I get asked two questions frequently.
The first one is, “Do you fish?” Yeah, I fish. I started competitive fly casting so that I could catch more fish. Maybe I should make a couple of fishing-related posts.
Once someone realizes that I fish and that I am an optometrist, the second question is, “What sunglass tint do you recommend for fishing?”
In life, we constantly look for silver bullets. Most of us hope that our casting can be transformed by a single fix. The reality is that our casting requires many different modifications and hours of practice. Moreover, one person’s fixes aren’t necessarily the same for another.
So, can a single tint isolate fish from the background to make them easier to see? This is the $400 million dollar question: the approximate spending of fisherpersons on sunglasses in the US in 2024.
As I see it, there are three fundamental challenges to finding the optimal tint.
First, the color of fish is designed to make them harder to see. I can’t tell you how many times, in the process of fighting a trout, I couldn’t see it – even though I knew that it was right there. I don’t do much saltwater fishing, so it might be different for other species.
Second, the perceived color of fish (and the background) in the water depends on a combination of variables. As we fish, these variables continually change.
And third, our ability to see colors changes as we age.
Let’s start with some general physics before we outline the factors that affect the appearance of colors in water.
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