I started a new hobby: photographing lures that I find while I’m out fishing. About a year ago I started fishing a couple of the local city ponds not far from my house here in Tulsa. Of course these ponds get quite a bit of fishing pressure, so there is always some sort of debris left about. It really irks me when people litter, but the worst is when people leave large bird nests of fishing line. When animals get in to that stuff it’s not pretty. It seemed that after every fishing trip I would come home with a wad of fishing line in my fanny pack and sometimes there would be a jig or a bobber attached. After a while I had quite the bobber collection, with a few lures and jigs thrown in.
Here is a photograph I made of a piece of lead that I found the other day. What struck me about this find is the fact that I had just read an article in the summer issue of Fly Rod & Reel magazine about the controversy concerning the accumulation of lead in our waterways. Ted Williams, the author of the article, quotes the U.S. Geological Survey that “about 4,382 metric tons of lead sinkers are sold each year in the United States.” This can’t be good. According to the article some have estimated that “10 to 20 million birds and other animals die each year” from lead fishing tackle.
I know that there is controversy over whether these numbers are accurate, but I think I am going lead free.
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