Reviewed by: CAPT. MIKE SCHOONVELD

I’m one of the millions of “aging” anglersin America suffering from presbyopia, the technical name for age-related farsightedness. I can see a stop sign a mile away but don’t ask me to tie a double-uni knot without putting on my “cheaters.” These are magnifying lens glasses that come in strengths, commonly from from +1 to +3.5 in quarter-strength increments.

When on my boat, I hate switching from sunglasses to readers and back several times each day. I’d tried a couple sunglass brands with bifocal built into the lenses, but they didn’t really perform as well as I hoped. Then I realized the problem was I’d selected the strength of my bifocal sunglasses to match the strength of the readers I used when reading a book or a magazine.

Each magnification strength has a perfect focal length for the people who are wearing them.  I use +1 readers when working on my desktop computer but +2s when I’m reading books, magazines or mail. That works because when I’m reading the pages are 18 or 20 inches from my eyes, but my desktop screens are closer to 30 inches away. The +1s put the more distant screens in perfect focus.

Then one day while I was trying to untangle a hook twisted in a landing net while wearing my “reader-cheaters,” I noticed I had to hold the mess 18 or so inches from my eyes to see the hook and net clearly. That’s uncomfortably close for what I was doing, and I realized a lot of the fishing things I did like unhooking fish, fastening snap-swivels, even cleaning fish, were chores done much farther from my eyes than I’d hold a book to read it.

When I needed a new pair of fishing glasses, the first thing I did was eliminate the brands that didn’t offer readers. For several reasons I chose the Vega model by Bajios, a relatively new maker of premium “sunshades.” I knew they’d be a perfect fit since Bajio models are made to fit various head sizes; the Vega model has a wide earpiece at the temple to block light from the side and I chose the blue mirror lenses-best for bright days on a wide-open lake. Most important, I ordered them with +1.5 magnification which proved to give me perfect vision when I’m doing “fishing stuff” at mid-range working distances. They were perfect, both for bright days on the lake and when doing “fishy stuff” at arm’s length while on my boat.  Available at both online and traditional retailers or at www.bajiosunglasses.com.