I have a confession: I’m a sunglasses tart. Out of all the technology out there, polaroid glass technology has been the quickest to change during my 11 years of guiding. As a consequence, I change glasses every couple years. Who’s leading the way currently? This season has seen me wearing Costa 580G glasses, my favourite of the current crop (and yes, I paid for my pair!).
What makes them the best? Extremely lightweight glass lenses, encapsulated mirror coatings, complete filtering of harmful yellow light (which you won’t find with any other brand), market-leading colour differentiation (meaning you can sort fish from the rocks easier), and a great range of frames (including women’s). You get what you pay for in glasses, and these will last four times longer than the sub-$100 choices out there: running a car key across the lense fails to leave a scratch, whilst the whole frame flexes almost 180 degrees. They been one seriously tough pair of glasses for me.
With my experience in mind, here is a really informative podcast from The Itinerent Angler, with Ed Moody of Costa, explaining the various aspects of what to look for in fishing glass technology. There’s a lot more to it than Polaroid films!
Costa’s are available from FlyShop 1864 here
Download the Itinerent Angler podcast here