Lead Sinkers

[Mato Kuwapi]

Thanks for posting that great article about the lead issue, Bob.

Like you, I feel it's being used as propaganda to fuel the anti angler hunter groups.

The studies are based on bad science and not enough research. There are still large number of articles being written about lead being the number one killer of loons. That's a huge mountain of dog CrrrrrAP!

The biggest killer of loons and other shore birds these days is type e Botulism. Anyone who walks the beaches of any Great Lakes shoreline in the fall will tell you this is a growing disaster that should be scaring the hell out of anyone who cares. THIS should be the focus of saving the planet. Not split shot.

http://www.greatlakesforall.com/2008...dead-loon.html

http://blog.mlive.com/chronicle/2007...ing_birds.html

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...51C1A9669C8B63


Now think of your pet consuming some tasty morsel while on a romp along the shoreline.

This makes lead in fishing tackle look like a waste basket fire in the middle of an empty parking lot. Bird (loon) deaths from e botulism is equal to the great Chicago fire by comparison. I guess if the only water supply around is the fellow who just downed a few beers standing nearby, the fire he might be able to put out is the waste basket. It's not very effective in dealing with the real emergency, is it.

I started to notice something was very wrong while walking the beaches in the fall of 99 when I saw hundreds of dead shore birds on the beach by my in laws place. A very large number of them were loons. It's only gotten worse each year since and it's happening all around the Great Lakes. It used to be a periodic natural phenomenon but never in this size, nor did it reoccur, year after year. This is new. The reason is now thought to be an ongoing cylce that has been created by zebra mussels and round gobies. Both, recent invasive species dumped in the Great Lakes by ship ballast.

Now if someone tells me not to buy lead split shot, I tell then to go pee in the wind. Lead in fishing tackle has been used for centuries. The loons are loosing ground for multiple other reasons, the least of which is split shot. Lead is just one HUGE smoke screen to avoid the real costly issues and glorify the anti sportsman campaign.

That's my two cent.

[Robert Taipala]

Good Article and post. In this era of fear mongering, It good to see those going back to the facts instead of just repeating the same old misconceptions.

[wizard]

Cheers to Mato, I have also seen it first hand at the beach at Olcott Harbor on Lake Ontario. We used to fish off the pier there back in the late 1970's. You could get off the pier and walk along the beach and there would be a large drift pile of garbage that would wash up along the pier and eventually be deposited on the beach. In that pile were visible THOUSANDS of plastic tampon applicators, and used hypodermics and a bunch of other disgusting stuff, as all the big boats would dump out in the lake rather than pay a few bucks to dump in a regular pump out tank. My first boss years ago used to have a saying "People are no damn good". I came to believe it (with exceptions of course). Probably the people dumping out in the Lake are the same ones pushing to ban lead!

And I believe one of the local tackle shops there has a "New Hot Salmon Plug" still hanging over the counter there, a pink tampon applicator with treble hooks and a screw eye mounted on it!

[Flyrodde]

Let me add a few arguments:

Lead in a large solid state does not pose much harm to living things. Lead in solution or finely ground can. The good news is lead does not dissolve in water. The bad news is birds can turn large lead into fine lead very easily. A birds risk is not from eating a fish with a tiny amount of lead in its tissue. It is from eating whole lead shot that is mistaken for stone.

Birds can not chew. Most swallow small stones that concentrate in its gizzard. There the stones aided by strong muscular contractions grind food to aid in digestion. When soft lead is swallowed, the harder stones finely grind the lead and turn it into a form the bird can more easily absorb.

As we know from human poisoning, the lead most affects young and reproducing females the most. While an adult female may live, she may not be able to raise healthy young. She may become a drain on the population by taking an active breeding position, but never adding to the population. While this may have minimal effects on large and mostly healthy populations, this could have drastic effects on low bird populations with multiple factors for population decline. High level poisoning may also progress in the food chain through predation and scavenging of poisoned birds. The actual amount of this caused by fishing sinkers is yet and may never be fully understood.

Lead, however, can be used responsibly in most fishing situations. One more difference between lead shot from shooting and from fishing is where it is used. Fishing sinkers are generally used in deeper or swifter water and currents. Not the best feeding places of fowl. And when used properly, sinkers should be rarely lost. Shot is used in prime bird habitat. This in itself will affect how much damage could be done to an ecosystem by each.

One situation where lead may cause problems is in high use areas. I know on New York?s Salmon River thousands of anglers fish every season for salmon, steelhead and brown trout. This is, at most fishing times, a very hard pushing high flowing river. But in the summer, flows can drop significantly. With a high percentage of lost fishing tackle and a likelihood of exposure of deep swift current during low summer flows this could be a candidate river of regulation of lead sinkers, or at the very least a place where specific research could be conducted to the effects of the sinkers on local fowl. But by no means a focus area to determine the effects of most areas and states.

I try not to use lead if I can use a substitute, but that is my personal choice. Make your own choice depending on what is important to you. In New York, you can not buy small lead shot anymore. Large sinkers and jigs are still for sale. You can also use any lead of any size you still have OR lead you bring from out-of-state. This selective banning was put in place, not to stop, but limit the amount of chances waterfowl had to come in contact with lead sinkers. In my opinion this was a fair compromise to maybe help declining bird species.

[pharper]

Loon Gizzard From NY DEC.

Even though lead may not kill waterfowl as much as botulism or be as aesthetically disturbing as tampons... It is still Bad.

Excellent post FlyRodde!!
I still would imagine that lead lost in swift water accumulates and leeches into the environment.
And read this consumer advisory for lead in Canada
http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/cps-spc/pubs/...annexe-eng.php
Children have got lead poisoning from ingesting lead weight.

I use tin and the non-toxic putty, plus non-lead wire for weight (or the heavy wrap from wine bottles). It really isn't that much of a price difference and you can't put a price on the environemnt anyways...

No lead in paint, no lead in gas, why have lead weights (that most people bite to tighten)?

I will not use lead.

[pspaint]

Mato, I couldn't agree more! I think it's another one of those "feel good" legislations. It makes it look like the authorities are doing something, when in essence, they're not. They never get to the root cause of the problem, so they throw band aids at it and hope it will go away.

Dave, that lure would probably work great on the SR. lol.

[Mato Kuwapi]

Just so you don't get my totally wrong. I do think that lead needs to be phased out. I actually prefer tungsten (putty, bead heads or tape). It's not always easy to find the alternatives and it costs more. If they want people to use it, they should offer it at a more competitive price. I still have some lead in my arsenal because its often the only thing available around here. What I really wanted to drive home was the fact that there is a huge amount attention being given to that problem, which is minuscule compared to the real problem. The Great Lakes shorelines are major flyways for migratory birds. When one can walk 100 yards and find a dozen dead loons among several dozen other shore birds, it's not hard to see a disaster in the making. This is happening every fall now. Not once ever decade or so. I'm not sure anything can be done about it. It's now part of a natural cycle created by two or three invasive species, introduced into the Great Lakes twenty years ago. The other issue is habitat destruction. That has always been the number one reason for declines in species and it always will be. Stopping the use of lead slit shot isn't going to save the loon or anything else.

[rockthief]

between lead and monofilament line birds are dead ducks.