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Lead in the river

4K views 46 replies 24 participants last post by  Jeremy Floyd 
#1 ·
Noticed this posted on Speypages...........truly hard to believe.

 
#4 ·
That is disgusting.... and makes me proud that I don't fish gear and contribute to that. The riverbottoms around here without restrictions probably look the same.
 
#6 ·
I've often wondered about that, having lost my share of lead in the Sound over the years. Particularly since, it's my understanding, lead shot has been banned in many places because water-fowl ingest it and it kills them. I wonder how many tons of lead are leeching away in the water off all those fishing piers around the Sound and in our lakes and other rivers.

At work, we attend annual classes on lead awareness and the dangers of handling/ingesting it, how it's been banned from paints and whatnot since the '70s or so....

A guy at work told me he was fishing at the Edmonds pier the other day, and a scuba diver was selling buzz-bombs he had retrieved off the bottom for like $2 each; he had a bucketful. If you think about the scope of this ...all the jigs, weights, downriggers, etc that must litter the seabed every day, every year, ...jeez.
 
#13 ·
You can squawk about lead until you are blue in the face. Lead is used in one hell of a lot of things. Not just fishing weights. It used to be in paint but it's out now, in America that is. It's used in auto batteries. How many different type batteries are out there. Do they still use it in Gasoline?

I used to gear fish and I also lost lots of lead. Until they ban it entirely, you will have that stuff around.

They are only talking about one river. How many rivers dump into Salt water. How many lakes have lead weights on the bottom. They are talking about the tip of a pin.
 
#20 ·
I have friends that have used pyramid anchors for years and they weigh now what they did when they were purchased. I am not buying it. I have a 10 pound anchor that I use on my pontoon boat that was purchased 12 years ago and has been dropped in rivers and lakes hundreds of times if not a few thousand. I just weighed it and it weighs 10.5 pounds. Now I am not sure it weighed 10.5 when I bought it but it was sold as a 10 pound anchor.
 
#22 ·
The first sentence of the last paragraph sums it up. Why is there a need to use lead anchors when suitable alternatives are available - is it the cost? Once I discovered an alternative, the lead anchor made less and less sense.

"The fact is, lead is harmful to an enormous variety of wildlife, and lead fishing sinkers and other lead tackle contribute significantly to the risk."

 
#21 ·
Under neutral pH conditions, inorganic lead (the stuff in sinkers and pyramid anchors) is pretty biologically inert and pretty tough. Under acidic conditions (mine tailings that are acidic or the digestive system of a foraging bird), it ionizes and can be absorbed. Under those conditions, it damages the nervous system and can lead to paralysis and death. Birds swallow hard materials, like stones, to grind their food in their muscular gizzard (duckbill dinosaurs and their relatives appeared to do the same thing). If the hard materials were lead shot, the physical abrasion and the acidity in the gizzard would be a deadly combination (see http://water.epa.gov/scitech/swguidance/fishshellfish/animals.cfm). Large chunks of lead, too large to be swallowed, are not a significant biological threat, but split shot would appear to be in the right size to be swallowed. Those who pour their own lead sinkers, jig heads, etc. are also at risk because of the fumes from the molten lead (see http://water.epa.gov/scitech/swguidance/fishshellfish/humans.cfm). This article also covers the issue quite well, especially in comparing the contributions of hunting vs. fishing to the accumulation of lead: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2188/do-lead-fishing-sinkers-threaten-the-environment.

Steve
 
#35 ·
Good for a chuckle, Steve - but the reality is it's not one bird eating a 10 pound piece of lead, it's millions eating much smaller pieces - the size that comes off as a 35 pound pyramid finishes the season at 27 pounds.

8 pounds of lead. Where does it go?
Once again, whose anchor is weighing 4,5 or 8 pounds lighter? I have one that has been used for over 12 years and is still the same weight it was when purchased. I'm not buying into the hype.
 
#26 ·
It is tough to tell from the presentation how much fishing lead they have and how much "other stuff" is in the bucket. It is not clear what the "other stuff" is.....maybe it is lead maybe it is rocks...it should be investigated to clarify what we are seeing. If it is truly lead, they should give up gold mining and start selling lead, they probably netted $280.....
 
#27 ·
I was fishing the fly bar a few years back and got so mad at a fellow. He would motor up to the top of the run, throw out his anchor, and drag his anchor through the middle of the river all the down; that yahoo! It made me mad enough that he was, in my opinion, ruining any chance at a fish, but I was thinking about the lead and the river bottom and that made me so mad. You could hear it quite dragging quite loud over the rocks. Does anyone know if its legal to drag an anchor like that?
 
#36 ·
I was fishing the fly bar a few years back and got so mad at a fellow. He would motor up to the top of the run, throw out his anchor, and drag his anchor through the middle of the river all the down; that yahoo! It made me mad enough that he was, in my opinion, ruining any chance at a fish, but I was thinking about the lead and the river bottom and that made me so mad. You could hear it quite dragging quite loud over the rocks. Does anyone know if its legal to drag an anchor like that?
I don't think there is anything illegal about dragging anchor while fishing although it likely isn't the smartest thing to do in waters that are used for spawning. Most guys I see using this technique will use a portion of an inner tube about two feet long. They will tie the ends off with wire and fill it with sand and small rocks from a river bar. This results in an 'anchor' that is banana shaped and drags the bottom with out hanging up much. The desired affect is to slow the drift without using oars or a kicker.
 
#29 ·
Way to change the subject from 'lead may be harming our favorite places', to 'that's probably not even lead in the bucket'. Funny stuff.
But I think what Derek may be getting at is that a chunk of lead like a lost anchor sitting at the bottom of the river subjected to erosive forces 24 hours a day for years throughout all seasons including the ones that don't get fished. Think about the little pebbles that are constantly pinging off it, I would think they'd be harder than the lead. You want proof that a soft chunk of lead can be eroded by a river, look no further than the canyon through which the river flows.
 
#33 ·
I think you will find that lead is not soluble in water.

The lost lead sinkers are not a significant water quality issue. If lead were even marginable soluble in freshwater the spend lead shot found in various ponds and lakes for waterfowl hunting with lead shot would have dissolved years ago rather than persisting as a problem for various waterfowl. They have issues with the lead shot in that they ingest the shot to provide the gist for the gizzards. As they is ground down it enters their blood streams which often leads to death.

Here in Washington lead sinkers can be a problem for loons feeding on local waters; however here again the problem is not the lead in the water. The majority of the time the loons dying of lead poisoning get the lead from stealing fish from anglers and as they break the anglers line the bird ingests the fish, hook, and sinker leading to the problem. That problem got of just as easily been solved by requiring anglers on those key waters to use free sliding sinkers that had no obstacle between the swivels and the rod tip. Then when the loon breaks the anglers line to get the fish the sinker would fall harmlessly to the bottom as a ban on the use of those sinkers.

If as anglers you are concern about fishing related impacts on the environment I suggest that you focus on our leaders - both monofilament and fluro. A dual fold impact from the material left in the environment and the manufacture of the material.

Curt
 
#37 ·
yes drift fishermen litter the hell out of rivers. but lead anchors? come on. perhaps some of you should take up a less destructive hobby like ballet or chess, this California mentality its getting old. oh yeah the lead is still on the anchor smart guy, no really it is a soft metal its just a different shape now. buy a prius, and eat only food you grow, and return to silk lines. my guess is most of the compensator rigs i see some of you drive pollute far more than my anchor, so sell that diesel Ford and get a bike
 
#38 ·
I would venture a guess that the suction dredging is doing far more damage than the lost lead on the river bottom.​
 
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