Marguerite Meyer of Bajio with a giant barracuda

I have enough sunglasses scattered throughout our vehicles our house and our boat that I’m pretty sure I could wear a different pair every day. Some become every day favorites and others get reserved for particular purposes. Some fall out of the rotation completely, most often because they’re subpar in some way. I can afford to be picky. That’s why I was happy to recently add a pair from Bajio into the mix. The quality was immediately apparent and they were stylish, too. Thanks to their mirror blue lenses they went straight into my travel bag for Guatemala.

Making it even better, I learned that one of the company’s founders was serious female angler Marguerite Meyer – so I tracked her down to learn more about her back story and the shades on my face. Here she is, in her own words:

HPFC: Who is Marguerite Meyer?

Marguerite Meyer: I’m a Colorado mountain girl, so I guess I'm pretty much okay with being outdoors and changing tires in unfavorable conditions. I’m not looking to live off the grid but in a post-apocalyptic world, I would probably survive. It’s also pretty helpful for the kind of fishing my husband and I like to do.

HPFC: Were you an angler before you got into the sunglasses business?

Marguerite Meyer: Fishing has been a big part of my life since I was small. My father worked as a commercial fisherman off and on, when we lived in Martha’s Vineyard and Nova Scotia. Opportunity and proximity are everything in fishing. I spent a lot of time fishing with my grandfather when we moved to Colorado. I was the youngest of four and both of my parents worked, so it was one of the few places I could have someone’s full attention. He was well-spoken, deliberate, and patient, he taught me to speak thoughtfully, question norms, and never give up on a tangled line. When they retired out of state, I didn’t get out much anymore. I got back into fishing, specifically fly fishing, when I was in college. Colorado Mountain College offered fly fishing for a physical education credit and my brother-in-law guided in South America, Florida, and Montana, depending on the season, so he and my sister had plenty of extra gear. She always loved playing dress-up with me. I showed up for class looking like a middle-aged man on his first saltwater trip. Way too much gear. Fly fishing was a good fit for me once I lost the vests and floatant. I’m pretty minimalist when it comes to what I am willing to carry.

Bajio polarized fishing sunglasses black frames green mirror lenses

HPFC: What was your path into the world of sunglasses?

Marguerite Meyer: It all came down to wanting to get out and fish more. Eleven years ago, there weren’t many females into fly fishing where I lived and the social networks weren’t there to find the ones that were. I had kids and work and not much time outside of those things. There were a lot of “guy trips” on the weekends that I didn't have the right anatomy for (I am so excited to see younger folks not being hung up on the gender thing anymore) and I got tired of being left at home with the kids on the weekend. I figured that I needed to reconfigure my life to make room for fishing and finding a way to work in the fishing industry seemed like a reasonable way to do that. My friend mentioned a sunglass company he was working with that had a big focus on fly fishing. They had an opening in marketing, far from my background in design, but I sent in my resume anyway. Somehow, I happened to send it in on the same day the job got posted on “Total Frat Move” and there my resume was, stuck in a stack of a few hundred frat boys. Apparently mine stood out, I was hired to manage the Fly Fishing Community and that job took me fishing around the world, well, mostly in equatorial places with amazing flats. It eliminated the “guy trip” issue.

HPFC: You and your husband Al form a power couple in the industry – what are your respective roles within the company?

Marguerite Meyer: Al and I are partners in everything we do. When people ask how we came together, he likes to say that eleven years ago we met and started talking and just haven’t stopped. It sounds sweet, but it’s true. We wake up early so we can start the day talking over a cup of coffee. I think the sofa and our coffee maker could be business write-offs for all of the planning and negotiating that takes place there each morning. I hear a lot of people say that they couldn’t work with their spouse but I don’t think we could have it any other way. The key is to remember that once we are at work, we each have a specific job. Al is the President/CEO of Bajio, and at the end of the day, he has to make the final call. That is a huge responsibility and requires a world of experience that I don't have. I work mostly in product development, my official job description is “make cool shit people want to steal.” Really, it’s the best job in the world, like Willy Wonka level awesome. To imagine new things and then go make them become real. I get to collaborate with our amazing frame design team on direction and colors for our sunglasses; and with our resident tattoo master, Casey, on artwork to ink up everything from tees to surfboards. I’ve told him, if it’s white you can draw on it. We have some amazing pieces on the walls of our office. I am the resident tinkerer.

HPFC: How much do you get to fish these days, and for what species?

Marguerite Meyer: Ha! It’s the argument for not making your hobby or passion into your job. Right now, Bajio is young and there is a lot that is happening on a daily level that requires most of my attention and time. Although, I did recently, finally catch a measurable snook. I always have a nemesis fish. For a while, it was redfish. Silly, but it just wouldn’t happen. Most recently, it was snook. I caught a mini thumb-sucker, and hooked the one that got away, but nothing that checked the box. I was stalking a pair that were cruising the bank while we were fishing down in Xcalak last winter. I must have put 10 legitimate casts right in front of them, nothing, no looks, no change in pace. I was pumping a dry well and then I got a wind knot. As I stood there on the bow, untangling the mess, the two monster snook pulled a sharp left and started swimming straight for me. I kid you not, they swam right up to the bow of the boat, three feet from where I was standing, they popped their big fat fishy heads with their little black button eyes out of the water and watched the whole process of untangling this knot. When I finally freed the fly from its nest, they nodded their approval and promptly turned back around, swam back to the bank, and continued slowly on their way. Mike Holliday, our saltwater community leader, told me that snook was a pathetic nemesis fish and took me out to fix the problem, stat. I caught several respectable snook and a remora on the fly that day. The remora was a completely new species so I was super excited about that.

HPFC: Is most of that near your Florida home or traveling?

Marguerite Meyer: Both, wherever work takes me. The fishing in New Smyrna Beach is amazing. We have salt, fresh, brackish, surf, offshore, inshore, lake, canal, and golf course. This place is more water than it is land.

HPFC: What are some of your favorite places to fish?

Marguerite Meyer: I have had the opportunity to fish in some unique places, the coolest to date would be fishing for arapaima in Guyana. Everything there is HUGE! And everything has huge teeth: the fish, the otters and even the spiders. The arapaima doesn’t have teeth, but they are huge.

The most beautiful might have been French Polynesia. The sands are so white and the water is this electric koolaid color that doesn’t seem like it should be real. You can walk flats for miles and the bonefish are invisible until they turn sideways and you can just catch their shadows.

Cuba was so cool and growing up in the states you get a really propagandized idea of the people and Cuba in general. I think the folks that run trips down there actually capitalize on it. Most of the people I have talked to who have fished there have booked trips on liveaboards or at curated lodges. There is a scheduled night in Havana, it’s like the no-contact cruise ship experience. We went down with a friend who had been going for years and fished it mostly DIY. We stayed in a Casa Particular which is pretty much just a room in someone’s house. They cooked us amazing authentic food and gave us connections and directions to help us navigate our way around. We fished with a local legend and the fishing was great, but I want to go back to see the people more than anything.

So, my favorite place to fish is any place where you can fish with locals and is, preferably, warm.

HPFC: What are some places that you still want to go?

Marguerite Meyer: All of the places I haven't been, even the cold ones. I haven’t fished in Europe and I would love to do that.

HPFC: Can you describe some memorable catches where your Bajio sunglasses made the difference?

Marguerite Meyer: I think that when you are sight fishing, being able to see further down in the water column and to pick up the contrast between the fish and the structure or bottom they are on makes a huge difference. If you can spot the fish ten or twenty feet further out, you are going to have more time to prepare and make better casts.

I love lurkers and when I am fishing rivers, I feel like it is a different kind of sight fishing. There are holes and you can spot fish that are stacked up but you aren’t spotting cruisers. When I get to the river I like to watch the water and spot opportunity pockets. Those places where a lurker might live, an undercut on a bank or a deceptively deep back eddy on a rock, or a submerged tree. Being able to read the underwater structure and anticipate where the fish are hiding, that is the most important thing for me.

I will admit it, I would rather fish a streamer than a dry fly. I get a big adrenaline jolt watching a lurker come out of the depths and hit a streamer and know that I guessed right. Also, I have the attention span of a squirrel, so I get distracted and lose track of my fly a lot when I'm fishing dries.

Woman fly fishing in crystal clear water on the flats with a flyrod

HPFC: How many pairs of Bajio glasses are in your regular rotation?

Marguerite Meyer: Hard to say as I do a lot of sampling of colors and prototypes. I forget and wear things out in public that we haven’t released yet or colors that haven’t made it into the line and then have to explain that people can’t buy what I’m wearing, possibly ever. Nobody wants to hear that if they really like something you have on. I like to make sure everything we have is fishable. I can honestly say that I have fished a full day in every pair of glasses that fit me in our line.

HPFC: What are their different purposes and what makes particular frames and lenses right for those applications?

Marguerite Meyer: Although I have fished every frame, I am super aware that not every frame is ideal for every setting. You wouldn’t want to hook up on a 110 lb. tarpon on a 6 weight rod. It might get the job done, but it also might kill you and the fish in the process. Just like there are different rods, leaders, lures, and flies for different waters, conditions, and species of fish, there are different frames and lenses. While each of our lenses achieves a specific light transmission range that is ideal for its intended use, it is important to note that you will be getting the same level of protection from the sun regardless of the amount of light that is coming through the lens. The brightness of the lens does not equal protection. You have to look at the type of fishing, is it the surface you are trying to read?

Blue Mirror lenses - These are for intense light conditions, like fishing offshore, where you don’t need to see very far into the water column but you need to keep a lot of light out. The gray base combined with the blue mirror blocks out the most light.
Green Mirror Lenses - If I were heading out to the flats for a week of fishing in full sunlight, I would probably go with a green mirror. This lens is going to provide the lowest light transmission, but still, produce great contrast for sight fishing.
Silver Mirror Lenses - The silver mirror is the most versatile all-around mirror. If I could only pack one lens to go around the world, I would be hard-pressed between the rose and silver mirrors.
Rose mirror Lenses - These lenses come with a red base that will produce the most contrast and allow the greatest depth of vision in the water column. You can see the fish in the deepest water from the farthest away. These are especially stellar in tannic or cloudy waters. Rose mirror is a bright lens, but again they are going to protect you just as well as dark lenses.
Violet Mirror Lenses - Our lens with the highest light transmission, the one that lets the most light in, is the violet mirror. It is a great lens for low-light conditions, early morning, dusk, and overcast days. It has a red base for great contrast, brightens everything up, lets in a ton of light, and is still fully polarized. A lot of the “low light” lenses on the market make things feel bright and yellow, but they aren’t fully polarized, so they aren’t going to help you spot fish or cut glare.
Copper Lenses - Our copper lenses with silver mirrors are great for reading the top of the water when river fishing. These let in more light than the green mirror so you can see more clearly in moderate daylight. Trees, hills and valleys limit the number of hours you are needing to mitigate direct sunlight. Are you sight fishing? Then you probably want to be able to see further down into the water column. The lenses that have a copper or rose base are going to be the best for this. Warm bases like copper, amber, and red bases create the contrast between reds and greens, this is what will help the fish to pop against the bottom or structure.

Marguerite Meyer with a Florida flats redfish on a fly rod

HPFC: Do women have particular sunglasses needs that men don’t? I know that our eyes are all the same, but are there fewer options for women? Or perhaps do we focus on different attributes when we purchase?

Marguerite Meyer: I think those women who don’t like a full wrap frame, what we would normally think of as a fishing or sport frame, feel like we have to give up appearance for function. A lot of female-leaning frames have flatter fronts and large lenses. They look cute, but won’t fit under the brim of your hat. But I like cute glasses and large lenses and frames that fish and I don’t see why those things have had to exist exclusively. It has always seemed to me that the problem has just been a lack of women in the design field to make overcoming those conflicts a priority in the design process. We have the most amazing industrial design team and they were totally on board with tackling that problem, and we did. We developed a design feature we call sun ledges, built-up frame features on the back-side of our frames that help to deflect light before it reaches your eyes. We can keep the front flatter and more fashion-forward and the lenses larger but the back side acts more like a wrap. It's like a reverse mullet, party in the front, business in the back. And, of course, they fit under hats, because who doesn’t wear a hat fishing? When we lean towards frames that have a larger lens area, picking the right lens material to keep the frame lighter becomes more important. For most women, I usually recommend a polycarbonate lens.

HPFC: How does someone know they’re getting the right frames?

Marguerite Meyer: Picking out the right frames for fishing is up there with picking the right clothes for a full day of direct sun and saltwater. I can say, firsthand, a jean miniskirt is never the best choice for a full day of fishing, no matter how many cocktails are involved. You’ll survive and probably catch some fish, but you aren’t getting back to the dock in the same condition you left in.

The first consideration should be coverage. How much do you need? A full-wrap frame is going to block out most of the light, so look for light gaps when you try them on. If there are gaps at the bottom or sides, you might want to step down a size. If light gaps aren’t a huge concern and you want a more lifestyle-looking frame then it’s just fit. If they are pressing on your cheeks or above your eyes, step up a size. When you try on frames, lean forward. You don’t want glasses that slide down, if they do, look for something with nose pads, rubber temple tips, or step down a size.

The last thing I always do when trying on glasses is to try them on with a hat. Try your glasses with whatever type of hat you like to wear on the water.

HPFC: How does someone know they’re getting the right lenses?

Marguerite Meyer: We have a good technical information page on our website that can help guide you into the right lens. If you are in the store trying them on, ask the salesperson to take you outside to try out the different lenses. You can really see the differences in brightness and contrast between the lenses when you get them out in the sun. When you are picking your lenses, you have to choose between glass and polycarbonate both lenses are great for different reasons. Glass is more scratch resistant than poly but is a heavier material. Our glass is very light and in a frame that holds a smaller lens, it can be difficult to tell a glass lens apart from a poly lens, but in a frame that holds a large lens, like a lifestyle frame, that additional material weight can add up on smaller ears and noses. Polycarbonate lenses are lighter in weight but the process of building the layers that provide the enhanced optics on poly lenses leave them more prone to scratching. They don’t scratch easily, but you can’t throw them in a bag without a cover or case and expect nothing to happen when they rub up against your keys. Like any piece of expensive fishing gear, I take care of my glasses and use a case or cover when I take them off, so it’s poly for me whenever possible. I also like to use prescription sunglasses when I fish as contacts just don’t work for me on long days. We have most of our lens options available in prescription in all of our frame styles.

HPFC: What’s coming next or in the near future from Bajio?

Marguerite Meyer: We will keep building out our collection of frames, of course. We just released a large collection of hats with artwork by our artist, Casey Anderson, they are a different take on our world of fishing. There are the fish but then we have also brought in some critters. We chase them with some more that the fish like to chase. My favorite is the carp hat, I call him the Chonky Lunker Boy. I caught my first carp the same day I got the job offer that brought me to Florida to work in the sunglass industry. I tied my love of fishing to a career path that has landed me in front of this laptop answering your questions today…dude.

HPFC: What are your personal and professional long-term goals?

Marguerite Meyer: More experiences and more fun. So far, I’m doing pretty good on both of those two things but more would be good-er.