Yes, HATS.  Like what you wear on top of your head when fishing.  Since this is being written on April Fool’s Day, it is easy to think that we are going to take something simple and make it complex.  But this isn’t a joke.  You need to give a lot of thought into a hat for fishing.

Note well that some anglers will select what is called a “cap” which is an easily recognizable style of “hat” but, in the official language of the genre, has an unshaped crown (top, for the rest of us) and a “visor” instead of a “brim.”

THE COLOR OF THE UNDERSIDE OF THE BRIM

One of the first considerations is the color of the underside of the brim/visor.  Say what?  As anyone who has ever fished knows, glare is a fish’s friend and an angler’s nightmare because it makes it harder to see the fish in the water, in addition to the general aggravation and strain glare produces.  To help with the glare, it is nice to have a very dark color for the underside of the brim since the darker color will help absorb some of the glare.  If your favorite hat has a light color under the bream, do not throw that hat away.  Just get a black magic marker and make it dark.  Problem solved.  Just as long as it is a dark color (black comes to mind as the darkest of colors- the complete absence of color, meaning that it is not a color technically, but you get the gist.  This is not the time for a prolonged discussion of the presence or absence of color and/or light). 

THE COLOR OF THE TOP OF THE HAT

Henry Ford once offered his vehicles in any color you wanted, as long as it was black.  Along those lines, any color will do for a fishing hat, as long as it blends in with the background.  There’s an old saying that if you can see the fish, the fish can see you.  Though that may not be correct 100% of the time, it’s pretty close.  You want a hat that doesn’t make you more visible to the fish.  For instance, blaze orange is not a good color for a fishing hat.  But various blues and greens are since they are similar to the sky or trees.  On a cloudy day, certain grays or even tans might be fine.  Just remember, it doesn’t matter what hat you wear fishing.  Any will do.  But if you want to do some catching, think about what hat will help you.  Steve Moore, author of numerous books, including the excellent Hacking Fly Fishing: Keep Your Sanity and Don’t Go Broke, would hasten to add that the same concern for melting into the background applies to you shirt, fishing vest or pack and coat.  Don’t stand out, blend in.

WHAT’S INSIDE THE HAT?

Here we are concerned with weather and time of year.  For instance, if you are going fishing in January, a nice hat with some sort of lining to keep your head warm is more than appropriate.  But if you’re fishing in the middle of a hot summer day, a good sweatband is worth its weight in gold.  Some people like mesh caps  (Trucker’s Hat) where the majority of the hat is mesh that allows the breeze to blow through.  Of course, it also lets the sun shine through.  So, if you are follicly challenged, this is not the best idea and can lead to a sunburned head.  Remember, there is a reason this is called a Trucker’s hat.  Truckers spend most of their time inside the cab driving so sun protection is of little importance.  But having a hat with a brim/visor helps keep the sun out of their eyes.  While that may be true, the name comes from the fact that with plastic mesh, these hats are cheaper to make than cotton hats.  Therefore, feed stores and hardware stores often give them away with the company logo on the front.  The prime consumers tend to be farmers and truckers.

STYLE OF HAT

The basic styles are: baseball hat /cap with a normal or extended brim, a wide-brim hat and a specialty hat such as a Sou’Wester or a Sun Protective hat.  Each has its virtues and failings:

-Baseball cap (crew or Trucker’s) is the most common style of a fishing hat for good reason.  It keeps the sun out of your eyes- you can always move to the extra-long brim like Lefty Kreh often used to make sure the sun is out of your eyes.  If your fishing trip involves a boat ride at anything over idle speed, you can turn it around and wear it backwards so it doesn’t get blown into the water.  Also, if you need to put on a rain jacket with a hood, you can keep the hat on and it actually supports and strengthens the brim of the hood.  But a baseball hat doesn’t keep the sun off your neck or the tops of your ears, two likely places for skin cancers to develop over the years.  And a baseball hat doesn’t protect your neck from getting hit by a fly.  Often, this style comes as a “one size fits most” form with some form of tightening or loosening on the rear of the hat.  This is an advantage for those of us who have hair because the longer the time between haircuts, the larger our cap size becomes.

-Wide-brim hat in either a narrow/small wide brim or large/floppy wide-brim.  These are not quite as common as baseball hats but they are still available, particularly in sunny climates.  They help keep the sun and flies (the angler-type flies) off your neck and the sun off the top of your ears.  Many come with a chin strap so you have a good chance of keeping them on your head when traveling at a high rate of speed in a boat.  They are not as useful under the hood of a rain jacket, however.  Further, they need the help of sunscreen to be doubly sure about the sun on your neck.

-A Sou’Wester hat is not unlike a firefighter’s hat.  It has a very long rear brim, intended to keep red-hot cinders from the fire going down a firefighter’s neck and many have a front brim that turns up to channel any rain to the back.  Since the brim (front and back) is fairly rigid, you would be expected to keep this hat on when it’s raining and not bother with the rain jacket’s hood.

-The Sun Protective hat is a baseball hat with a rear cloth to keep the sun and errant flies off the neck and ears.  It is seldom seen in stores but is readily available on the internet.

OTHER USES FOR A HAT

It doesn’t take long at the old fishing hole or river/stream to realize that some people use their hats for things other than protection.  For instance, some folks put several flies on the brim or body of the hat for a variety of reasons.  The most common secondary use of a hat/cap is as a place to keep the flies they intend to use that day, as well as the flies already used that need to dry off.  This seems so very logical until you try to remove one of the flies and realize the barb keeps catching on the material. In such a case, some realize too late that they should have flattened the barbs on the fly. The hook is very hard to remove and one may have to revert to using a knife to free it for fishing.  There are many reasons one should flatten the barb while fly fishing and this is one of them.  Hats and caps also come in handy for swatting at flies, gnats and other troublesome insects.  Of course, using mosquito netting is even more effective, though it is likely you will find it better to use a wide-brim hat to keep the netting off your skin so the insects can’t simply sit on the netting and poke their mouth (by whatever name) through the hole to drain your blood.

DO YOU HAVE A TROPHY HAT?

Everybody needs a Trophy Hat with pins from various locations visisted/fished or awards, favorite flies or special flies.  Mine has some angler awards from Manitoba, Canada’s superior fishing department, the first fly I tied that caught a fish, flies that I used in Alaska for salmon or the marshes of NC, SC and LA for Redfish and other unique/special flies that remind me of my fishing journey.  I don’t wear that hat (a cap in my case) but it is on display in the fly fishing section of my man cave. 

MY CHOICE

Over the years I have had several fishing hats.  One of my favorites was a navy blue cap with COEGONUS printed in white letters on the front.  Coregonus, of course, is the scientific name of the Whitefish and is the name I have chosen for my boats.  I wore that hat out.  After several other hats, I broke down and bought myself a Tilley hat- with a floppy wide brim and a chin strap that can go under my chin or behind my neck.  A khaki-colored hat, it is not the ideal color but it works.

Tittleys can be pricey, but some of them are covered by a lifetime warranty against normal wear and tear as well as poor construction, faulty materials, and the like.  So far, I am very pleased with after several years of use. 

It’s not the best a with rain jacket but it can be scrunched up under the jacket hood.  If I lost this one, I would get another.  It does what I want a hat to do.

So, good lucking in finding your own fishing hat.