We spend a lot of time on the water fishing for multiple species in various weather and seasonal conditions. Having good fishing clothing is a must when you are in the elements. We wanted to share some of the best fishing shirts and hoodies we’ve come across in our own fishing and who the best makers of fishing apparel are in our eyes right now. Are there other great fishing shirts out there? We’re sure there are. We’ve made out best effort to get hands on with the top brands in fishing and offer our experiences and insight on good fishing clothing for your own on the water protection and comfort.
Best Fishing Shirts and Hoodies Quick List
- AFTCO Reaper Hoodie – Buy from BassPro Jump to this ↓
- Realtree Men’s Long Sleeve River UPF 40+ Fishing Shirt – Buy from Walmart Jump to this ↓
- Free Fly Bamboo Lightweight Hoodie – Buy from Amazon Jump to this ↓
- Simm’s CX Hoody – Buy from Simms Fishing Jump to this ↓
- Costa Angler Technical Hooded – Buy from Tackle Warehouse Jump to this ↓
- Grundén’s Windward Jacket – Buy from Grundens Jump to this ↓
- HUK Waypoint Hoodie – Buy from Amazon Jump to this ↓
- JB Langley Blackwell Long Sleeve – Buy from JB Langley Jump to this ↓
- Men’s UA Iso-Chill Shorebreak Camo Hoodie – Buy from Amazon Jump to this ↓
What makes a good fishing shirt or hoodie
In our eyes a good fishing shirt comes down to a few key ingredients. For a shirt to be a good fishing shirt it needs to check the following boxes:
- Good material / comfort
- Offer protection from the sun
- Keep you cool or warm
- Reasonable price for materials
- Durability
Fishing Shirt Materials
The best materials for creating fishing shirts vary from manufacturer and season. In the warmer months, we want something that protects us from sun exposure and is light and comfortable. In the colder months, we like clothing that keeps us warm and blocks the wind. A lot of companies just print iron on logos onto polyester shirts and call it good. But materials, the way they are cut, venting, and better breathable fabrics can really set one fishing shirt apart from another.
Sun Protection in Fishing Shirts
With the known issues with skin cancer in anglers who spend hundreds of hours on the water in the sun, taking precautions to keep your hand, neck and face covered on the water can yield better outcomes later in life. Several of my friends have had painful spots cut off their faces and arms and hands. And their stories are enough to make you want to keep yourself covered. A lot of the tactical fishing clothing comes with hoods, buffs, vented shirts to keep you venting sweat while blocking out the sun.
Reflective lighter pastel colors will repel the sun more and keep you cool. While darker colors will absorb more heat. For that reason we like dark fleece hoodies in the winter and lighter bright colors in the summer.
Fishing shirts to keep cool or keep warm
Again staying warm or staying cool allows anglers to stay on the water longer and enjoy their fishing time a lot more. So consider things like button downs in the summer that you can open up and let air out while out fishing. Or sun shirts with vented under sleeve areas or buffs built into the neck to keep the sun of your face and neck. In the winter, some of the more technical zip up hoodies have coatings that not only repel water but also block out the wind a lot better with soft fleece on the inside keeps you toasty. We have a few we love for this.
Best Fishing Shirt Brands
Because there are so many good fishing shirts and hoodies out there now, we focused on the top fishing shirt brands that we wear and have newer offerings for 2024. So take a look at our quick best of rundown by shirt brand below.
Best AFTCO Fishing Shirts and Hoodies
The AFTCO Reaper Hoodie is one of the more popular hoodies on the market now among avid anglers. Its super warm micro fleece wears well for a comfortable fit and tons of warmth with a built in hood and neck warmer. It features laser-cut ventilation on the mask and underarm areas and a hood anchoring system designed to keep it on your head while ripping down the lake in your bass boat. It’s soft, quite, warm and comfortable. Four of our seven-man team has a Reaper hoodie that we all bought to keep us layered in the winter or just as a standalone in the fall and early spring.
The AFTCO Samurai Sun Hoodie offers anglers another great technical sun hoodie that wears comfortably, dries quickly and provides UPF50 protection from the sun. The moisture wicking and stain resisting material breathes nicely so you stay comfortable and cool all day long in the summer. Now upgraded to the Samurai 2 Hoodie for 2024 with great new colors and slightly improved styling making one of the most popular sun hoodies even more popular.
Best Realtree Fishing Shirts
Realtree Men’s Gulf Stream Fishing Performance Hoodie features a polyester loose cut fit that is moisture wicking with a 3 way stretch and comes in camo patterned arms and hood on a solid color chest. This two tone fishing shirts wears nicely and looks good at a very reasonable price. I have found deals on Realtree Fishing shirts under $20 at Walmart.
Realtree Men’s Long Sleeve River UPF 40+ Fishing Shirt is a classy looking button down that works on the water as well as it does going out to dinner. It’s a nice lightweight material that offers vented sleeves, neck and back as well as Solar-Factor UPF 40+ UV protection. It features a sunglasses holder, and cloth, a rod holder, front draining pockets and quick drying and moisture wicking material to get you back to dry quickly.
Best Free Fly Fishing Shirts and Hoodies
Free Fly Bamboo Lightweight Hoodie
The Bamboo Lightweight Hoodie is an ultra-lightweight hoodie—equipped with a crossover hood and thumbholes for ultimate all-day sun coverage. Incredibly breathable and naturally odor-resistant, it offers a UPF 20+ rating so you can handle hours of hot and humid conditions. It’s a combination of Viscose from bamboo and polyester so it’s light breathable and soft.
Free Fly Elevate Hoodie
I really love the material in the Elevate Hoodie. It’s one of the softest fishing shirts I own. It fits with a modern cut, so I like to go up a bigger size to make it a little looser on me. The colors are very natural and nice. Pro advice from the Free Fly folks, turn the shirt inside out, wash it on cold and hang it up to dry and the shirt will stay looking smooth and new. These are extremely high end materials and construction. Making them really nice on long days on the water. I love the the thumb hooks and hood. I wear this shirt a lot now fishing because it’s so comfortable. I like to wear it with the Free Fly Tradewind Pant for maximum coverage and comfort. See FreeFlyApparel.com for more info.
Best Simms Fishing Shirts and Hoodies
Simms is one of our favorite apparel companies because they make really nice clothing, with all the features avid anglers want as well as being incredibly long lasts and durable. I have 8 and 10 year old jackets form Simms. They are just worth the money because they last and keep me warm and dry.
Simms M’s Bass Fill Hoody has been my thicker winter hoody. This year I’ve been wearing the hoody as my main mid-layer for fishing in cold weather and on the ugly days. It’s an overly thick hoody that wears nicely is thicker than most of your hoodies but is comfortable and not too heavy.
Simm’s M’s CX Hoody has been my go-to zip-up hoody for the last year and it’s been updated for 2024. It’s nice because I basically just under layer with a thermal layer and then zip up this hoodie and go get on the lake. It’s the hoodie I wear most days from spring, fall and winter. I can layer under it. If it’s not raining hard it even stands up to a light mist or sleeting as it really repels water nicely. It’s not fully waterproof but on those misty, snow days it has been really nice. It features a slick jacquard knit fleece exterior and an ultra-soft brushed fleece interior that provides extensive comfort and the perfect level of warmth while also being moisture wicking if you do work up a sweat casting and fighting fish or boat flipping hogs. It’s really a fisherman’s best friend in less than ideal conditions.
Simms M’s Solarflex Guide Cooling Hoody is another long time favorite of our team that has been updated for 2024. This sun protecting hoody not only keeps the sun off your head, face and arms, it also keeps you cool with it’s remarkable integrated cooling Brr nylon fabric material and quick-drying, moisture-wicking properties. Simms Solarflex Guide Cooling Hoody features an interlocking hood-and-gaiter system to protect the nose, mouth, neck, and ears from the suns’ harmful rays. A 3-panel hood is hat-compatible snapping to an integrated gaiter or to itself ensuring it stays secure while boat driving at maximum speed.
Best Costa Fishing Shirts
Costa Hooded Technical
Costa Hooded Technical offers superior sun protection and performance qualities with the additional benefit of a comfortable hood to offer our highest level of cover from the Sun. The 4.1-ounce 100% recycled polyester Hooded Technical Performance Long Sleeve is lightweight, comfortable, and sure to keep the sun’s rays from penetrating through to your skin. Costa shirts run a little tighter fitting with a smaller cut. These are antimicrobial fibers so the shirt will repel the bacteria from your outdoor adventures.
Buy at Tackle Warehouse
Buy at Costa
Buy at Amazon
Costa Angler Tech Button Down
Costa Angler Tech Button Down offers an incredibly light and comfortable material. These shirts run quite a bit smaller than your normal sized shirts so you need to order a size up. The material has some stretch to it is airy and light and looks great with slacks in the office or with shorts in the boat. So this will quickly become one of your favorite shirts.
Buy at Costa
Best Grundén’s Fishing Shirts
Grundén’s Windward Jacket has been one of our staples in the colder months up north. While technically not a shirt or hoodie, we’ve been using it as our mid-layer for coldweater fishing because if its lightness, warmth and breathability in a small form factor that works perfectly like a perfectly designed sweatshirt except much lighter. It’s one of our favorite pieces of cold-weather clothing.
Best Huk Fishing Shirts
Huk Waypoint Hoodie is one of my favorite fishing shirts I’ve ever owned. The softness and stretchiness of this hoodie make it one of my favorite fishing shirts. It features a samurai hood, front chest pocket, sleeve holes for covering your hands. The recycled fibers that are a combination of polyester, rayon and spandex. It doesn’t feel silky like most polyester shirts and that’s what I’ve always liked about it. There are a lot on sale now so be sure to grab them up at great prices.
Best JB Lagley Fishing Shirts
I love the material, cut and finish on the JB Langley Blackwell Long Sleeve Button Down fishing shirts. These shirt look as nice at a dinner party as they do on the lake. But that was the point of this line of clothing. They wanted to make a line of fishing ready clothing that looked and felt like designer clothing for anglers. Look sophisticated while out enjoying your time on the water with fully tactical fishing apparel. These shirts feature Toray® Primeflex stretch woven fabric that is moisture-wicking, fast-drying. The hidden snap down collar, and microfiber cloth for cleaning sunglasses at the front hem hint to the intentionality of this design. Finished with button cuff closures and a left chest duel pocket with top sunglass opening and zippered side closure. Highly professional and tactical clothing for the most serious angler.
Best Under Armor Fishing Shirts
Men’s UA Iso-Chill Shorebreak Camo Hoodie has been a great summer sun protecting hoodie. Purchased it on a trip down on the Gulf of Mexico to keep the sun off of me and my brother-in-law got one as well. They are comfortable, lightweight, and dry fast. We got rained on but were dry by the time we got back to the car. And they kept us cool in the breeze in the sweltering July Florida heat. Great hoodies for any fishing occasion.
More fishing apparel buyer’s guides
- Best Fishing Boots
- Best Fishing Hats
- Best Fishing Sunglasses
