While You're Deciding Whether To Go Lead-Less...

[MoSportsmen]

I love to see loons in Missouri. They are pretty rare, usually on the spring migration. I have seen them on the big lakes in Missouri in the spring, most migrate east and down the eastern flyway. Would be interesting to see how many cormorants are effected by fishing lead.

I would prefer to keep using lead it is the best material for the job. I don't like to see any animal dye from my garbage however. Loons are a sweetheart species, kinda like baby seals. I think sometimes research discovers what they want to discover.

Tom

[fishinwrench]

I think sometimes research discovers what it wants to discover

Cha-ching !!! Winner!

[Outside Bend]

My point being the birds pictured may only be 2 of millions, and they are poster birds

I agree issues like these can (and are) sometimes blown out of proportion, but the website says 44% of the 1500 birds examined were suffering from lead poisoning. That's not nothin', and as anglers, as the folks who are putting the lead in the system, IMO we have to own it.

I think sometimes research discovers what they want to discover.

I guess I'm not sure what you're trying to say. Researchers tend to study what they're interested in- someone curious about loons will study loons, someone curious about brown trout will study brown trout, someone curious about diabetes will study diabetes. If a researcher is curious about the relationship between loons and lead tackle, and studies the issue- what's dubious about that? I'd like to believe my fishing gear doesn't impact other wildlife- but the data shows otherwise.

[Feathers and Fins]

I have already done my part by no longer shooting lead shot which could not possibly be in the system still and could not possibly be what the loons are ingesting.

[Al Agnew]

We've had this discussion before...there are now other materials that are comparable to lead for many fishing applications, but for some things, lead is still the best material. For instance, I've found tin split shot to be just about worthless. Tin is not nearly as dense as lead, and in nymph fishing the size of the tin you have to use to get comparable weight is so big that the current actually affects it a lot. But for slip sinkers for bass fishing, tungsten, while much more expensive, works better than lead; it's heavier and denser so you don't need as big and obvious a sinker.

I'm not sure how I feel about the whole issue...but I do know that it's not necessarily a matter of researchers finding what they want to find. The amount of lead on the bottom in popular fishing areas would surprise you, and there's no doubt that ducks, coots, grebes, and loons all ingest it, and that eagles will accumulate it by eating those other birds.

Years ago, the Corps of Engineers shut the gates completely at Clearwater Dam so they could work on the gates and the bottom of the dam. They drained the tailrace. As anybody who has fished there knows, the tailrace is a popular spot which is lined with rock rip rap on the sides and bottom. There were TONS of lead stuck in those rocks. I got there several days after it had been drained, after a lot of other people had picked up who knows how many lead sinkers and jig heads, and still was able to easily collect a five gallon bucket full (which was too darned heavy to carry up the bank so I had to carry it in two trips). I suspect that any area where people can drive up and sit on the bank or a dock and fish will have a lot of lead on the bottom. So I don't doubt that it's a problem in many areas. Probably not halfway between accesses on an Ozark stream, though.