Fishing Hats, Sun Protection and Gear to take Offshore
You spent days or possibly weeks preparing for your fishing trip. You’re going to be out on the water, the weather will be beautifully sunny and it’s your vacation! You have planned the fishing trip of your dreams. There’s only one problem. What should you pack for your trip?
Don’t worry that’s what we are here for and this article we will tell you all you need to bring on your fishing trip.
Hats and Headwear
The first thing you want to bring is a good hat. You’re going to be on the water for 12 hours or more. The entire time the sun is going to be beating down on you. So it just makes sense to have a hat with a large bill to keep the sun off your face.
You’ve got a couple of options.
The most basic fishing hats are baseball style or trucker style ball caps. You’ve got a lot of options to choose you could get a fitted cap or a traditional cap with the snap fitting in the back, or you could get a more breathable cooler hat like a hat with nylon mesh in the back to let in airflow.
Your next option will be a wide brim hat, with a brim that goes 360 degrees around the hat. This type of hat is going to offer you substantially more sun protection than a regular baseball cap.
The benefits of a wide brim hat include keeping the sun off of the top of your ears as well as the top of your neck, as well as the back of your neck. keeping the sun off of the tops of your ears is critical because the top of your ears doesn’t get much sun and can get sunburned very easily. You want to avoid sunburn on a long fishing trip and a wide brim hat is a great way to do it.
The last choice for headwear protection is to use a mask or a scarf. These types of facial protection are used in high sun exposure areas like offshore fishing. The benefit of a mask or a scarf is that it can protect your face, chin, lips and the bottom of your nose from the reflective glare from the sun as it bounces off the water.
No other form of head warrior protection is going to be able to do this for you. Neither a baseball cap nor a wide brim hat can protect you from the reflection of the sun off the water. To protect from the reflection there is only one way to go and that is with a mask.
Clothing: What you should wear for deep-sea fishing
When you’re heading far offshore to go fishing the most important thing to be aware of is that the weather can change at a moment’s notice. Usually, the sun’s out and the weather is beautiful, but you want to be prepared for any weather event.
Rain and wind gear
When you’re out on the ocean you just have to expect that a rainstorm can pop up at any moment. not only do you need to protect yourself from sudden downpours, but you also need to be able to protect yourself from the sea spring up as it hits the side of the boat. Because of this, it is smart to bring some type of light rain jacket. The benefit of a light rain jacket is that one will keep you dry when it rains, and two you can also use this as a windbreaker in case it gets cold and you simply need to keep the wind off of you.
Light breathable clothes.
Everybody knows about shorts and t-shirts to keep you cool while you’re out in the sun, or out on the open water fishing. What you might want to consider is to get clothes that are made of breathable materials. Clothes that are made of materials that can wick the moisture away from your skin while also being breathable to allow you to remain dry and cool.
Here is a good article that explains the different types of breathable materials:
https://www.ejisinc.com/blogs/news/most-breathable-fabric
This way you can wear a long sleeve shirt to keep the sun from burning you, and also be relatively comfortable and not too hot.
Polarized sunglasses.
when you’re out on the water you are blasted by sunshine. Not only that the sun reflects off of the water. The best way to protect your eyes from overexposure to the sun is with a good pair of polarized sunglasses. Polarized glasses will minimize the glare of the sun off of the water, and they will also give better definitions to make it easier to see objects in the water.
You can read more about sunglasses here.
Gotta have sunscreen
You don’t want to leave the dock without sunscreen. This goes without saying but when you’re on the water all day your best protection from sunburn is to use sunscreen. Now you don’t want to get just any sunscreen, you want a strong sunscreen that will be able to last a long amount of time as well as block powerful rays from the sun. You should look for an SPF of 50 or above on your sunscreen. When in doubt go for a higher SPF sunscreen.
It’s also important to remember to apply the sunscreen to your lips. If you don’t put something over your lips, just like any other part of your skin they will get burned. If you don’t put sunscreen on your lips, you could use chapstick instead.
Whatever you feel comfortable with. But if you forget chapstick just remember that you can always substitute with sunscreen.
And if you want to go for complete sun protection consider getting some zinc. Zinc is the white stuff that you will see on people’s noses at the beach. It is the strongest protection that you can get. Most people only use zinc to keep the sun off of their nose.
These are the basics you need to bring with you to have a fun day out deep sea fishing. While this isn’t rocket science, it’s important to remember this when planning your fishing trip. You can have all the best lures, rods, boat, and captain, but if you get to your fishing spot and you don’t have sun protection, you’ll be miserable.
So use this article as a checklist before you head offshore!