Bajío Cocho Sunglasses Review | GearJunkie Tested

I work on the water most days. The night before I head out, I get gear prepped and grab sunglasses with a lens that fits the particular brand of fishing I’ll be doing. But lately, I’ve been grabbing one set, every single day, no matter the conditions or fishing I’ll be doing: The Bajío Cocho with a Violet Mirror Lens.

Whether I’m chasing bass on a lake, inshore fishing in Florida, or throwing flies at trout out of a driftboat, I can’t help but pick them up. All my other fishing sunglasses are starting to gather dust.

So, what is it about these shades that has me, a self-admitted sunglass snob, so enamored? It’s a frame that’s truly geared toward anglers. Couple that with fantastic lenses, a very comfortable fit, and you have something that stands so far ahead of the crowd that it can’t be ignored.

In short: Thanks to the huge lenses and subtle, yet effective side shields, the Bajío Cocho ($219-269) has earned my top spot as the best fishing sunglasses available. They’re basically swimming goggles that let no unfiltered light reach my eyes, resulting in a far superior view of the underwater world. And the violet mirror lenses? They’ve got range, baby. These shades are the do-all answer for anglers.

Bajío COCHO Sunglasses Review

I Was Wrong: Frames Make All the Difference

I’ve always believed that the frame of your sunglasses doesn’t matter all that much. Sure, the frame affects performance a little, but not drastically. It’s all about the lenses.

My recommendation to fellow anglers has been to find a frame that fits your style, and then select a fishing-focused lens to pair with it. Because of that, I personally leaned heavily on sunglasses like the Smith Optics Guide’s Choice, Costa Reefton PRO, and the Bajío Zapata. They fit my style and have a slew of lens options for different fishing scenarios.

The Cocho is a step away from my norm. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that initially. I never liked making a fashion statement with sunglasses, but the Cocho’s frame design definitely grabs attention.

After one trip, I was sold. From a purely fishing functionality standpoint, these frames outperform my past favorites by a mile.

Large Lenses

A big part of that superior performance comes from the size of the lenses. They’re colossal. On the water, I’ve grown to absolutely love that.

With such a large lens, 100% of my vision passes through a polarized lens. In my peripheral vision, there are no gaps in coverage. Even if I move my eyes to the extreme edges of my view, I can’t see any edges. Everything is covered. That alone means I see more in the water.

That also means that no light enters the sunglasses from the bottom or the top. You’d be surprised at how much difference there is in sight-fishing ability when you completely eliminate stray light entering your vision around the edges of your view. The lenses are a shield blocking any and all forms of glare. I simply see more with these sunglasses than with all of the other pairs I own.

Additionally, the large size makes them pretty nifty while driving boats at high speeds in the rain. Often, you’ll see bass guys rocking a set of goggles in rainstorms while driving a boat to keep their vision unobstructed. Due to the lenses’ large size, the Cocho has the same effect. They keep the wind and rain from pelting my eyes while driving on plane. No need for goggles.

Side Shields

Excess light is also blocked by subtle, lightweight, removable side shields. The side shields on the Cocho do their job, but do it subtly. They block light from entering the sides of the sunglasses, but they aren’t large or obnoxious. They tuck right in behind the lens and the rest of the frame.

The side shields just up the ante on sight-fishing performance. Blocking any and all light is the name of the game with these shades. If you’re an angler and haven’t used side shields, you should. They make a huge difference.

Lens Options for the Bajío Cocho

Bajío is a fishing-focused brand, and as such, offers lenses for any condition anglers face. There are currently seven different lens colors available. Some of my favorites for fishing are the violet mirror, copper, green mirror, rose mirror, and blue mirror. All of those colors are available in a polycarbonate or glass lens.

The point is, no matter what type of fishing you do the most, you can get a set of Cochos that will match your fishing conditions perfectly.

Violet Mirror Polycarbonate Lens

I chose the Violet Mirror polycarbonate lenses for a few reasons.

Lightweight and Impact Resistance

For a lens of this size, a polycarbonate lens made sense to me from a weight standpoint. All else being equal, glass is flat-out heavier, and it would be even more noticeable with such a large frame.

With the polycarbonate lens, these sunglasses, frame and all, are ridiculously lightweight. They’re noticeably lighter than all of my other sunglasses, which I do start to notice after a long day on the water. They don’t slide down my nose, and they don’t cause annoying sore spots on my ears.

The polycarbonate lens is also more impact-resistant than glass. Because I guide fly fishermen for bass out of a drift boat, I often have giant streamers ripping past my face at Mach 50. Impact resistance is nice.

Now, glass does have a leg up on optical clarity, and as such, is usually what I opt for. However, I’ve found that these modern polycarbonate lenses don’t show any true downgrade in optical clarity. Saying there’s a huge difference between them and my glass lenses would be splitting some really, really fine hairs. I will say they scratch more easily than glass, but after 5 months, I’ve been able to get by with only one tiny scratch.

Versatile Color

Color selection is crucial in fishing sunglasses. Some colors perform better in low light, others perform better in salt, and others are diverse and don’t necessarily stand out in any particular area.

The Violet Mirror lens falls into the latter category, but it does it better than the copper lenses and green mirror lenses I’ve relied on in the past as all-arounders.

In low light, they’re the best lenses I’ve used, aside from yellow lenses designed specifically for low light. On most early mornings, I can get by with them just fine and don’t feel the need to take them off for better vision. They provide passable service, which isn’t a glowing review, but it’s better than other lens colors that leave you wondering if you can see better with or without your shades.

The real advantage, though, is how well they perform in extremely bright light while providing that passable low-light performance. While fishing in Florida, I spotted snook at 50 yards in glaring midday sunlight over blue water. My eyes didn’t feel strained, and the sight-fishing capability was impressive given that they aren’t necessarily the perfect lens for that situation.

They are the perfect lens for freshwater throughout the main part of the day. While trout fishing on rivers and bass fishing on lakes, performance is fantastic.

Overall, the violet mirror outperforms my green mirror lenses in low light, my copper lenses in bright light, and performs well across the board. It’s my new favorite do-all lens color. If I could have one lens to do it all, it would be this one.

Few Complaints With the Bajío Cocho

We’ll get the obvious out of the way. When I first put these sunglasses on, my wife looked at me and said, “You look like Bubbles from Trailer Park Boys.”

Yep. They look dorky. But my job is to review sunglasses through the eyes of an angler. Not someone trying to look cool.

They look dorky for a reason: the full coverage. The Cocho blocks light better than anything I’ve worn, so looks aside, from a fishing sunglasses standpoint, they’re the best. The on-the-water performance makes me completely forget about the style points they lack.

I do wish the side shields weren’t entirely removable. I’ve accidentally popped them off twice while folding the sunglass arms in. They’ve never come off while wearing the sunglasses, though, and the occasional pop-out isn’t a huge deal. But for me, these are an angling tool, and I have no desire to ever remove the side shields. They might as well be stuck onto the dang frame.

Final Thoughts

So, dorky looks aside, I keep coming back to the Bajío Cocho. The on-the-water performance is so far superior to other sunglasses that I’ve worn that I can’t justify wearing anything else.

They’re lightweight, block all light from reaching my eyes, and the violet mirror lenses allow me to sight fish in a huge variety of conditions. For a set of fishing sunglasses, you can’t ask for much else.