Split Shot and lead wire

[Fishin' Jimmy]

I use to think Split Shot and lead was no big deal! The amount of lead in a split shot or some lead wire on a hook. BUT AFTER SEEING A REGIONAL TV SHOW NORTLAND ADVENTURE LAST WEEK I HAVE A NEW OUTLOOK ON LEAD! THEY DID A FEATURE ON A WILDLIFE REHAB CENTER. THREE EAGLE WERE THERE FOR LEAD POISONING THIS FALL,ONE DIED! THEY STATED THAT STATED THAT LEAD AS SMALL AS A #6 BUCKSHOT CAN POISON AN EAGLE , A LOONS OR OTHER BIRDS OF PRY. iT'S A BIG JOB TO REPLACE
MY FLIES AND SMALL JIGS. no more lead for me!!!

Fishin' Jimmy

[Allan]

Now I'm not a 'lead' person, don't think I use 2 or 3 small split shots a year, but I think there is a point when you have to be real. There are many things in nature, and unfortunately man-made, that are dangerous to different animals. Sh*t happens. How about complaining about the Wind Turbines in California and the number of bald eagles that they've killed. Last report I saw that number was 80 and that didn't count other birds. I guess the environmental crowd will say that, 'while it's a shame that those birds were killed, that's the cost of quality air'. Of course while the positive points of that technology are very questionable, it seems to be that the environmental crowd has accepted any positive 'claims' as dogma. So, while I'm not a lead user per se, I don't find its use as alarming as you.

Allan

[Big Bad Wulff]

But but..... It's "Green". It has to be good.........

[Fatman]

Have been going through this since it first started, I still have a copy of the Federal Register when the first ban on lead was proposed. The "reports" have since been found completely misleading. Lead is a naturally leaching material in nature. The report showed 43 loons dead over an 11 year period - testing revealed 7 of the 43 were from chemical poisoning. So over an 11 year period 36 birds - 3.272727 a year, that in no way justifies the dire situation they protrayed in the report.

Look at the fish farm owner who got busted for killing birds http://blogs.houstonpress.com/hairba...owner_says.php

Here's the list of birds if you don't want to read the whole article

90 brown pelicans
17 great blue herons
five great egrets
four black-crowned night herons
four turkey vultures
two osprey
two gulls
one scaup


I saw one report that MILLIONS of birds were dead due to lead poisioning - if that had happened where are all the news camera's showing all the dead bodies??? When 2000 blackbirds fell dead out of the sky it was all over the news http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/01/03/...-arkansas-sky/

Last year fishing line and pieces of cast nets accounted for more bird kills than reported for lead (and lead while suspected) was eventually ruled out after tests.

Here's the article Allan was talking about http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/...r-development/

Here in Vermont lead split shot, and sinkers 1/2 oz or less must be tin. Okay I'll buy those for my fishing. Many lure craft sites I go to we're all using powder paint on our jigs, lures and spinner baits. This prevents the lead from leaching.

It just really bugs me that the first words out of the environmentalists are they're dead from lead poisoning. It's been ruled out so many times it makes them sound totally irrational. Illegal chemicals are dumped around the country every year, the chemicals used in fracing polluting streams, contamination from old copper mines. But even with all of this it always seems the headlines read "Bird Deaths caused by Lead Poisoning". If these folks are so against lead, I'm surprised they're not beating down the doors at Ebay and Craigs list, where lead sales have become a hot ticket.

[pittendrigh]

It's not hard to do without lead. You can weight flies with beads. Some people (me for one) like to fish lightly weighted flies with most of the weight on the leader. You can knot a Tungsten bead into the leader, 18" up from the fly. Fluorocarbon tippets make that work well. You can even hang a bead off a dropper, so the nymph drifts weightlessly, yet still at depth. Or you can use a heavy sparkplug fly up the leader or on a dropper, where that weight comes from bigger beads on the sparkplug, or where the sparkplug fly is wrapped with brass wire. Handling lead all time probably isn't a good idea for our own health. One consequence of cumulative lead poisoning (for humans) is brain synapse impairment. When I took calculus as a 40 year old, I couldn't help wondering if 30 years of lead wire didn't have something to do with how hard it was!

[billhouk]

There are liars, damn liars, and statistics. I don't think any one expects one persons actions to endanger or save the world. However, it should be incumbent on all of us to do what we can. If my using lead free materials reduces my impact I will choose to do so. The ethical dilemma exists for those who choose to do nothing.