My route to the river takes me south and then west, and about halfway through the southern leg I noticed that the sky on the southwestern horizon—where my destination lay, generally—had an ominously dark cast to it. I resisted jumping to any conclusions but a few miles later, after I’d turned due west and the flatlands of central Wisconsin unfurled expansively ahead, that oily smear in the distance resolved into a ragged curtain of rain, a curtain torn at irregular intervals by pale slashes of lightning.

In 1929, Edwin Land changed eyewear forever. And, whether he knew it or not, he gave recreational anglers perhaps their greatest advantage against their fishy quarry outside of maybe the barbed hook or the monofilament line.