are chemically or heat treated to make them impact-resistant. While glass is heavier than plastic, it keeps its shape when heat is applied. This means that glass lenses will do better than plastic if accidentally left on a dashboard in hot afternoon sun. Glass is more scratch-resistant than plastic. However, glass lenses are not shatterproof. If you hit yourself in the face with a jig those glasses could break, with predictably ugly results.

The two types of plastic used in quality eyewear are CR-39 and polycarbonate. The CR-39 is an optical quality plastic made of hard resin. It’s generally considered the best, and is the most common plastic used for sunglass lenses. It weighs half as much as glass, which means it is not heavy on the face. It exceeds requirements for impact-resistance because of its molecular structure.

Compared to CR-39 and glass, polycarbonate plastic weighs the least and is the most impact-resistant. Polycarbonate is a great choice for those individuals who want really rugged sunglasses, including people who engage in outdoor activities and fast-action sports. Polycarbonate is widely used, and is considered the second most common optical plastic. One drawback is an increased susceptibility to scratching and abrasion, but with a hard-coat applied its scratch-resistance is similar to that of CR-39.

Next we must consider lens colors. Let us attempt to simplify this topic by stating (somewhat arbitrarily) that there are four basic colors of the polarizing lenses that you look through (I’m not talking about the mirror on the outside of the lens here): dark brown, light brown, green, and gray. Some companies have vermilion, copper, amber, and other colors. They are simply variations of our basic four.

Fishermen never want a green lens. They don’t provide enough contrast under any conditions for spotting fish. Dark brown is best for inshore fishing in bright sunlight. Light brown (or amber) lenses are best for inshore fishing in dim light or under overcast conditions.

Offshore anglers prefer gray lenses, which eliminate much of the blue color of the water and let fish “pop.” If you can, you should have three different pairs of glasses with all three lens colors so you’re ready for any conditions. Otherwise pick the color that works best in the conditions under which you normally fish. I wear only dark brown lenses, since my prescription lenses dramatically increase the cost of my glasses.

Some companies now offer photochromic lenses that get darker or lighter in response to the intensity of the light hitting them. While these cost more, they make a single pair of glasses more versatile, and may be a better value than two different pairs of glasses.

You make a fashion statement with your frame style and color. While these don’t directly affect the performance of the glasses (except for helping the fit), they do affect how often you’ll wear the glasses. How we see ourselves and how we seek to enhance our appearance is for many the most important factor in maximizing actual use. Take the time to find frames that you really like.

Don’t get distracted by comparing UV performance claims. Any quality pair of sunglasses will have more than adequate UV blockage.

Unfortunately good sunglasses aren’t cheap. A decent pair will cost at least $50.00 and really good ones are $100 and up. But God only gave you one pair of eyes. I know a man who got a skin cancer on his cornea. He lost the eye. That makes the $100 seem quite reasonable.

The enormous variety of sunglasses available is what allows you to find the best sunglasses for you. Use this to your advantage to find that perfect pair of sunglasses, the ones you’ll always wear when out of doors.

Buying the right fishing reel will help you get a satisfying and rewarding day of fishing. Price is not the number one determinant factor in the fishing skill of a person. To get the fish to bite, we have to produce the right bait and lure. You should prepare your fishing box and equipment to suite the type of fishing you are going to attempt.

While fishing lures and baits come in different shades and shapes, you may notice that some even look like alien objects so the fish would be attracted to it. You would definitely want to go for variety when it comes to lure, and also to use the right one for the right fishing setting. So for you to be successful in applying the right lure, you first have to know the target species of fish you want to catch. You have to understand what the diet of the fish is like and what food it craves.

Sometimes, fish are just tempted to bite at colorful lures. Know the type of water you intend to fish in and select your lure to suit it accordingly. For murky water, a colorful lure will do just the trick. Natural colored lures would do wonderfully in crystal clear water. For muddy streams, nothing works better than a two tone lure.

Quality is vital when it comes to fishing reels. There are two types of drag systems available for a fly fishing reel. The purpose of having two types of drag system enables you to control the tension when the fish bites, thus keeping the line intact. Different sizes of fish will determine the kind of drag system suitable for it.

You need to purchase a great quality fishing rod by choosing among the various styles and quality. The type of rod will need to suit your favorite type of fishing activity. Quality is vital as you do not want your rod to break while having a good time fishing, especially when a big fish has just taken a bit at your line.

Modern science has helped made fishing rods lighter and stronger by using graphite. Select a rod based on the proper fitting of the cork and the durability of the guide. Guides should be protected from rusting with a layer of anti rust paint.

Prepare the night before your actual fishing day by sorting out your fishing rods, lures and reels. This is to prevent you from missing any part of the equipment during your fishing. Also double check and confirm that all equipments are functional before taking off. For quiet entertainment, get a few enjoyable books along with you.

Being armed with the knowledge of what your target fish likes to eat at which the time of the year, you will be able to score with flying colors with your fishing lures. Careful homework and preparation can give you an unforgettable day of fishing!

For many years I used to refuse to pay more than $25 for a pair of sunglasses. I couldn’t even conceive of why someone would do such a thing. I mean, they’re just sunglasses rightall I figured that all polarized sunglasses were created equal, and just the price and marketing were different. I was terribly wrong and finally figured it out one day while fishing.

I always wore polarized fishing glasses while I fished, but never really understood the reasoning behind them. I could never see that much better like people claimed that they could. So I figured if they didn’t work that well anyway screw it, I’m not investing much money in them. Then one day I was fishing with a good friend who always buys quality everything, including polarized sun glasses. He hooked a nice trout and as he got it within 10 yards of the bank of the river said, “my God, do you see that fish!” I looked and couldn’t see anything but the top of the water. He pulled his glasses off of his face and threw them at me saying, “here, put these on and look!”. I did, and couldn’t believe my eyes! I could now see the monster rainbow trout that he had been fighting. It was amazing! Not so much the fish, but the clarity with which I could see it.

I was so impressed with the glasses, I asked him how much they were because they were so much better than the polarized fishing glasses that I used. He said they were $150, and I about fainted. Then, the next time I went fishing I wore my inexpensive polarized glasses and was so disappointed with them that I threw them away! After seeing how well my friends worked, I couldn’t use the cheap ones any longer. So I broke down and bought a quality pair of polarized sun glasses for $100. I couldn’t bring myself to spend $150, but I spent $100.

And do you know what has happened? That was 7 years ago and I LOVE my polarized fishing glasses. They are incredible and have performed so well, that when I finally do need a new pair, I’m probably going to get the $150 dollar version. I realized that if you amortize the cost of my $100 glasses, they only cost me about $15 a year. That’s less than I was paying for the cheap glasses! This entire experience made me realize that you get what you pay for with polarized fishing glasses. The bottom line is that all polarized fishing glasses are not created equal!

If you go into any fishing tackle shop, you will find a plethora of fly fishing flys. In fact, you might find that the shop has an overwhelming amount of fly fishing flys. It can be hard to know where to even start looking, let alone how to know which flys to buy.

To help you out, here are some basic descriptions of some of the major types of fly fishing flys:

Wet Fly Fishing Flys

The flys are supposed to resemble certain insects as they would look beneath the surface of the water. Fish will bite at wet fly fishing flys, thinking that they are drowned insects, aquatic insects, or larvae swimming to the surface to hatch. When using wet flys, you are not necessarily trying to imitate a particular insect or fish, etc. (whereas you are trying to do so when using dry flies or nymphs). Wet fly fishing flys are supposed to imitate insects in motion… they look like they are swimming to the surface or drowning, etc. You do not need perfect technique to fish with wet flys.

Dry Fly Fishing Flys

These fly fishing flys are meant to resemble an insect floating on the surface of the water (although, some do not imitate insects, but rather frogs, snakes, or mice, etc.) To keep the fly on the surface of the water, many of them need to be oiled with something like Gink. Some flys rely on the surface tension of the water to float.

Nymph Fly Fishing Flys

A nymph resembles an insect living under water. It can also resemble certain larvae. Some nymphs may have added weight to keep it underwater.

Streamer Fly Fishing Flys

These types of flys do not resemble insects. Rather, they look like injured fish. If you are fishing for a predatory fish, a streamer fly is a good choice.

I’m sure you’ve seen them there, when you went to the beach: sunglasses, hat, and shorts wearing barefoot guys with long slender fishing rods staring off to the horizon. I also bet you wondered about what, if anything they ever caught and how they know where and when to fish.

I know I did until I tried my hand at surf fishing, and after a many hours of getting nothing but pruney toes, I finally figured out what surf fishing is all about, and since then, it has become an almost spiritual hobby, being alone on the beach, at first off hours of the day staring off into the sunset, truing to outsmart wily surf fish.

The truth is that when the surf fish are running, they’re almost ridiculously east to catch so long as you understand the basics of surf fishing. Every year, between Christmas and New Years, I head down to the beach with a bucket and a fishing rod, and half fill the bucket with barred surfperch, a staple of Southern California and the coast of Baja California down Mexico way. Barred perch spawn in this time so there are plenty to catch in a couple hours to make up a nice meal for a crew of six or eight.

After mastering the barred perch, I’ve turned my attention to other denizens of the beach, including Corbina, the king of California and Mexico surf fishes, and Spotfin Croaker, one of the finest eating fishes of the surf. I have friends who even target Halibut form the surf and have seen them land 36 inch California Halibut fishing with a fly from the surf. In fact, the Halibut world record holder fly fisherman in two separate line classes fishes regularly form the surf not 5 miles from my home, and it is there that he hooked his record holders.

I have exported my surf fishing knowledge successfully deep down the Mexican Pacific Coast, the Gulf Coast of the US, the Northeast, the Mid Atlantic States, and even in the Far East. I fished along side and Old Japanese man sitting on a beach on the inland sea in Yamaguchi Prefecture on the southern tip of Honshu Island, as he explained to me in excruciating detail exactly how to catch, handle, and hook the appropriate bait.

H was speaking in Japanese of course, as I smiled, nodded and interjected an occasional “ah so.” Actually I do speak some Japanese but it’s limited to ordering food, finding the bathroom, and teasing young girls, so the vast majority of what he was saying was going totally over my head, but I would never have let on that I was only catching about every fourth word.

Ok, so much for my surf fishing exploits, I’m sure you’re wondering, “How DO I catch fish in the surf anywhere in the worldall” Well, I’m glad you asked. The first thing you have to understand is that the fish you are going to catch in the surf know what they’re doing. This is their habitat. These aren’t fish that normally inhabit deeper water but just happened to wander to the water’s edge, these fish are there intentionally. It’s what they do. They’re good at it. The only reason they’re here is that they’re hunting for food. They’ve leaned how to carve out an existence by eating what is on the very beach you are standing on.

I have to laugh when I talk to surf fisherman that I happen across. I was talking to one particularly frustrated guy who was fishing in Malibu and was complaining that the guy who had this spot just before he came was catching lots of perch but he wasn’t having such good luck. I asked him what he was using for bait and he showed me this package of fresh shrimp he’d just bought at the supermarket. Well, trust me, this wasn’t fresh shrimp, it was defrosted, and it sure looked to me like the farmed shrimp from Thailand.

He’s have been far better off taking those shrimp home, sautéing them in some butter, garlic and lemon, and pouring them over some pasta, than wasting his time fishing with them on a California Beach. This was mistake number one.

As I stood there watching and talking with this fisherman, I also noticed another serious gap in his surf fishing knowledge. The tide was receding. A receding tide is the worst time to fish in the surf. Take a moment to think like a fish that lives and hunts in the surf. The tide recedes exposing the beach to the other great predators of the surf line, the birds. The birds scatter about prodding and poking in the sand looking for small creatures to eat.

They unearth clams, sand crabs, worms, and ghost shrimp, whatever they can find to munch on, now that the newly uncovered seabed is exposed, they find a kill all sorts of critters and leave a mess. They dig small holes with their beaks, scratch up the sand with their feet, and do their best to leave no stone unturned.

As the tide starts to come in, each wave goes a little father up onto the beach, chasing the birds away and dragging the newly loosened sand hither and yon. While the sea birds found lots to eat, they certainly didn’t get everything. Many creatures successfully evaded the birds, but their semi secure burrows, nooks and crannies where they hid are now in disarray and the incoming tide breaks them down even further. Many of these creatures now find themselves being washed away by the swirling whitewater of the surf.

The now free creatures are now fair game for the sea-bound predators, the surf fish. The surf fish follow the tide in feasting on the buffet the birds uncovered and the incoming surf is now washing free. This is how the surf fish make their living.

OK, you should have learned two very important principles so far. First, is that surf fish are looking for natural food as they hunt the surf. A piece of cut squid, a deep water denizen, is out of place in the surf line, and while a particularly dumb fish night snap at it because it looks interesting, or a fish frenzied by the spawn might eat it in his spawning stupor, the average, intelligent (since it’s lived this long) surf predator will view it with some suspicion.

When you go to a surf beach, look for local, natural bait. Dig around in the sand at the surf line looking for small shellfish, clams, sand crabs or worms. The best time to do this is at low tide because you’ll have the most amount of undersea surface exposed. You’ll probably chase the birds away as you poke and prod in the sand. In Southern California, the most common beach critter is the sand crab.

These pea-sized shellfish are rather easy to catch with a special rake that allows you to sieve them through a screen that passes the sand but not the crabs. You can also catch them with a bucket and some water, just like you would be panning for gold.

You’ll do so much better using local natural bait than anything else. I know a well off retired man who surf fishes and still hasn’t figured out this fact. He sends off to Maine to buy special worms that cost $7.50 each and has them Fed Ex’ed in to surf fish with and can’t understand why the kids with their home made sand crab rake out fish him. If you’d rather buy bait, find a local bait shop and ask them what works best and what they have for sale. They often do have local baits, usually live to sell to serious surf fishermen.

The second principle is to fish the incoming tide. The surf fish wait for the tide to come in. They know when it comes in and are lined up waiting for it to come in. Experience and a keen nose have taught them that the time to eat is the incoming tide. The absolute best time to surf fish is from halfway between two hours before high tide until the high tide.

This is the only time I fish – those two hours. It comes around twice a day so you should be able to work that into your schedule. While you’re at the bait and tackle store ask them for a tide table. They’re usually free, and if not there are tide calculators on the Internet that will allow you to calculate the tides on any day anywhere in the world.

Here’s a surf fishing secret that I’ll bet you never thought of, but given my stories and explanations above, I’ll bet sounds logical to you. How far out do you think you have to cast to catch fish in the surf? Well, I’m sure you’ve seen guys with 14 foot long rods that they wade into the water waist deep and hurl several hundred yards away from the beach – and I’m sure that there are some kinds of fish that are caught that way, like striped bass along the East Coast.

If you’re targeting surf fish, not deep water species, though, the correct answer is, not very far. I catch the vast majority of my surf fish in ankle deep water – certainly shallower than knee deep. Sometimes along the Pacific coast beaches, I see fish feeding literally with their backs out of the water!

I like to cast just in front of the braking wave – into the white water. This is the home of the surf fish. They’re in close. I retrieve slowly dragging my bait up the beach slope, and if I get a hit, more often than not, it’s in very shallow water, like between ankle and knee deep. Surprised? I was when I first started leaning about surf fish. It’s now my “market’ where I stop by to pick up some fresh fish any time I’m in the mood.

So there’s my secrets: 1) fish with local bait you can collect from the beach yourself at low tide, 2) fish the last two hours of the incoming tide, and 3) fish shallow.