A door-to-door environmentalist knocked on my door the other day, and while he asked for donations to rally for governmental intervention, I counted the number of filled pauses he had throughout his three-minute spiel: twenty-six "ums", "uhs", or "and uhs" — unacceptable, even in a high-school speech class. And while the government is a fantastic means to effect environmental protection, it really comes down to a person-by-person basis. The heart-squeezing, eye-popping, lung-stopping beauty of a glittering stream in the San Juan Mountains begs me to keep it that way. But fly-fishing (in all its splendor) can harm this amazing environment. How can that be true? I have one word for you: lead.
Yes, those little split-shots that always slip into the wrong places and never appear again are an ecological disaster in the river. Lead has never been a healthy metal like something you might swallow in a Centrum A-Z vitamin. They (and by “they” I mean “someone in history”) had lead water pipes once upon a time, but that story didn’t have a happy ending. Lead is a metal which, in sufficient quantities, can harm the nervous or reproductive systems of animals and humans.
“Aha,” you might say, “what does ‘sufficient quantities’ mean?” Well, if you swallow “sufficient quantities” of aluminum (like the can of your favorite carbonated beverage), you’re bound to have some sort of gastro-intestinal problem afterward. But I agree (skeptic, remember): what real effect can one little lead split-shot have on the millions of acres of the national forest on which you fish?
 Well, if you were a loon in New England or Michigan, it is likely that nearly one out of your four cousins that might have died recently, died from eating a lead sinker. This is a staggering proportion, considering these deaths could have been prevented. No, I don’t mean that the entire loon population could be trained not to dive to the bottom and eat little pebbles (and discarded lead sinkers) to help with digestion. I mean, of course, that we can make an effort to remove lead from the waters in which they feed.
Not only does lead adversely affect the loon population of a river system, but it can also affect birds of prey, such as the osprey or the eagle who dine on the fish who dine on the lead. This strikes a little closer to home to those of us who fish in southwestern Colorado.
According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 2001 National Survey of Fishing, Hunting and Wildlife-Associated Recreation, posted on the American Sportfishing Association’s website (isn’t that a mouthful to cite?), 916,818 adult anglers fished a total of 9,269,000 days in Colorado alone that year.
Even if only forty-two percent of these people lost a single lead split-shot three point seven times that year to the rivers or lakes or reservoirs or beaver-ponds or streams or creeks, the total weight of the lead abandoned in the water amounts to…a whole lot. My point is this: because a bunch of people fish in Colorado, if you can get around using a lead weight while nymphing, do.
One might ask, “Well, what else can you use instead?” Fear not, my troubled friend, a hero from our own back yard has risen to tackle (no pun intended) the challenge of this heavy-weight (pun intended) champion, Pb (scientific nomenclature for the element commonly called lead). At risk of sounding like a magazine promotional rather than a fly-fishing article, I give you: BossTin.
This company has dedicated itself to the noble cause of “Get the LEAD out…” John Unger, Vice President of the company, lives here, in Pagosa Springs, and has charged headlong into the angling world, spreading the word on fishing with lead-substitutes. I suppose it is his job to do so, but his passion for preserving the wild beauty of the rivers and streams of Colorado is unmatched.
Some of his tips to “safeguard wildlife and human health” are to: (naturally) “Use non-lead fishing weights…Anglers should use sinkers and jigs made from non-hazardous materials such as tin and bismuth, tungsten and steel…Never throw old fishing gear into the water or shore…Never put a lead sinker in your mouth or bite down on a slip shot—use a pair of pliers instead!” Ehm, well, in that case, I guess I should be dead. Or at least brain-damaged. They were tasty at twelve-years old.
In any case, the idea of fishing with unleaded weights is a fantastic one, and the use of the non-hazardous tin, bismuth, tungsten, or steel weights should come before any of those oh-so-tasty-but-harmful lead split-shots. Smatterafact, the Wolf Creek Anglers Fly Shop carries these lead-substitute sinkers in a variety of forms. Buy some. That way you can tell any door-to-door environmentalist that you’re an “Unleaded Angler” helping to preserve the pristine beauty of the San Juan Mountains.
Kevin Muirhead
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Kevin Muirhead writes for Wolf Creek Anglers, and claims to love fly-fishing as much as he does writing. Though Kevin has fished in the Pagosa Springs area his entire life, he has attempted to abandon the area for most of the past three years, attending Colorado Christian University, where he studies English.
Wolf Creek Anglers, located at 169 Pagosa Street, has a remarkable collection of top-quality fly-fishing equipment, accessories, and clothing and retains a great selection of the flies you need to catch fish at any time of the year. Above all, however, they are an information-based business and would love to share their knowledge of the best-fishing streams and flies. Their guided trips, for beginner or expert, will never disappoint the angler who wants the extra edge provided by unparalleled guides or solitary waters in which to fish. For more information, visit www.wolfcreekanglers.com |