From Flats Skiff to Blue Water: Huk's Brent Brauner on the A1A Pro, Airweight, and Grip-X Footwear

This episode is presented by Huk Performance Fishing, the show's title sponsor. The conversation, product walkthrough, and editorial framing are Mark's — Huk did not review or approve this article before publish.

Huk's Director of Product Marketing doesn't just market sun hoodies — he tests them pulling a skiff through Charleston summers and has fought blue marlin 150 miles off Cabo. Brent Brauner sat down with Mark at the SFC Carrier Cup to break down exactly which Huk pieces he grabs off the shelf, and why the offshore fleet is living in the Airweight.

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The Guy Who Field-Tests the Catalog

Brent Brauner runs product marketing at Huk, and the job description is more sunburn than spreadsheet. Home base is Charleston, which he considers a feature: "It's nice to be at home in Charleston because we have some pretty gnarly weather. So we get to test out a lot of these products in the heat and humidity," he said at [00:49]. "I'm a skiff guy, so I'm pulling a skiff every weekend, which is a good way to get sweaty and get all those performance shirts working for you." [00:58]

A handful of the Huk team travel constantly to test gear in different environments [01:10], but Brent's own filter is saltwater fly fishing — a discipline of constant movement that punishes any garment that binds, chafes, or overheats [01:16]. The pieces he leans on are "the products that Jillian designed" [01:28] — the same design lead who walked us through Huk's fabric-level engineering in an earlier episode. That conversation covered how the gear is built; this one is about what it's like to fish in it.

The A1A Pro: "Like Linen Sheets" With a Scuba-Style Hood

Asked what he pulls off the shelf first, Brent didn't hesitate: "My number one favorite is the A1A Pro." [01:49]

The case starts with the jacquard fabric — "extra soft next to skin," built to breathe in peak heat and humidity, "Charleston or Florida, anywhere along the equator" [01:57]. And it apparently ages well: "The more times you wash it, it feels like it gets more comfortable. It's like linen sheets." [02:17]

Two details separate the A1A Pro from a standard sun hoodie. The hood is cut almost "scuba style" — tighter around the face than a classic drape — which Brent likes "when it's buggy as hell out. It's not bug protection, but it'll seal you off a little more." [02:20] And there are hidden thumb loops: engage them and the sleeve pulls over the top of the hand, covering the exact spot a right-handed fly caster gets cooked holding the rod all day [02:49]. Don't like thumb loops? "You can cut it out... you're not going to hurt the integrity of the shirt." [03:17] Huk lists the A1A Pro's sun protection at UPF 40.

The matching shorts run a stretch-poly ripstop that Brent rates as the best of both worlds: "You have the comfort of poly, which is really soft and lightweight... but you have more durability than you typically would expect with a poly garment" [03:42]. "You pair those two together in the hottest time of the year — I don't care if you're in Costa Rica or in Charleston." [04:04]

The Airweight: Huk's Offshore Workhorse

The second shirt in the walkthrough is the one Brent was wearing on camera: the Airweight hoodie, roughly a 90/10 poly-spandex blend [04:46]. "In my case, if I'm double-hauling a fly line or just moving a lot... it's got a lot of stretch in there. But if you feel it, it's actually really lightweight — hence the name." [04:54] The prints add no weight over the heathers, and the collection runs deep on colors and camos [05:08].

His positioning is blunt: "This is definitely the Huk workhorse sun hoodie" — the entry point if you're trying the brand for the first time [05:24]. The hood is the classic, looser drape that rides easier over a hat for all-day wear [05:38].

Mark's own offshore read: the Airweight is the all-rounder for a mahi or sailfish day, and doubles as the layer for a Florida "winter" — the kind where 70 degrees counts as chilly [06:00].

Then came the proof point from the dock the two were sitting on. This conversation was recorded at the SFC Carrier Cup presented by Huk in Charleston, and Mark asked what the league's angling clubs actually wear. "I think the majority of them are wearing the Airweight hoodie," Brent said. "We put them in that for that versatility reason — knowing that offshore can get hot, sweaty, and still windy... They're marlin fishing, they're doing their thing, but they're rocking this and they're comfortable." [07:05] The consensus between host and guest: anybody heading offshore who needs a sun hoodie is going to be happy in the Airweight [07:36].

Brent's buyer's guide, compressed: if you live in the Everglades and specialize, go A1A Pro; for "the weekend warrior that's going a little offshore, a little this, a little that," the Airweight is the go-to [09:09].

Bottoms Built for a Boat Deck

The Airweight bottoms carry the same UPF protection down to the knee [07:48], but the details are what make them boat clothes rather than gym shorts. On a skiff Brent carries pliers and a belt because everything rides on his hip — but on a bigger boat with real storage, "it's nice to be able to get away with not having a belt. You have a really nice elastic in there and a drawcord." [07:59]

The pockets are cut deep enough that a phone stays put while you move around the deck [08:18], and there's a single zippered back pocket for the things you can't afford to lose — hotel key, truck fob — "something small you want to fit, but you want to have it totally secured." [08:28]

Grip-X Underfoot: From the Rogue Wave Boot to the Rogue Island Flip-Flop

Get the names right first: the six-inch Rogue Wave boot, and the new Rogue Island flip-flop [09:41]. The link between them is the Grip-X outsole. "These little micro-channels in here, they help disperse water when you're on a wet deck. And you have multi-directional traction — whether you're pronating or moving around on a wet dock or offshore, you have that trust." [09:58]

That trust is the whole launch strategy. By Brent's count, over a million anglers wear Huk footwear built on that outsole [10:25] — so rather than invent a new sole for the flip-flop, "the design team took that and put that into a flip-flop. At first look, it looks like just a nicely designed flip-flop. But when you look at the outsole, you have that same traction... as you would trust offshore or close to a boot." [10:29]

Brent wears them fishing, not just walking the dock: "I like fishing in flip-flops... I have a small boat, the platform is definitely small. So having grip in my tight little area and being able to pivot and move, jump up and down — and having a flip-flop that grips in the same way that I trust in our boots — is a really nice feature." [10:51] Mark's angle is the offshore cockpit, where blood and spray on the deck make ordinary sandals a liability [11:23]. The launch, Brent says, has been "a wild success so far," with more footwear in the works from the design team [12:07].

Tarpon on Fly, Six-Marlin Days, and Getting Humbled

End of the gear talk, start of the good stuff. "If the world was ending tomorrow, I would go fly fishing for tarpon," Brent said [12:35]. Why? "It's a chess match." [12:53]

The itch is inherited. His dad raised him and his brother on every kind of fishing but was a fly guy at heart — Brent's second-grade project was tying a fly, and he grew up watching his father pack for Christmas Island and Alaska coho trips, always fishing flies he'd tied himself [13:05].

The offshore résumé is real, too: Costa Rica, Florida, and one unforgettable stretch out of Cabo — "we went out of Cabo, I don't know, 150 miles out, stayed on the boat for a couple of nights. It had to be like six blue marlin one day. I was like, oh my god." [14:35]

Both men closed on the same theme: big fish don't care what you deadlift. Mark pointed to Jaselyn, the SFC angler who gives up several hundred pounds to the blue marlin she whips anyway [15:32], and copped to getting gassed by an average yellowfin while an angler half his size — legs, technique, strategy — made it look easy [15:52]. "Take that ego and just get rid of it." [16:37]

Listen, and Go Fish in It

The full conversation runs a tight 17 minutes — worth it for the thumb-loop detail alone. Stream every episode on the Science of Fishing podcast hub, and if you missed the design-side companion piece, start with our episode with Jillian, Huk's Director of Design [16:48].

Get the gear featured in this episode at huk.com.

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Adapted from The Science of Fishing podcast, "Inside Huk: Brent Brauner Breaks Down the Brand's Top Fishing Apparel," recorded at the SFC Carrier Cup presented by Huk in Charleston (event details verified against the Sport Fishing Championship). Related coverage: InTheBite on the Rogue Island launch and AllOutdoor on the A1A Pro collection.

Huk Performance Fishing is the title sponsor of Science of Fishing. Get the gear featured in this episode at huk.com.