06-08-2005, 09:48 PM
The Killer Sun
Save your skin (and maybe your life) this summer.
by Jim Thornton
In 1992, Chuck Naiser of Rockport, Texas, decided to stop selling insurance and try to make his living as a flyfishing guide in the coastal bays near Corpus Christi. His wife gave him her blessing, provided that he’d make her two promises: (1) to religiously cover his skin with sun-protective clothing and slather sunscreen on when he went out on the water; and (2) to visit a dermatologist every six months.
Before making the switch to full-time guiding, the now 59-year-old Naiser had spent nearly every weekend of his adult life fishing beneath the broiling Gulf sun. Even this had taken a toll—prematurely “photoaging” his skin, triggering a couple of small precancerous lesions on his face and ears, and periodically causing his lips to crack and bleed for weeks.
Since he started guiding 13 years ago, Naiser has spent from 225 to 240 days a year out piloting his skiff and wading the shallows in pursuit of redfish. Despite all this time in the broiler, he says his ears and other parts remain fully intact and cancer-free, due in large part to his wife’s advice. He’s also grateful to his dermatologist, who, over the course of two dozen visits, has frozen off numerous precancerous growths on his neck, scalp, and ears, eliminating future problems.
Thanks to their efforts, Naiser says that he’s confident he’ll be able to keep catching redfish “until they find me lying facedown out there.” The key to any angler’s longevity, he’s become convinced, is sun-smart behavior.
“If I were to drop my guard for even two or three days,” he says, “it would shorten my career. Caring for your skin is as important in fishing as having a boat that runs. Just as your boat needs preventive maintenance, so does your skin.”
The Dark Side of a Sunny Day
Sun damage is done by ultraviolet radiation, which bombards the Earth’s atmosphere in three basic forms: UVC, UVB, and UVA. The first packs the greatest wallop but is mostly blocked by the ozone layer. UVB is only partially blocked by ozone and is primarily responsible for sunburn and skin cancer formation. And UVA can pass through clouds and even glass; it hurts us by augmenting the burns that UVB triggers, and by photoaging the skin.
For fishermen of various stripes, excessive sun exposure is an occupational hazard. Southern-latitude anglers like Naiser are exposed to significantly more UVA and UVB than those in more northerly regions because solar radiation increases dramatically the closer you are to the equator. Not that those pursuing trout in the Canadian Rockies are significantly safer than their colleagues casting for bonefish in the Keys. “Every thousand feet you go up in altitude, there’s about 4 to 8 percent more UVB because there’s less atmosphere to filter it out,” explains San Diego dermatologist Lee Kaplan, M.D., author of the chapter on photomedicine in the definitive text, Wilderness Medicine (C.V. Mosby; 4th edition). “Guys who flyfish at high elevation—the mountains of Montana or Colorado, for example—do face a much greater risk of forming skin cancers.”
Save your skin (and maybe your life) this summer.
by Jim Thornton
In 1992, Chuck Naiser of Rockport, Texas, decided to stop selling insurance and try to make his living as a flyfishing guide in the coastal bays near Corpus Christi. His wife gave him her blessing, provided that he’d make her two promises: (1) to religiously cover his skin with sun-protective clothing and slather sunscreen on when he went out on the water; and (2) to visit a dermatologist every six months.
Before making the switch to full-time guiding, the now 59-year-old Naiser had spent nearly every weekend of his adult life fishing beneath the broiling Gulf sun. Even this had taken a toll—prematurely “photoaging” his skin, triggering a couple of small precancerous lesions on his face and ears, and periodically causing his lips to crack and bleed for weeks.
Since he started guiding 13 years ago, Naiser has spent from 225 to 240 days a year out piloting his skiff and wading the shallows in pursuit of redfish. Despite all this time in the broiler, he says his ears and other parts remain fully intact and cancer-free, due in large part to his wife’s advice. He’s also grateful to his dermatologist, who, over the course of two dozen visits, has frozen off numerous precancerous growths on his neck, scalp, and ears, eliminating future problems.
Thanks to their efforts, Naiser says that he’s confident he’ll be able to keep catching redfish “until they find me lying facedown out there.” The key to any angler’s longevity, he’s become convinced, is sun-smart behavior.
“If I were to drop my guard for even two or three days,” he says, “it would shorten my career. Caring for your skin is as important in fishing as having a boat that runs. Just as your boat needs preventive maintenance, so does your skin.”
The Dark Side of a Sunny Day
Sun damage is done by ultraviolet radiation, which bombards the Earth’s atmosphere in three basic forms: UVC, UVB, and UVA. The first packs the greatest wallop but is mostly blocked by the ozone layer. UVB is only partially blocked by ozone and is primarily responsible for sunburn and skin cancer formation. And UVA can pass through clouds and even glass; it hurts us by augmenting the burns that UVB triggers, and by photoaging the skin.
For fishermen of various stripes, excessive sun exposure is an occupational hazard. Southern-latitude anglers like Naiser are exposed to significantly more UVA and UVB than those in more northerly regions because solar radiation increases dramatically the closer you are to the equator. Not that those pursuing trout in the Canadian Rockies are significantly safer than their colleagues casting for bonefish in the Keys. “Every thousand feet you go up in altitude, there’s about 4 to 8 percent more UVB because there’s less atmosphere to filter it out,” explains San Diego dermatologist Lee Kaplan, M.D., author of the chapter on photomedicine in the definitive text, Wilderness Medicine (C.V. Mosby; 4th edition). “Guys who flyfish at high elevation—the mountains of Montana or Colorado, for example—do face a much greater risk of forming skin cancers.”