I’ve become a hat guy in my middle years,
partly due to my wavy hair–waving goodbye–but
I’ve been through the five stages of baldness
(denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and,
finally, acceptance), and intentionally wear
my hair short to avoid even the hint of a
comb-over, so it’s more than just a toupee
substitute. The type of hat you wear lets
you make a statement.
Anyone who has been through high school knows
about the Fashion Laws, and it might be that no
other article of clothing will result in greater
social fashion stigma than an ill-chosen hat.
Though they are not written anywhere, we all know
the hat rules. Some of the more basic are: no
one east of the Rockies should wear a cowboy hat;
no one north of the Mason Dixon Line should wear
a Panama hat; no one but a Greek fisherman should
wear a Greek fisherman’s hat; everyone can wear a
baseball cap, and no one should wear a beret.
These are some of the more basic laws. Break them
and you are sure to be ostracized.
There are, however, exceptions. Women who are
fortunate enough to look great in any hat can wear
whatever hat they please, but they stretch this
privilege when they wear a beret. Old men can
also wear any hat; they’re allowed to wear plaid
with stripes, and pants hiked up to their solar
plexus, too. There are also certain situations
that are exempt from the rules, one of which is
fly-fishing.
The dominant headgear among fly fishers is still
the baseball cap, indicative of how strongly
entrenched our hat mores are, but you can wear
almost any hat you prefer. I often wear a big,
broad-brimmed fedora that I couldn’t wear at any
time without suffering the shame that results
from inappropriate hat usage.
A friend once said, “You look like Indiana Jones
in that hat,” which I realized, since he articulated
it, was sort of the look I am striving for. With
my 9-weight fly rod in my hand, in the crashing
surf where the giant stripers feed, I am Indiana
Jones. Take the rod away and the hat would be a
mere affectation.
I have to admit that it did take me some time before
I wore my big, broad-brimmed fedora with confidence.
Even though I was operating in a hat-law-exempt
environment, there’s still that gnawing social
pressure, that authoritive voice in the back of
my hat-covered head, saying, “you should be wearing
a baseball cap!” We’ve all had that feeling when
wearing something different and the usual response
is to take off the offending garment, hang it up,
and look at it wistfully every time we open the
closet door-but never wear it. It’s taken years
but I’ve gotten over this feeling of ignominy,
and I’d like to help others do the same.
Once, while rigging up for striper fishing with a
friend, I noticed an Australian bush hat in the
back of his station wagon-you know the type, with
one side of the brim turned up. I asked him about
the hat and he picked it up with obvious affection.
“I bought it at the Army/Navy store a few years back,”
he said. What he didn’t say, but I knew, is that he
bought the hat because he liked the look, but the hat
had never been on his head outside of his house.
“Wear it,” I suggested.
“You think so?” he questioned.
“Sure,” I insisted. “It’s a great hat.”
So he put on his Australian bush hat that had
never before been seen in public and wore it
the whole day fishing. I wish I could say that
he caught more striped bass, or bigger striped
bass, or even did a little better than usual,
but he didn’t, and I never saw the Australian
bush hat again.
But for that one day he seemed, well, liberated.
~ Dave
About Dave:
Dave Micus lives in Ipswich, Massachusetts. He is an
avid striped bass fly fisherman, writer and instructor.
He writes a fly fishing column for the Port City Planet
newspaper of Newburyport, MA (home of Plum Island and Joppa Flats)
and teaches a fly fishing course at Boston University.
Originally published July 5, 2004 on Fly Anglers Online by Dave.