All About Polarized Sunglasses, with Renato Cappuccitti of Bajio

Tom: Hi, and welcome to the Orvis Fly Fishing Podcast. This is your host, Tom Rosenbauer. And my guest this week is an expert on polarized sunglasses. My guest is Renato Cappuccitti from Bajio Sunglasses. And they're the sunglasses I'm currently wearing, [00:00:30.715] prescription, progressive polarized sunglasses. And I get a lot of questions about sunglasses, about polarized sunglasses. I think there's a lot of misconceptions out there, and I don't think most of us really understand how they work and what colors are best and whether glass or plastic lenses are better. And so, I wanted to get an expert on the podcast to talk about the [00:01:00.460] technical aspects of polarized sunglasses.
They are probably one of the most important pieces of tackle for some types of fishing, particularly where you're sight fishing for things like bonefish or carp or even trout. They're important, and they're not inexpensive, so you need to really make a wise decision when picking a pair of polarized sunglasses. I hope that this podcast [00:01:30.629] will help you decide what kind of polarized sunglasses you need for your fishing.
Before we get into the fly box, a couple things I'm excited about product-wise. I recently went trout fishing to a wild trout fishery that is extremely pressured and has a lot of large trout that are incredibly spooky and sophisticated, [00:02:00.480] as sophisticated as a trout will get. And I really fell in love with the Helios 904F. I've been using a 5-weight a lot lately, but this was pretty low water and the fish were quite spooky, and I wanted to use a lighter rod. And I took the Helios 904F with me, and I have been a big fan of the 904F [00:02:30.544] in the Helios series for dry fly fishing for a long time. And this rod is truly better than my Helios 3.
I made some casts that I couldn't believe I made them, and I'm not a great fly caster. I am an okay fly caster. I'm no Shawn Combs, I'm no Pete Kutzer. Both of those guys, Pete are one of our casting instructors and Shawn, our rod designer, are much better casters [00:03:00.467] than I am, honestly. But I made some casts that made me feel like a hero and was fishing 6X long, 6X tippets, and boy, this rod really delivered, whether it was windy or calm. It really made the experience a lot more enjoyable for me.
Along with that, something that I haven't used for dry flies before, I seldom used fluorocarbon tippet [00:03:30.284] for dry flies. I use it for Nymph fishing and streamer fishing in salt water. But there is a relatively new fluorocarbon out from Scientific Anglers called Absolute Fluorocarbon Supreme. And I was fishing with Shawn Combs and he suggested that I try this fluorocarbon tippet. Now I know it's really, really strong. It is by far the strongest tippet per diameter that I have ever used. [00:04:00.387] It really, really works. I used it the whole time, long, probably a 4 foot 6X tippet with this stuff. I don't believe I broke a fish off and some of these fish were pretty decent sized. We didn't get any monsters, but pretty decent size on 6X. They're spunky fish, they're wild fish, and I needed 6X.
Never broke a fish off [00:04:30.338] and it just really, really performed well. The knot strength in this stuff is incredible. Now it's $30 bucks a spool. That's a lot of money for a tippet material. However, I think that your tippet material is one of the most important choices that you make when you're fishing. It's the connection between the rest of your leader and your fly. It's a co-filament where it has a softer [00:05:00.525] outer fluorocarbon and then it's 100% fluorocarbon, but there's a type of fluorocarbon that's on the outside that's softer that helps your knots stay secure and then an inner core of a really, really strong filament. I love this stuff. I know I get this stuff for free, but if I didn't, I would pay $30 bucks a spool for this tippet material because I think it's worth it. [00:05:30.496]
Try it out. It's on the Orvis website or you can get it from anybody that sells Scientific Anglers, But you want the Fluorocarbon Supreme, the $30 stuff. It's a game changer in my opinion, even with dry flies. Let's do the fly box. The fly box is where you ask me questions and I try to answer them. You can send me a question [00:06:00.478] at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. You can either just type your question in your email or you can attach a voice file. By the way, I only had one decent voice file message, so I haven't had too many of those lately that I could or would answer. So, if you'd like to put your question in a voice file, that would be appreciated. [00:06:30.584]
Here's an example of the kind of question that I can't or won't answer on the podcast. I've gotten a lot of these recently because people are planning fishing trips. Here's the question. My wife and I are planning a trip to New Zealand and Australia this mid-October through early November. We would like to fly fish while in New Zealand. This is our first trip to this area and we are beginner to intermediate skill level. Would you recommend the [00:07:00.522] North or South Island? I see Orvis has guides and lodges on both. Also would you recommend fishing the beginning, third week in October of our trip or the end, first and second week of November of our trip?
First of all, I've never been to New Zealand, so I can't really help anyone there. I fish a lot, but I don't fish all the places that people want to go fishing. If you have a question about [00:07:30.461] going to a particular area, the time of year, the flies, the rods, whatever, there are much better sources than me. In this case, the people at Orvis Travel who plan and book these trips, they know all about them and they know what time is best. They know what flies to use. They know what gear to use. I'm not the expert in this situation. If you're going to someplace with an outfitter or a guide, [00:08:00.504] check with them. They're going to know a lot better than me what kind of stuff you need and how to plan your trip. I'm not a trip planner. I do host some trips, and those trips I know about. Other than that, you're much better off going directly to the source of wherever you've booked these trips. If you don't have a guide or you're not fishing with an outfitter, you should be able to find a fly shop in the area that will be able to give you a lot better information than me. [00:08:30.503] If you ask me a question like that, that's why I didn't answer your question.
All right, let's get to some questions that I can answer. First one is an email from Gus from Dover, Mass. I picked up a copy of your "Leaders, Knots, and Tippets" book, which is enormously helpful for understanding leader construction and materials. I was intrigued by the section on braided butt leaders. I remembered I had a few back in the 90s and searched [00:09:00.459] through my tackle for them. I found two both in the original Orvis packaging, one 6-foot of braid for a 9-foot leader and one 8-foot of braid for a 12-foot leader. As I remember, these also came with tippets that could be attached to the braided loop to loop, but those were lost to the ages, probably wouldn't have worked anyway since they'd be about 30 years old. I'd like to work these braided leaders back into rotation, but I have a few questions first.
[00:09:30.159] One, the packaging says the leaders are for six to seven-weight lines. I most frequently fish with a five-weight. Any reason they won't work with a five weight line? Two, for the tippet section, can I use a level tippet, say 3-foot of 4X on the end of the 6-foot braid, for example, or should I build a knotted leader tippet section? Number three, your leaders book extols the virtues of braided butt leaders, but they don't seem to be available for purchase at Orvis or anywhere else. Any reason you can think of [00:10:00.661] that they've fallen out of commercial favor?
So Gus, those are or were great leaders. They're not sold anymore because the person who made these braided butt leaders has retired and we don't have a source for them. They didn't sell extremely well anyway, but if you can find any, they're great leaders. The advantages of these leaders are that [00:10:30.548] they're very supple. They're much more supple butt section than a solid monofilament. So, drag reduction is greatly aided with these and they will also straighten a very, very long tippet. So your question, can you use three feet of 4X on the end of the 6-foot braid? You can. I would put three feet or even four feet or five feet on there and see how well it casts. [00:11:00.551] You may have to cut that back a little bit, but they will deliver a long tippet.
And honestly, I usually step down when I use these braided butt leaders. I usually find going and I usually use them with a lighter tippet. So let's say I'm going with a 5X tippet or 6X tippet. I usually put a section of 3X, then 4X, then 5X short sections [00:11:30.354] like 6 inches, onto there. I think that helps the transition a little bit. But they will straighten a long tippet at the end. And so you're lucky you have some people may be able to find them on eBay or something. But as far as I know, they're not available anywhere. Orvis was the only one that made them at the time. And I think that they have unfortunately been relegated to history, [00:12:00.587] but perhaps we can find a new source for them and bring them back. They're great leaders.
Here's an email from Robert. I live in New Hampshire and I have a really small brook in the woods near my house that comes out of a beaver pond. It holds native brookies and no one fishes it. It's only maybe six feet wide, maybe two or three feet deep in spots. I've only caught small fish. No bigger than five inches. Do you think there could be bigger fish or do you think it's full of small fish? Do you have any tips? Thank you. And if I don't catch [00:12:30.407] bigger fish, it's okay because it's still fun and I will continue catching and release. Thank you.
Robert, some streams don't support brook trout bigger than five or six inches. It depends on the food supply. Brook trout can reproduce, I think, at four or five inches long. So that may be as big as they get. However, the beaver pond might have some bigger fish that may drop down into that brook. Generally, beaver pond, [00:13:00.496] slower water and a little bit better food supply, you might find a little bit bigger brookies. But it's quite possible that there are fish no bigger than six inches in this stream. If you want to try to catch the big ones, the best thing I can recommend is to fish it right toward dark with a dry fly. And sometimes those bigger brookies will not come out until the sun goes off the water. But you might try a small stream or two, [00:13:30.521] maybe a little size 12 brightly colored stream or like a Mickey Finn. You may find bigger fish. In general, they may be just only small fish and they're still fun, as you well know.
Here's one from John in Washington, D.C. I was fishing the Sulphur Hatch on a tailwater here in Maryland recently and was doing okay for the first hour or so until it started to rain lightly around noon. The bug activity decreased [00:14:00.462] but did not stop altogether. But the trout did completely stop rising. It rained on and off, sometimes a drizzle and sometimes harder for the next few hours. I tried moving locations, changing to a black wooly bugger and finally went back to a larger Sulphur with a dropper, all with no more rising fish and no luck. I've always heard and said that a little rain is good for fishing, but I was stumped this time. What do you think was going on? What would you have done? And finally, any advice for avoiding wind knots and tangles [00:14:30.697] when fishing a dropper rig? I tend to spend more time tying, retying and untangling my dropper rigs than I do fishing with them, which definitely contributes to my lack of success when the hatch tapers off.
So, John, first of all, I'm perplexed too, because, generally, if you have a hatch that's starting and it starts to rain, the fish will will turn off for a few minutes because, you know, they're a little bit disturbed by the rain. [00:15:00.437] But once the rain, you know, is kind of steady, the fish will get back into feeding. And often I found that Sulphurs will hatch really heavily in rain and the fish will continue to feed after after a few minutes of pause. So I don't know what was going on there. Typically, it would have made better fishing, and obviously it didn't. So I'm not really sure. I think I would have done what you had done and [00:15:30.553] tried a black woolly bugger and a dry dropper. So I'm perplexed and and don't know why. But the next time that happens, I'd keep fishing because it's probably going to be better as the rain continues.
Regarding your wind knots, there is no such thing as a wind knot. It's a casting knot. Sorry, it's a casting knot. So, you need to work on your casting a little bit [00:16:00.282] because you were you're throwing a tailing loop and it's harder with a dry dropper because you've got a heavily weighted object and a wind resistant object on the end of your cast. And the best thing to do is, first of all, fly cast very little, fly cast as little as possible with a dry dropper rig, even water load maybe and not even cast if you can, if you keep the dry fly floating. [00:16:30.882]
The other thing is to open up your casting arc just a bit. You don't want a tight loop when you're casting a dry dropper or any multiple fly rig. You want to open up your casting arc a little bit and throw a wider loop. And if you don't know how to do that, watch a video on... There's lots of videos on how to cast a tight loop versus a wider loop. But you do want a wide loop. Eliminate your false casting [00:17:00.265] if possible. And you should be able to lessen the chances of a casting knot or a wind knot. It's going to happen, but I think a little tune up with your casting will help there.
Here's an email from Brian. Well, my girlfriend is in natural casting. She struggles with holding the rod and stripping with the other hand. When she hooks fish, she tries to tenkara-style them out of the water. Do you have any tips for improving your coordination? [00:17:30.697] Well, Brian, you know, just like anything else, just like casting or tying knots is muscle memory. And what I would do is just have her do some drills at home. Make a cast and then immediately hook that line on the finger of your casting hand. So you make a cast, you take your line hand or the non casting hand and you immediately hook that line on the finger of your casting hand. So you take you make a cast, you take your line [00:18:00.372] hand or the non-casting hand and you immediately move that line over to generally your index finger. And then she will have it there when she needs to strip in a fish.
Pete Kutzer likes to refer to it as closing the bail. When you cast a spinning rod, you know, you immediately close the bail. This is the same thing. You take the line from your line hand and you hook it on a finger. [00:18:30.414] But I think just a little practice at home before she goes fishing to develop that muscle memory will help. There's an email from Ian from North Yorkshire in the United Kingdom. Two questions really. Firstly, furled leaders. I've seen quite a lot of furled leaders for sale and just wondering what are their pros and cons? I've read that they don't have any memory so you don't need to stretch them out before fishing.
Second, my floating line pretty much brand new no tears [00:19:00.408] are ripped, starts to sink after a while. Should I be treating it with some gel floating? Those are good questions, Ian. First of all, furled leaders are similar to braided leaders, but they're different. Furled leaders are solid and they are made from the same diameter monofilament and they are they're furled over each other, whereas a braided leader has a hollow core and [00:19:30.706] they use very, very tiny filaments, much tinier than in a furled leader. Both of these leaders don't have any memory, so that's an advantage. They also help reduce drag because they're more supple than a solid monofilament leader.
Both of them will throw a lot of spray. So one of the things you want to do with either a furled or a braided leader is to put some [00:20:00.318] gel paste floating on the braid or on the furled leader so that it doesn't throw as much spray. All leaders will throw spray. These throw a little bit more spray when you're false casting, so they're a little bit more of a problem. So you want to false cast off to the side so you don't throw some water spray over a feeding fish.
Furled leaders are a little bit bigger in diameter than a braided leader. I don't care for them [00:20:30.353] very much. They cast nicely and they will straighten a long tippet. I find that they're a little bit larger in diameter, a little more opaque than a standard solid monofilament leader. And also if you do hook onto a snag and you have to break your tippet, let's say you're high up in a tree and you can't get it back, you'll notice that if you break the fly off, [00:21:00.514] the leader will come back to you in a big ball. Sometimes very, very difficult to untangle. So they're okay. I personally don't use them. I almost 90% of the time, 95% of the time use a solid monofilament leader. But, you know, they work. And if you like them, use them.
Regarding your floating line, you're probably fishing in an area that has a lot of algae in the water or [00:21:30.679] maybe you get a little mud from the bank. And often the tip of your floating line will start to sink because it's got some debris on it or dirt on it. Sometimes just cleaning it if you're on the river, you can run it through your shirt to clean it off or a towel or handkerchief. That'll generally do the trick. When you get home, you can soak it in some [00:22:00.533] dishwashing liquid and warm water and then clean it off. Again, run it through a paper towel or a cloth or something to clean it off. And yeah, you can use a little gel floating on the tip of it or some line dressing just on the tip of the line. Generally, that works okay for a while, but then the sticky gel will also pick up debris. So generally cleaning them is better, but if it continues to sink, then [00:22:30.473] put a little gel floating on it. It won't hurt the line and may help you out.
Here's one from Sean. As a rural home health physical therapist, I really enjoy listening to your podcast to pass the time during my drives between patients. I wanted to write in about the podcast a month or so ago with Scott Ducharme regarding balance when waiting. It was nice to listen to him nerd out about two of the things I spend most of my time thinking about, fly fishing [00:23:00.611] and people's balance. I was a bit disheartened that Scott didn't mention my profession at all when you asked how people can improve their balance. Physical therapists are the movement experts. We are doctoral educated professionals who spend every day putting the type of research Scott does into clinical practice.
I would suggest to anyone who notes a problem with muscular strength, walking or balance to seek out a local physical therapist to help them. The therapist can properly diagnose [00:23:30.298] their movement issues, implement a clinically appropriate treatment plan to address their movement issues and give them a home exercise and maintenance plan to maintain their health moving forward. Thanks for the excellent podcast with varied subject matter. It helps keep my mind active during my endless hours on the road.
Well, thank you, Sean. That's a great tip and we should have mentioned it. Definitely, you know, I think Scott was probably [00:24:00.379] more aiming at people with just mild balance issues that can be helped with a few exercises at home. But if you do have serious balance issues or walking issues and you want to keep waiting trout streams, then yeah, I would I would urge people to also seek out a physical therapist. Because, you know, when we don't know an area and we go fishing, we seek out a professional and a fishing guide. And if we got problems with our balance, then we should also seek out a professional. [00:24:30.726]
There's an email from Yosu. My five weight line broke eight feet from the end of the line. Should I replace it or can I just add monofilament loop at the end of what's left? So, Yosu, yeah, that's always a problem. There's no way a broken fly line can be repaired. So you have the option of putting a monofilament loop on the end of what's left. This is going to make that [00:25:00.446] line be a really front-loaded line and it'll probably be okay for things like streamers or maybe nymphs with a big indicator. But if you're going to try to get some delicacy with dry fly fishing, it's probably going to land kind of hard and it's not going to cast that well. So I'd keep the line and maybe use it for bigger stuff, more air-resistant stuff. But for the most part, if you break a fly line, you really need to replace it. [00:25:30.876] There's not much not much you can do.
Here's one from Clark from Vermont. Semi-desperately need leader therapy. Why do I carry so many leaders? The leader wallet has room for 12. Yes, 12 leaders. And I seem to think I must have leaders in each packet. I even label the pockets in the wallet with length and tippet size, which I then ignore when changing leaders out. Let me know your thoughts on how many leaders you carry and what kind of system you employ. [00:26:00.362] A good idea to have a fistful of leaders handy. I really like to think I could carry only a few and then adjust by changing butt sections and lengthening tippets. Leaders seem to expand to fill the vacuum in my leader wallet.
And yes, alas, more wading reflections. Decades ago, while wading a big river, I noticed a person approaching me from upriver. I thought that bit of river to be sort of deep to wade. The angler's right arm would repeatedly reach out as if doing a side stroke. [00:26:30.488] The angled right at me, bobbing along with determination. Then an object appeared between the angler and I. A fly box. Good size one, too. Ah, the object of their floating quest. I extended my rod and corralled the box, sending it my way. The angler floated over my way, too, finally finding the river bottom with their feet. Looking exhausted, but pleased, the angler thanked me profusely. I helped the wet soul to the bank. The waders got drained. The angler recovered. [00:27:00.216] We laughed and chuckled. I was then awarded with a dozen nice flies.
I've always thought, though, that this mishap could have been ended quite differently and tragically. Falls and slips for me usually begin with some of these thoughts. Oh, no, I'm going to break my rod. Or, oh, now I'm going to get water in my camera or phone. Oh, no, I'm going to lose that fish or lose a fly box. These instant thoughts have as much, in my opinion, to do with how we react to wading mishaps [00:27:30.776] as do balance issues. Lack of a wading staff, yeah, the topic again and poor wading choices like being too aggressive about what water to wade. It's an instinct to try to protect and save valuable equipment. One arm shoots out to grab one of the above in trying to recover balance.
To prevent this, I suggest the following. Carry a waterproof camera and a phone in a plastic bag or waterproof case, which is on a lanyard. Remind myself it's only a fish and [00:28:00.535] make your own rods. I shudder to think what I'd do to protect a $1,000+ rod. Remember some too, that some lucky angler will inherit a fly box. The podcast sessions on wading have been really good, but I think the above comments weren't consideration. Folks do crazy things for valuable tackle. Thanks for being our angling shepherd.
So, Clark, regarding your question, yeah, I have a leader wallet too and I have way too many leaders in it. [00:28:30.331] I do carry a braided leader with me for delicate dry fly situations where I want to avoid drag. I also generally carry a six or seven-and-a-half-foot leader for small streams, nine footers for bigger rivers or the water might be dirty and then 12-foot leaders, which is my go to for most fishing except for smaller rivers. And then if I need a longer leader, I'm going to extend the butt section on [00:29:00.078] my 12-foot leader with a piece of heavy monofilament.
But I think that, you know, if you're fishing varied waters and you don't want to change leader wallets, you know, I'll carry an extra like 12-foot 5X and then a seven-and-a-half foot 4X and a 9-foot 4X or 5X. And then modify those as needed during a day of fishing. But it's always good to have a spare too [00:29:30.572] because you never know when something might happen to your leader. It might get caught on a rock. So, it's a good idea to have a spare of the leader you're going to use for the day. So I would say, you know, two of each of those maybe, they come in two packs anyway. So two of each of those should get your buy for months and months because you can modify the leader, and the length, and the tippet size a little bit. [00:30:00.627] But going from, say, a seven-and-a-half for a 12-foot leader, I definitely change leaders out. So I hope that answers your question.
Regarding your wading reflections. Yeah, that's a good point. You know, if I fall, I generally just throw my rod. I know that rods to me are a lot less expensive than you people. But still, I would rather [00:30:30.632] throw my rod and catch myself and not hit my head on a rock or go swimming. And, you know, generally you got a floating line on there and you can generally find the rod downstream somewhere with that long floating line trailing from it. So and yeah, carrying your phone and even your camera in a waterproof bag is a good idea. And then you don't worry so much about things. My greatest fear, actually, [00:31:00.463] is having one of my fly boxes open and stumbling or falling and losing all my flies with an open box.
But luckily, it's never happened to me. But I'm always careful when I open up a fly box and it's not windy and that I'm standing in a stable place before I take them out of my fishing pack. And I do use a waterproof sling bag as well. So, you know, I don't worry too much about getting my flies wet [00:31:30.584] because they're inside a waterproof bag.
Here's an email from Ernie. Thanks for answering my questions in the previous email. I understand you can't answer all my questions. On a recent podcast, someone asked about using UV light to cure UV adhesives. My company makes medical devices that use UV curing adhesives. Several things needed to be considered when curing the adhesive. Light intensity, the distance the light source is from the adhesive, [00:32:00.717] the time it is cured and the frequency of the UV light. Two different adhesives may require two different but similar frequencies. One of our adhesives needs both UV light and the moisture from the air to completely cure.
Since we're using industrial-based adhesives, we can get this information from the adhesive vendor and we have equipment to measure the UV intensity. Since these are medical devices that go into people's bodies, we also do extensive testing [00:32:30.509] to prove the adhesives are cured correctly and that the bonds meet the requirements. I'm not a fly tire. Do the adhesives say what frequency and intensity to use? Do the UV sources give the frequency and intensity? If you do not have this information, some experimentation is needed. I suggest wrapping thread around an empty hook or paper clip and cure with different times and distances and try cutting the thread off the hook to learn what works best. [00:33:00.421] Generally, more is better.
Well, thank you, Ernie. That's good advice. And I do not believe that the UV cure adhesives give a recommended time, or intensity, or distance. So generally, you can get a UV light from the same vendor that provides the UV cure adhesive. And so you're going to be sure that that's the right frequency. But not always. [00:33:30.258] Sometimes you have one UV light and you buy different UV cures. So, I think you're spot on to test it. I have done that myself, testing things like head cements, different kinds of head cements and different UV cure epoxies on a long hook and then testing them. So I would advise people to do that. Test it at home to make sure that you're doing it right.
Here's an email from Jim in Atlanta. [00:34:00.661] I just had a chance to listen to your podcast with Shawn Combs on how the new Helios rods were developed. I was particularly interested when Shawn described how the 8-foot-6-inch-7-weight rod is significantly different from the 9-foot-7-weight, not just in length. Each rod being designed for a somewhat different purpose. I was wondering what the Orvis design team had in mind when they developed the 9-foot-5-inch D 5-weight. Since there is a 9-foot D and a 10-foot D in 5-weight, [00:34:30.153] it must have something specific and I would love to know what it is. Thanks as always.
Well, Jim, it's kind of a question of splitting hairs of 5-weight rods are the most popular rods in the world, really. And, you know, 9-foot 5-inch rod is a little bit longer, gives you a little bit more reach, a little bit more better ability to mend, a little bit better roll casting than a 9-foot rod. [00:35:00.423] Ten foot rods give you even more of that. But as you go up in in length, you sacrifice a tiny bit in accuracy just because you've got a longer rod that may not... A longer rod that may have just a little bit more vibration than a shorter rod. So, it's really a question of splitting hairs. It's kind of a happy medium, I think, between a 9-footer and a 10-footer. [00:35:30.334] I love that 9-foot 5-inch rod for bigger rivers. I use it a lot. And again, it's it's it's really splitting hairs, but there are people who have the need for a little bit longer rod than a 9-footer, but they don't want to go to a 10- footer. So that 5 inches does make a little bit of a difference, but not a ton.
Here's an email from Brad. I was recently the lucky recipient of a bamboo fly rod for my 40th birthday. [00:36:00.583] It was a special combined gift from both my wife and mother, and I want to make sure I take the proper precautions to make it last. I've read about bamboo rods taking a set and wanted to avoid this if possible. Is it advisable to flip the rod occasionally while playing a fish to net to avoid this? Also, I read that it is not advisable to lift a bamboo rod behind your head to land a fish in a river to avoid undue stress [00:36:30.588] on the delicate tip. Thank you for consideration of my question. Your podcast continues to be a valuable resource on my fly fishing journey.
So, Brad, yeah, I think that's a good idea. I mean, bamboo rods are pretty strong because they're a solid material, but they can occasionally take a set, which is just a little bit of a a kink or a curve in the rod. And, you know, playing it on both sides [00:37:00.535] will probably help to eliminate that stress. Also, things like, you know, casting a big indicator and heavy split chest, probably not the best idea in bamboo rods. I know there's going to be bamboo rod people that say, oh, it's fine. I do it all the time. But personally, I don't use really heavy stuff on my bamboo rod. Lifting it behind your head, as long as you keep your arm relatively straight and don't put an extreme bend in that rod, I think it's okay. [00:37:30.007]
The good news is that if you know someone who makes or repairs bamboo rods, it's quite easy to take the set out of a rod. I had a Orvis bamboo rod that was a prototype that took a set and I took it into our bamboo rod designer or bamboo rod maker Sean Brillon. And he was able to take the set out using just a tiny bit of heat quite quickly and easily. So we can do [00:38:00.264] that for if anybody has a Orvis bamboo rod that has taken a slight set, we can take that out for you if you send it into our rod repair. We don't do it for non-Orvis rods, so you'd have to find someone who makes bamboo rods or sells bamboo rods to take that set out for you.
Here's an email from Zach. I have a question about fishing brook trout in high water. I regularly fish a river that is split into two distinct sections divided by a large waterfall. [00:38:30.929] Below the falls, there are browns and rainbows and above the falls are only brook trout. We've had lots of rain lately and the river has been pretty high and dirty. I fished the lower section and had pretty good success fishing streamers. The next day I went up to the brook trout section where the fish are much smaller and got skunked. Just curious if brook trout or smaller trout in general are typically more affected by these water conditions. Any strategy suggestions or am I better off waiting until levels drop? Thanks. [00:39:00.351]
So, Zach, there's a couple things going on here. One is that smaller fish are a little bit more affected by high water and they may have to move into even more protected areas because they just don't have enough mass to enable them to withstand the current. So they may be tucked into really tough places to get a fly. The other consideration is that in brook trout waters, there are often not a lot of baitfish or no baitfish. Brook trout are the only fish that can survive [00:39:30.748] in some of these high altitude streams. There's no dace, there's no sculpins.
And so fishing a streamer does not make a lot of sense, although larger brook trout will take a small streamer. So, something small like a size 10 or a 12 streamer might work on those brook trout, but not the bigger flies that you probably use for browns and rainbows, just because brook trout aren't used to feeding [00:40:00.505] on bigger food items. Probably the best thing to do is wait until the water drops, but it is tougher. I've noticed that myself that fishing for brook trout in high water is quite a bit tougher than fishing for browns and rainbows. And finally, we have one phone call. Only one phone call this week, only one that I wanted to use. This one's from John from Ontario. [00:40:30.582]
John: Hi, Tom. My name is John. I'm from Thunder Bay, Ontario, and I have a few questions for you regarding sunglasses. I'm currently wearing some medium priced polarized sunglasses, but they're plastic lenses. I was thinking of switching to something that had a glass lens, and I'm just curious on if you have experience or have heard of anyone [00:41:00.551] shattering glass lenses. Something of, you know, Costa or that kind of style. Also, what's your take on the best all around color of lens? I fish a lot of rivers, mostly. Pretty often they're kind of like tannin stained, so they will get a bit of a red hue. But just wanted your advice on what I should be looking for. Thanks, Tom. Thanks for all you do. [00:41:30.195] Appreciate you answering the question. Hope to hear on the podcast soon.
Tom: So, John, happy surprise. We've got a podcast just for you, and all your questions will be answered by listening to my interview with Renato, which is coming up right now. Well, my guest today is Renato Cappuccitti, and Renato is a product specialist [00:42:00.611] with Bajio Sunglasses. What's your exact title, Renato?
Renato: So, my title is VP of Optical and Rx. So I really specifically focus on the optical channel, which is retailers that are eye doctors, are optical helpers, as well as prescription services. And I'm also in charge of our lens development for the company. And prior to that, I was VP of Operations in setting up our production [00:42:30.665] facility for making glasses here in Florida.
Tom: And I am currently wearing a pair of your prescription sunglasses, Progressives, and I love them. I've never had progressive polarized prescription sunglasses, and I was unsure how well they would work, but I'm telling you they work great. So very happy.
Renato: It's good to hear, Tom. I think just for the sake of your listeners, a progressive lens, [00:43:00.675] I hear it all the time that people think it's those lenses that change color, which are actually called transitions. But a progressive lens is a lens for people like those of us who are over the age of 40 that need a little help seeing up close. It's a prescription lens that has a little bit of distance prescription and up close prescription. So I'm glad you enjoy them because they've been specifically designed for the angler. They help you see more of a distance and less of up close because you're not reading a newspaper. You're just tying flies and doing small tasks. [00:43:30.304]
Tom: Yeah, I can actually tie on a fly or change my tippet without taking my sunglasses off, which is not something I could do before. So really nice.
Renato: Yeah, good to know. That's excellent. Good for you.
Tom: And we're going to talk...
Renato: And thanks for everything. I appreciate it.
Tom: Sure. We're going to talk about polarized sunglasses today because I think it's one of the most important pieces of tackle someone can have. I think they're really misunderstood exactly how they work, how the colors work, how the various coatings work. [00:44:00.702] So we're going to talk about polarized sunglasses and how people can know a little bit more before they buy them because it's not an inexpensive purchase. A good pair is going to cost you anywhere from what's the price range now for non-prescription?
Renato: You know, interesting you say that. So, polarized sunglasses can go all the way [00:44:30.557] from what we call our rack glasses. You know, when you go into a department store and you see things that are on a rack that you can help yourself and they can be just like dollars. You can get very inexpensive polarized sunglasses. All the way into the hundreds of dollars for polarized sunglasses. And there really is a difference with all of them. It's not just the lenses, but also the frames that hold the lenses. But usually the better the lens, the better the frame so that you're getting that product that really can withstand the day-to-day use and the situations that you're using them in. [00:45:00.791]
So, I guess one thing I'll just mention is when you use the word polarized, it's really talking about how light behaves. I know that you've got certain questions, but I like to sort of talk a little bit about what it means, if you will.
Tom: Yes, please.
Renato: Okay, so light really vibrates. It's like waves. If you throw a pebble into a pond, [00:45:30.400] the vibrations are a lot closer together or have more energy close to the pebble when it drops in the water, and then it moves and it slows down. And light's like that. And light has all these wavelengths. And these wavelengths move in vertical and horizontal directions. So it's vibrating the whole time.
And the way a polarized lens is made, I like to use very simple analogies and say it's like making a bologna sandwich. And you get two slices of bread, which are two pieces of lens material that make up [00:46:00.387] the lens itself. And in between, you've got a polarized film. And this is the only time when a lens is not just one piece of plastic. A polarized lens means there's a polarized film inside that lens. A polarized film is a very, very thin piece of film. Imagine like a piece of ceramic [SP]. And what happens is it's made up of a lot of crystals and this film is stretched six times to [00:46:30.512] its normal form that it was originally made in.
And when they are stretching it, these crystals start to drop and along in a horizontal manner. And the reason that that is done is we want to block horizontal light, we don't want to block vertical light. And the reason we're blocking horizontal light is because when you're looking at the water which is on a horizontal plane, anything where it taps off a horizontal plane what we want to do is [00:47:00.124] absorb that reflection and almost make it disappear. And it's almost like a magic trick. When you put on a polarized lens and you're looking at the water and all of a sudden you can see in the water versus seeing this white reflection of the sun. And instead of having it behave like a mirror, all of a sudden, now you can see the rocks, structures below the surface of the water, fish moving in the water.
And that's one part to a polarized lens, but [00:47:30.400] the more elaborate the lens has become, the more functionality that you get out of them. You I can say as far as lenses you get for entry level, they block horizontal reflections. But they might not all do the same job in the specific situation that you're using them for, for seeing certain fish and certain light conditions and certain environments. And that's when you got to get really technical with the lenses. And there's a handful of people that do [00:48:00.353] that very well.
Tom: And so let's go into more of what you get between a pair of drugstore polarized lenses, or polarized sunglasses, and a high end pair that we would want to wear for fishing.
Renato: Yeah, I like that you said drugstore. It reminds me when we used to always shop at the drugstore when I was a kid. So, basically, lenses can also come in different thicknesses. [00:48:30.343] And the less expensive tech products, they're really thin lenses and lens materials that are bent from a flat shape. And when you're bending a material, you're naturally inducing distortion from an optical standpoint.
Tom: Okay.
Renato: So, what you might find is that these mass-produced bent-type lenses that are thin, not only do you induce optics from [00:49:00.541] the bending, but also the curve of the frame might not match the curve of the lens after it's been bent. And when the lens is put into the frame, it's now being forced to bend a little bit more according to the shape of the frame. And that additional bending and the stress points on it can induce additional optic imperfections. Which just for standard walking around and you're just out with your friends and just wearing them for a couple hours or so, you just say, they're just great. [00:49:30.929] They just block the sun and remove the glare and I'm seeing just fine.
But when you wear them for hours, that's when your eye starts to pick up these imperfections and might start to feel strained, eye strain. So there's one element there that starts to make the difference from to the other extreme where lenses are made of glass or they're made of nylon lens material or polycarbonate lens material. And some of these materials are used and some of these can be very technical. [00:50:00.598] They call their shape better and they can ensure optical quality all the way through.
And a lot of times there you'll find manufacturers that when they change the curve of the frame, they use a lens that was designed to exactly match the curve of that specific frame. So they'll have a lens for every frame curve that they offer to ensure consistent and uniform quality all the way through their entire lineup.
Tom: Interesting. [00:50:30.636]
Renato: Yeah, so you've ever worn sunglasses at some point in your life and you've been sitting there and saying, I've been under the water for hours, but boy do my eyes feel tired. And that's your eye working to try to resolve the imperfections in optics.
Tom: Okay.
Renato: So, and that's just eye strain. That's all it is, it's a simple word, it's eye strain, and it's your eye trying to make things right.
Tom: Well, I would assume that you lose some resolution too, right? [00:51:00.440] You don't see as well if the lenses are being bent in an improper way.
Renato: Correct. So it's like if you've ever had just your first prescription glasses and the doctor might just say, you know, it's just a minor prescription, you could do without it. You could just use it for driving at night. And that little bit of a prescription when people put it on and say, wow, it makes such a difference, especially when I have to look down the road. And the same thing for... Most people don't invest in prescription sunglasses when they have a minor prescription. [00:51:30.329] It's a game changer, right? It's like what it does at night does the same thing when you're out on the water and saying, you know, you don't want to be squinting when you've got sunglasses on because that's what the sunglasses is to prevent, squinting from the brightness. But you're squinting because you simply can't see clarity as well as you need to. And then...
Tom: It's interesting you say that because I was hosting a trip in the Bahamas just last week, and there was a gentleman there who had a pair of polarized sunglasses. [00:52:00.601] He needed a mild prescription, and he didn't have it. He just had non-prescription polarized sunglasses and, you know, spotting bonefish, trying to spot bonefish before the guide is a game we all play. And he was having trouble and he said, boy, the first thing I do when I get home is to buy myself a pair of prescription polarized sunglasses. He said my shooting glasses are prescription, but they're not polarized? And he said, that's [00:52:30.694] the first thing I'm going to do when I get home is get a pair of prescription polarized glasses.
Renato: I totally get it. I feel bad for him because he didn't experience what you experienced. And I think even in that situation, you can say, wow, the price of the prescription, you know, higher end sunglasses can be quite a bit for someone who's never bought them, but it's a fraction of all the gear and, you know, the investment in taking a trip like that. So now you look at it and say, it's actually a small fraction [00:53:00.574] at that point and saying just to make the trip so much more of a better experience absolutely necessary.
Tom: It's a game changer for sure.
Renato: Yes. Yes, for sure. So Bahamas, nice tri.
Tom: Yeah. And by the way, I never, I couldn't see any bonefish before the guide, but that was no fault of my sunglasses.
Renato: Maybe the guide had on the better sunglasses.
Tom: No, no. It's just decades looking at the water. [00:53:30.424] It's all in their brain, not in their eyes. It's all in their pattern recognition.
Renato: Absolutely. Cool.
Tom: So before we get into talking about colors and coatings, let's talk a little bit about glass versus polycarbonate. Because people I talk to about polarized sunglasses are always kind of torn between polycarbonate and glass. [00:54:00.423]
Renato: Okay. So in our world, in optics, plastic is not polycarbonate, so I'm just going to refer to them as being the same. It's a plastic material for the layman.
Tom: Oh, it's not polycarbonate. Oh.
Renato: So when we say regular plastic, it's actually a material. And people make polarized lenses out of regular plastic. And then polycarbonate is a material itself, but it's a type of plastic. [00:54:30.415] And there's many types of plastic lens materials with polycarbonate being one of them. And polycarbonate is probably the most commonly used in a lot of the premium sunglasses. Because it has so much versatility for what we can do with it, and it also is something that can be in the right environments, mass produced with a lot more consistency. And especially for a lot of the bigger companies.
But for many, many years and decades, polycarbonate [00:55:00.366] has gone through this period of improving clarity because making polycarbonate itself inherent in its ability to not bend light as well. So we've been able to overcome some of these things with technology in our industry. So when people normally would say in the past, what's better, polycarbonate or glass? And it would always be hands down, oh, you've got to get glass, the optics are better. Period. And it was very true for the longest time.
And because [00:55:30.593] glass cannot be reshaped when it's inside a frame, it can't be bent to distort the optics. It always has perfect optics because the frame would take the shape of the lens because the lens can never bend. Okay. That makes it now you're seeing through a crystal clear lens that was formed in the way that it was intended to be put in front of your eye and the frame won't change it. Whereas polycarbonate in many cases, it can bend a little bit and it can have some distortion to it. [00:56:00.727] And then if you're looking with basic polycarbonate that doesn't have what I would call proprietary and specialty type filters beyond the polarized film, and I'll go back to polarized for a second.
Polarized films have color and the darker and usually they come in three or four common colors. So you don't get a lot of different colors in them. And then you add mirrors to help alter the color. And then there's a handful of manufacturers that will add certain [00:56:30.366] dyes to change and alter the color slightly to make it darker or to change it from a brown to an amber, etc.
Tom: Is the dye added to the lens or is it added to the film when you construct those?
Renato: It can be both, but if you add it to the film, you get into custom film production and the quantities for doing that are massive. [00:57:00.868] It's usually only exclusive to some of the biggest companies that say, I'm gonna order millions of these. So I'm gonna make my own custom film. That doesn't happen often. So what happens is we're trying to alter the color of the material. So it's difficult because polycarbonate as a material does not like to accept a lot of color. So we have to find unique ways of doing that.
But for the most part, to answer your question, we will add certain dye packs, certain [00:57:30.473] tints, if you will, to alter the color slightly and not just alter the color. Sometimes what we're doing is adding a slight dye that absorbs specific wavelengths to help you improve your vision as well. So it's not just polarized that improves your vision or glass that maintains the clarity. We can also improve clarity by using and there's a handful of companies that do this now that uses these proprietary filters beyond the [00:58:00.428] tint itself that say we wanna absorb more blue light.
And blue light is something that causes you to lose clarity the further out you look, it's haze. We've all looked out far away on a hot day and we see this haze, especially on the water, it can be very disturbing. We can improve that. Polarization takes away the glare off the surface. Adding blue light filters helps to improve clarity and help you see further away with more definition. Is that just a little ripple far away or is it [00:58:30.654] the tip of the fin sticking out of the water kind of thing?
And those are the things that can make a difference as well when you get into these high-end lenses. A lot of them can also, or these lenses that are, let's say, the handful, I don't like to say a lot because it's really probably less than 10 in the world will do this. And then they'll absorb certain wavelengths like yellow light and yellow light helps us separate colors to make them more vibrant. It separates reds and greens and in the overall scheme of your eye, [00:59:00.546] your eye only has three receptors, red, green, and blue. If you're a graphic artist, you understand mixing colors, you use your graphic tools and you manipulate red, green, and blue to get your final outcome. And it's a lot like that with your eye. So if we can isolate the colors in the wavelength specifically for how we want them to enter your eye, we can help you see further away, we can help you see with more clarity, we can help you see with more color definition.
And then back to your original question, we can add different colors [00:59:30.330] and manipulate the wavelength for seeing bonefish in the environment in that color of water because we know what the fish looks like in that water, we know what the light conditions are like, and we want to give you the optimum lens for that situation versus just saying you've got brown and gray, which is what a lot of fashion sunglasses will have. You have two choices. Some companies will have five, six, seven, eight options for you to choose from based on your application. [01:00:00.736]
Tom: So let's talk about colors and let's use Bajio's colors because you know them the best. Let's talk about colors of lenses and which ones you would want for which circumstance.
Renato: Gotcha. Okay, so we offer seven, I won't say colors, we'll say seven options for our customers. And we offer [01:00:30.272] those seven in either polycarbonate or glass. So we really have 14 lens options with seven options in light transmission and colors to choose from. I'll go from the darkest to the lightest. So, the darkest lens we offer is a blue mirror lens and mirrors are very important because they help reduce reflections that won't be absorbed from oblique [01:01:00.520] surfaces like off of a wave versus the flatter surface of water. So that oblique reflection is what we want the mirror to help us with and reflect it back away from the eye. So it helps you to see a little bit better when the water's glistening, for example. The mirror helps with that. So it's not just cosmetic. So it helps to darken the lens slightly as well.
Tom: Oh, I always thought mirrors were just cosmetic but you're saying they do have a functional purpose. [01:01:30.518]
Renato: Oh, heck yes. The color does a lot too. Absolutely. They all have a purpose. And we get really technical with it. We get kind of geeky with it but the result is improving your vision. That's the whole purpose, right? So, the blue mirror is applied to a gray-based lens because it's intended for offshore use which the water is very dark. The sun condition is very bright. If it's cloudy, it's still very bright, [01:02:00.566] but it's for that very bright environment with a dark water and usually the fish in that environment are of certain colors themselves with the scales and things.
So we're trying to give you the best option to reduce the amount of light to help your eye feel comfortable and then use filters to help you see better as well as having polarization inside of the mirrors. When we start to move inshore, we move to a green mirror lens that now has a brown-amber base color and now [01:02:30.492] we're getting a change in the watercolor. We're getting a change in the type of fish that are in that environment and now we're trying to help highlight those things. Those are used in a lot of flats in an environment sort of what you were in when you were fishing last week.
And as we shift from just sort of, it's called like an inshore-offshore type lens, as we really get inshore, we want to let more light in and we shift to a silver mirror. Silver mirror is interesting because it's one of the only mirrors [01:03:00.489] that does not darken the lens. So blue mirror had 10% light transmission. So if the sun's coming at you, we're absorbing 90% of the brightness and with a green mirror, we're absorbing 88% of it and then 12% to get through. With a silver mirror that has a copper base, now we're absorbing 86% of the light and we're letting 14% get to your eye. These 2% increments make a big difference to your overall quality of vision. [01:03:30.396]
And then if we just take that same copper lens that we make without a mirror, it still has 14% light transmission just like the silver. So there's people that say, I just don't like mirrors. I don't like the look of them, never had them, don't want them. Then we just say, just get the copper without the mirror. It's got the same light transmission. You're going to be happy with it. And for people that don't want the blue mirror, we say, just get the gray. It does have 2% more light transmission but there's no mirror. So we're probably a [01:04:00.498] mirror company with 80% of what we do is in the mirrors. So we have five of them. And the next two are very task specific that I'll mention.
We have that sort of... And I'll go back to the middle of the road with that silver mirror. It's one of those lenses that I'll say to people, it's like when someone says, I don't really fish must, but I like the golf. And I might say, that might just be the perfect lens. It's medium light conditions, variable light, in and around greens and woods and things like that. And it's got [01:04:30.248] nice contrast. It's sort of a good middle of the road choice unless it's in a very bright environment and you're in Florida like I am, and it's bright all the time. I might say, get the brown amber with a green mirror.
As we shift from silver, we're going to go from silver mirror to now we have two more, the rose mirror and the violet mirror. And these are really unique lenses. And I like to think that there's not a lot of people that offer lenses in this category, these low light or lower light condition lenses. [01:05:00.196] And this is when you can tell, I mean, your factory is really thinking about their customer because they're saying, we're going to make something that we're not going to sell a lot of, but we want our customers to have this option. And these lenses now are designed for all the way from a certain environment and there's a lot of shadows and there's a lot of cloud cover and we want to let more light in.
The rose mirror, we add red dyes to it on top of the filters that absorb blue light and yellow light. And we're adding these dyes to increase contrast in certain environments [01:05:30.401] where there might be mountain areas when you're fly fishing in the Midwest and things like that saying there's a lot of shadows and so we need to let more light in. And then we add dyes because we say there's not a lot of contrast so we have to increase contrast. But when you're looking through the lens, it has like a light copper look, but there's certain dyes that help you see better and see more of what you're trying to look at. And that's a variable light condition type lens.
And then we shift to [01:06:00.504] the far end which is our highest light transmission which is our violet mirror. And we say it has more of a yellow base color but it's a violet mirror on top so if I'm looking at you and you're wearing them and the lens looks violet, right? But when you're looking at it from the behind you don't see any violet color. We add red dyes to this but there's also other dye packs so it appears yellow. And in this situation it has 22% light transmission and [01:06:30.362] when we get into these lenses that we call the dusk and dawn lenses for anglers, these can have quite a range in light transmission all the way from 20% to 35% light transmission.
So what we did is we chose to stay closer to the 20%. Ours is 22% and there's a really important reason for us and others have reasons of their own, but there's [01:07:00.275] a misconception that if you say polarized and you let a lot of light in, the lens is not always going to be 100% polarized. As you let more light in after 20% you begin to lose polarization effect. So, we want to make sure we have the most polarization we can possibly get with a high-transmission lens. All the other lenses I mentioned to you have a 99% or 99% absorption rate for polarization. Over 20% [01:07:30.709] and up to the 35% you can end up with a lens that only has 60% polarization. So you're not absorbing all the reflections off the surface of the water.
And you might not just use them at dawn, it's going to get sunny and there's a lot of reflection from trees off the surface of the water. And we chose to go 22% because the yellow base color helps to brighten things but maintaining 22% light transmission allows us to have lens with 92% polarization. [01:08:00.018] Super important to our anglers or our core customer which we know want the most polarization they can get with the most light transmission. And then we sort of balance the two and say this is our choice. There are lighter lenses out there but that's how we chose to address this group of anglers that want it for low light. They're great for overcast when it's really overcast, when there's not a lot of light coming through. They're great for those situations [01:08:30.686] and excellent lenses for dusk and dawn when you're just not getting a lot of brightness in the light itself.
Tom: Okay. So let's say I'm a trout angler and I fish anything from big river to small stream. What kind of lens would you suggest I get?
Renato: So I'm going to ask you one more question. [01:09:00.716] There's always one more piece of information and just so you know I'm more of the optical geek than the fishing geek, right? Where do you like to fish? What's your environment? Where are you going to be?
Tom: Let's say I'm going to be in areas with some trees so I'm going to be going from sunlight to shadow fairly often.
Renato: Okay. I'm going to choose between the rose and the silver. I'm probably going to lean towards the rose mirror. And the purpose of leaning towards [01:09:30.145] a rose mirror is when you get into these really shady environments and you want to really improve the contrast, you're still getting all the polarization you need. That extra 4% of light transmission is going to really make your eyes still feel really comfortable in low light. And 18% light transmission sounds like a lot but in the grand scheme of things think about this. The majority of sunglasses in the entire universe have approximately 15% light transmission. [01:10:00.411] So we're not far off from what the average person's wearing for his sunglass all day long. Right? And when it gets sunny, 18% does a pretty decent job. So it allows you to go back and forth and it's kind of like that multi-tool that you've got. It does a lot for a lens that was designed for a specific purpose. Go ahead.
Tom: Now, let me give you another scenario.
Renato: Yeah.
Tom: So I'm fishing in the Rocky Mountains, [01:10:30.340] mostly wide open streams, a lot of sunlight, not much shade, trout fishing though. What would you recommend there?
Renato: Then I'm going to shift totally into that sort of silver mirror, green mirror. And the reason I go to green mirror is it's still got that brown amber and it's the brightness, right? You get a lot of reflection of light off a mountain, right? And it can't get polarized. [01:11:00.425] So it's still going to come right at you and the mirror is going to block it. Or help to try to block it. And then you also can go to a silver mirror which is for instead of a brown amber, it's copper. All these lenses, the green mirror, silver mirror, rose mirror are designed to enhance contrast. So it works well in all those environments. But when you start saying I'm exposed to bright light all the time, I want a medium light lens to a bright light lens. And silver is medium light, green is bright light.
And whenever we go to two lenses [01:11:30.602] from the seven, for us, we want our customers to have one of every lens. Because not every person's... When I say customers, I'm talking about the retailers, right? And not the consumer. That'd be great if the consumer bought all seven pairs. But what we do is we want you to have everything so you can let your consumer choose between this one or the one next to it. Because some people's eyes find that they're [01:12:00.589] more light sensitive. Naturally, people that have light-colored eyes are more light sensitive and they might tend to lean towards the lens that's a little darker.
And you get people that, as you get older, people that are developing cataracts when they get older, their lens and their eyes naturally developing its own tint. And they might say, I need a little bit more light and I'm just going to lean towards the silver mirror, even though I'm in bright light all the time. And that lens just works better for me. So we like people to try them on and say, tell me what your eye prefers. Look outside. You tell me what you prefer. And when we do that, [01:12:30.424] we always get down to the last two and say, that's the one for me. I love it. It works perfectly. And we can get you to the, you know, in the red zone. We can get you, you know, to the 20-yard line by saying, here's the two and then I'm going to get right down to the one that does the best job.
Tom: All right. So now I'm going to give you another scenario. I'm fishing for redfish, sea trout, bonefish, shallow water. Wading or maybe from [01:13:00.366] a flat's boat. Which lens would you recommend there?
Renato: Okay. Are you in the south?
Tom: Yeah, in the south.
Renato: So really bright light. When it's bright light in those situations, I'm going to really start looking more at the green here. It's the brightness. It's the environment. And where there's a lot of reflection, you're in shallow water, you don't just get reflection from the water surface. You get reflection from all those folks. And we want to minimize that brightness. [01:13:30.633]
So that's the purpose of that because when you're in a boat or you're wading in the water and it's hours, your eyes get tired. Which is why we want to minimize that brightness. To keep your eyes relaxed for that entire time. And if the green mirror seems too dark, I'm going to be back to the silver mirror next to be your inshore medium light. But again, I'm still focusing on the same two types of lenses because of the [01:14:00.684] brightness of light that you're explaining.
And if you're going to have a green mirror, then maybe your other backup set, if you're going to go with two, is you go with a green mirror and you go with a rose mirror. Or you go with a violet mirror and say, as soon as the light starts to really reduce in brightness and this lens is too dark for me, what do I switch to? And then you switch this far to the other side to let more light in. [01:14:30.427] So you've got your two pair. And a lot of people will do just kind of just two pair, have the right two pair for the type of fishing they do. And that's when I say that's when you can have in your toolkit, your gearbox or whatever you've got, you've got your main purpose. And for those times when, let's face it, we've all gone out when it's just not a super sunny day. You wake up and the clouds are there and it's like that the entire day. Your dark lens is just too dark. You need something else.
Tom: Yeah. Just like you can't always fish with the same fly rod all day long. [01:15:00.505] It makes sense to have more than one pair of sunglasses. All right. Now here's the hardest one. I can only afford one pair of sunglasses and I want to go shallow water fishing in saltwater and bass fishing and trout fishing in streams. I know that's a tough one. You got to pick one.
Renato: Yeah. So saltwater is all over. It's north or south. [01:15:30.145] I'm going to be back to the same two. We're going to go back to the same two lenses. Because you're in shore, you're not offshore. I'm going to stay away from the blue mirror.
Tom: Right. Yeah.
Renato: I'm going to be green, silver, and rose are my three choices. If I'm going to say, let's try one first, I'm going to hand it to you. I'm going to probably go right down the middle. If I know an environment that's for a variable light transmission, I'm going to go to silver. [01:16:00.125] If I know I'm in a more sunny environment and we get down into Florida, I'm going to green mirror first. Silver mirror second. If I start to go up north, I was in Jersey shores in the Atlantic Islands last week and the fishing there is just, you know, again, there's shallow water fishing, there's offshore, it's everything, right? We're right on the shoreline and not as much brightness as we had down in Florida. There was a lot of overcast conditions.
And a lot of the people there were preferring to look [01:16:30.423] through a medium-light lens, which silver mirror really does the job and especially because it was overcast. If you've got a lot of sort of a variety of sort of sun, not so bright, but sun with overcasts and it's a mix of the two, then silver is going to do just fine. And I don't want to ignore the people that live on the West Coast because if you're getting out into the West Coast and you're in the Northwest, that silver mirror is amazing because of course, you know, you just don't have a lot of brightness. [01:17:00.992] There's a lot of overcast conditions. So southeast, southwest, green mirror. As you start moving north, I'm shifting to a silver mirror.
Tom: Okay, good. Good.
Renato: Hopefully that answers your question. Yeah, you're throwing a lot of really good scenarios that I hope I'm not. I hope I'm picking the right one.
Tom: I am anticipating the questions people on the podcast would ask me. So, and I want to anticipate those while I have an expert here rather than me [01:17:30.528] trying to fumble my way through it when they ask me.
Renato: Gotcha, gotcha. And there's a reason why there's seven lenses because sometimes you get to the last two and then it just depends on the scenario and the individual.
Tom: Yeah, yeah. Okay. So you would probably recommend that people, if they can, go to a fly shop and try various lenses on just to see how their eyes react to them.
Renato: Absolutely. And here's what we do all the time because we [01:18:00.391] consult with our retail customers. We know where they're at. We're going, we're making the sales call. If I'm in Colorado in a supply shop, I'm not giving them a lot of blue mirror. We just don't want a lot of that. We might want a couple just to have on the display. But in Florida, in the Southeast, in Miami, we've got a lot of blue mirror. So we tend to customize the assortment for the customer. And the one good thing about, I guess, us in general and I think a lot of companies will [01:18:30.381] offer more than one lens color with every frame color and style. But a lot of them manufacture offshore. So they're limited to how many different lenses they can offer with a black frame, for example. Which, you know, black and brown frames or tortoise shell frames are the two most popular color frames.
But because we actually manufacture here in Florida, we let our customers choose either glass or probably carbon in the seven lenses or colors, which means they have 14 lens options for every [01:19:00.750] single frame color we make. And if we don't have it on the shelf, we make it and ship it the next day. So, for us, it's a way of being able to really offer the entire assortment, let the customer be in the driver's seat. Because even though 80% of our business, we know where it's going to be, that 20% is, or maybe 30% is to really, you know, really accommodate those people that are like what you're asking for, these specific scenarios of saying, I do this and I want something for that. What is it? [01:19:30.585] And then we'll make it.
Tom: Okay.
Renato: Yeah. So, yeah, so it's a tricky game, but I think, love the companies that are in our space and that sort of higher and higher performance type product line, they offer a lot of variety. Which is, I'm happy they do because it allows the people that really love it for a hobby or whether it's what they do for a living, they have a lot of choice and specific to their needs.
Tom: And sunglasses [01:20:00.511] are, you know, from an enjoyment standpoint, as well as a safety, you know, you always need to wear some kind of glasses when you're fishing. Anyway, a hook in the eye can be a life-changing experience.
Renato: So, yeah, so Tom, you'd be surprised and I'll just maybe just to sort of, sorry to interrupt you, but I'm in the industry because I had an eye injury when I was young. So I have this, you know, affinity for understanding [01:20:30.413] optics at a very high level. So I love it. It's why I'm here. However, it's amazing how many emails we get from people because, you know, in the eyeglass industry, you can't go to your eye doctor and order a pair of clear glass prescription glasses with glass material. They're going to say it's just not safe for your eye because when clear glass shatters, it's like the side window of your vehicle. If you hit it hard enough, it shatters into [01:21:00.357] a lot of little pieces and shards that can damage your eye.
But the polarized lenses glass is not unsafe. And it's like it has this plastic poly film in it that holds the two sheets of glass together when it does crack. So it keeps it intact. So then we get these photographs from people that send us a thank you note that says, wow, I got a snag and I pulled back [01:21:30.298] and wow, the weight came back and hit me right in the center of the lens. Here's my shattered glasses. Can you fix them? And we're going, yeah, of course, we make glasses. So we repair glasses. And they're saying, thank you. Your glasses saved my eye. And we're thinking, this is what we'd love to hear. We hate to see it. But they're saying, if I didn't have your sunglasses on, this was coming right at my eye. Here's the proof. Here's the impact point right in front of me.
And then for polycarbonate, it can virtually, [01:22:00.504] you know, you can hit it with a hammer. You're never going to crack it, damage it. It can almost stop a bullet in the right thickness. But we use polycarbonate for safety purposes as well. So it does have a much higher safety impact rating. It's 60 times more impact resistant than your regular plastic that I mentioned earlier. That's much safer for the eye.
Tom: You know, we never really finished the conversation about glass versus plastic now. [01:22:30.552] I know that like a prescription such as mine, which is relatively thick, I can't, I shouldn't have glass because it makes them way too heavy. So I always go with polycarbonate.
Renato: Yeah, there's not a lot of people that can actually make a glass prescription and we're one of them. We're not doing it just yet. In the future, we may be doing it, but we'll use polycarbonate. And as the lens gets or your prescription gets stronger [01:23:00.594] and the lenses can be thicker, polycarbonate starts to really show it's in purity. And as you look to the side, especially with a big sunglass lens, you can start to see these small optical impurities. But we overcome that with two ways.
We're able to use our filters to absorb those portions of the light spectrum that will cause that distortion. So we overcome it by increasing clarity by [01:23:30.786] absorbing this portion of light that distorts. So that's one way of doing it. Now what's really nice about polycarbonate for prescription, A, impact resistance, so it's safe. B, it's one of the lightest lens materials you'll ever get because it's 30% approximately almost actually, it's almost 50% lighter than standard plastic lenses. It's 30% thinner than standard plastic and about 35% thinner than glass [01:24:00.685] in the same prescription.
So it has this ability to be made thinner overall for really strong prescriptions. It allows us to have a nice wide prescription range to offer people when they'll say, wow, my eye care professional told me I couldn't get Grand X, Y, or Z in prescription because the frame's too big and my prescription is too strong. And polycarbonate allows us to do those things, to offer more prescriptions to more people. And I'll say we probably [01:24:30.137] cover 85% of every prescription combination that we could possibly get when we get an order. There's times when we just can't do it and we can't just say no, but that's just because prescriptions can get out of range for us.
Tom: Yeah. So if I don't need prescription and I want to get a pair of good polarized sunglasses, tell me the advantages and disadvantages of glass versus polycarbonate. [01:25:00.345]
Renato: Glass, of course, it's the weight. You're wearing them for hours and if you find that the frame's a little uncomfortable, I always say go to the next frame and make sure it's comfortable because the frame determines the overall comfort, not the lens. And then if you get the most comfortable frame and you still feel like it's a little too heavy on your nose, then switch to the polycarbonate lens and you'll see the difference in weight. And then that usually will solve the problem.
But I'll also say that we're able to use [01:25:30.784] a super thin type of glass lens material for our non-prescription sunglasses and we often hear the comment of, wow, I thought they were going to be heavier. And it's because in the past, and there still are some manufacturers that use a standard glass lens that has a lot more weight to it. So, glass can be heavier. And if you're in an environment where you might be looking at a lot of things maybe impacting your lens, then glass doesn't have [01:26:00.482] that same, it can crack, it can break, right? It's not going to shatter, but it can break. So if you're wanting impact resistant, then I say go to polycarbonate.
But the trade off is be a lot more careful when you're cleaning them and caring for them because you'll scratch it a lot easier. You know, you have glass on your vehicles, you have clear coats on your paint of your vehicles and even just, or on your boat, you've got [01:26:30.348] special paint, special coatings and you've got to be a lot careful, a lot more careful with your fiberglass and things like that when you're cleaning it with abrasives. Well, polycarbonate lenses are the same. We treat them with scratch resistant coatings and clear coats to help protect them from scratching but they'll scratch, especially if you're not caring for them. And then one last thing, which is only a really small handful of companies do and we do this. On glass, the mirror is what we call encapsulated. The mirror is under the surface of the lens. [01:27:00.340] Right? So, behind a clear layer, it's not behind a clear coat, it's behind a clear layer of glass.
So, you're never going to scratch a mirror because as soon as you get one little scratch on a mirror and the light hits it, your eye will always see it. You just can't help yourself. It's kind of like that pebble in the shoe. You're never going to not know it's there. So if you never want to scratch a mirror, you go to glass and if you're okay with the weight, you stick with glass and they are lenses that last for a lifetime [01:27:30.902] until you break it. And with polycarbonate, for people that just want the comfort, they want impact resistance, we switched to polycarbonate. And you get the same lens options.
And one more reason why you would want to go to polycarbonate. It's the only lens material that we offer in prescription. We already talked about that, but the other reason is for non-prescription. We make these little magnifier, non-prescription sunglasses, which we call them readers. It has a little magnifier in the bottom [01:28:00.448] and we can't do that in glass. We can only do that in polycarbonate. So for that, you know, that over 50 group of us that need a little bit of help, magnifier in the bottom portion of lens, you don't have to have these things hanging around your neck from "Cheers," they're built in.
And trust me, you know, they're half of it. I know all of the... They're my friends, right? And you know, that's me. And you're not having to buy two pairs of glasses. You got the little built in magnifier. It's on the back of the lens. [01:28:30.438] It's hidden away. Nobody knows you have it. And people that get them just say, wow, I wish I would have had these a long time ago because I hate switching back and forth. So you can only do that in polycarbonate. We can't do the cheaters in glass.
But, Tom, when we are selling our non-prescription sunglasses, I'm going to tell you that 70% of our business is in glass. That's what people are using. And it's because they know that they're really hard on their glasses. [01:29:00.514] They may not care for them properly, they don't want to scratch them. That's the main reason. And they'll say the optical clarity, I'm used to glass and having optical clarity for decades, I've heard about it and that's what I want. And the clarity is exceptional in both, but the glass just maintains its clarity throughout its life.
Tom: Okay. Well, that is great stuff. And I certainly learned a lot. Some people may be a little confused [01:29:30.352] because it's like picking a floating fly liner. There's a lot of options. But you've given us some good guidelines on what to look for in a pair of sunglasses.
Renato: So we try to do a really great job with our dealers to educate them. We have training sites that they can go on because there's a lot of turnover in the retail space. So we have places for them to get educated. And if there's [01:30:00.300] someone that's going out to their local retailer or looking online, I would suggest that they call us. We go out of our way with customer service to answer phone calls and just answer these questions. And they'll say, here's my type of fishing, here's my environment, here's where I live. And we're going to direct them to the proper lens option for their glasses. And that way when they go to their retailer and they're walking through the door, they're already going to be equipped with a little bit of knowledge to [01:30:30.431] help get to just finding the right shape and size that fits in the glass versus which lens should I get.
Tom: Okay, good. You're not going to get that from your eye doctor's provider.
Renato: Yes, that too. If they carry our sunglasses [crosstalk 01:30:47.514] Yeah. It's just beginning, Tom. We're just in the early stages. But yeah, with eye doctors, their issue, and this is where [01:31:00.321] I see the challenge, is that they can have a thousand different frames in their dispensary, and they've got to be the expert in a lot of products. It's difficult, right? Especially with a lot of the people that work there may never have picked up a fly rod or a regular casting rod or something. They may not know a lot about fishing. So it's a little bit more difficult for them to guide you in the right direction.
Tom: Well, thank you, Renato. [01:31:30.820] This has been a great education in sunglasses. Such an important piece to tackle and really appreciate you taking the time to spend 50 minutes with us on the podcast today.
Renato: It's my pleasure. I appreciate you reaching out and including us in your podcast. And if you get any questions that you need to direct my way, please don't hesitate. But thank you for doing this and for helping everybody out there get the right tools [01:32:00.383] for the trade. That's really important stuff that you're doing.
Tom: Good. Well, thank you. And hope to talk to you soon.
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