Currents

Release 017: Grandpa's Fishing Vest

May 23, 2025

Fishing vests have been on my mind this week. And not just in a passing “Oh yeah, remember those?” What happened to them? They used to be the uniform and the standard for fly fishing carry. My dad wore one religiously when we fished the local creeks. My grandfather wore one too, stuffed with fly boxes, tippet spools, split-shot… plus a soft pack of Pall Malls and whatever else he deemed essential for a day on the water.

They made perfect sense then, and frankly, they still do. So why did we all switch?

Nowadays, everyone’s wearing chest packs, hip packs, slings, waterproof roll-tops with enough straps to rappel off a cliff. I’ll admit, I’ve been using a chest pack for a while. It carries well, and I do love how my net tucks in behind it. But I won’t lie—it’s not nearly as comfortable as a well-broken-in vest. And yet there mine hangs, lonely in the closet.

Maybe we just got caught up in the cycle of new gear. Maybe we forgot how good a fishing vest really is. Or maybe, just maybe, other hobbies stole it right out from under us.

Photographers and videographers have figured out what we always knew: a fishing vest is the ultimate utility garment when you’ve got lenses, batteries, memory cards, and half a peanut butter sandwich to stash. Gardeners love them now, too, perfect for seed packets, shears, gloves, and whatever mystery tool lives in that one pocket no one ever opens. At some point, fishing vests stopped being a river item and started showing up in Brooklyn coffee shops. And honestly? I don’t even mind. I kind of like the idea of someone wearing a Simms vest while sipping a $7 latte and pretending to read The Old Man and the Sea.

One of my favorite corners of the internet is the subreddit r/dumphones, where people ditch smartphones in favor of analog living. And guess what’s making a quiet comeback there? Fishing vests. Because if you’re not carrying a bag, you still need somewhere to stash your keys, notepad, flip phone, iPod Classic, and a vape pen.

And then there’s the sentimental side. Some vests are more than gear, they’re heirlooms. Maybe it’s a beat-up old Filson Style 134 that your uncle wore every spring on the river, and it still smells faintly of pipe tobacco. Over the holidays, I sold an old 134 to a woman whose husband had lost his original one back in the early 2000s. She gave it to him for Christmas. I wish I could’ve seen his face when he opened it. I like to imagine he got a little choked up… and then went out this spring and caught a fish that reminded him of who he was back when he first wore it.

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