Fishing Hats and Fishing Vests

Fishing hats are a unique breed of clothing. While, in general, hats have a lot of jobs, they are a significant part of showing others who we are as well as protecting our scalps from ultra-violet rays or covering a bad hair day to a bald spot. At the same time, over the course of history, they’ve been used to indicate our status. Princesses wear tiaras, kings wear crowns, soldiers wear distinctive helmets, police and priests have their own covers but anglers wear the best homburgs of them all. No one else can really get away with storing the sharp tools of their trade on their derby.

Some hats serve no real useful purpose at all other than to indicate which end of the person the brain is at because, at times, just listening to them makes it hard to tell. But a fishing hat is the Swiss army knife, err hat, of multi-purpose utilitarianism. A king may wear his crown when hosting or executing, a soldier wears his hat when working but an angler finds a way to wear his hat whether fishing or not.

Maybe you’ve seen a guy in an old floppy hat strung with fly’s and lures as well as his identity in the form of his fishing license adorning his noggin when he was out shopping, on the way to church, visiting his accountant or doing business. You definitely don’t see truck drivers wearing their favorite driving hats around with their CDL hanging off of it. They don’t know what they are missing. The act of displaying a license is a source of identity and pride not to mention begs you to ask if they’ve caught anything so they can tell you their latest big fish story.

Fishing hats do more than just display a license, shield from glare and sun, and provide quick access for a lure change up as well as indicate to strangers that you’re a sane, laid back, fun loving dude. For example, they also provide a great platform from which to place bug repellants and a place to store precious documents. They also prevent truth serum from working. Just ask any angler how big the fish was that he just caught and where he caught it, I guarantee that no matter what you give him or do to him, he won’t tell you the truth; it’s from his hat that he draws this power.

While they are identified by lures, licenses and in some cases smell, not all fishing hats are cut from the same cloth. Among the most popular are floppy, boonie type hats which are very versatile and stylish anywhere and in any season. There are the timeless and always acceptable baseball style hats for the unadventurous. French Foreign Legion styles for the melanoma conscious types and cowboy style hats are very popular for the racier angler.

Different types of angling can help determine which style and shape of materials one balances on their head while fishing. While there is no clear cut separation and lots of overlap in styles; by far, bass anglers wear baseball hats, river floating rowdy’s wear cowboy hats, and boonie caps can be seen on trout streams. I’ve even seen a tam-o’-shanter or two when appropriate…if that is possible.

Despite the emotion and sentiment poured into these distinctive doffing tools, they don’t get passed on. You rarely see derbies passed on from Dads to their descendants (to be used anyway). Fishing hats are also, and probably most importantly, as individual as finger prints-bestowing on their owners their own stories, tales and luck.

See you along the stream.