![Fish_Capitol_Take_Action_300x300[1]](https://onthewater.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Fish_Capitol_Take_Action_300x3001.jpg)
The American Sportfishing Association (ASA) is urging fishing businesses and fishermen to support H.R. 2406 (the SHARE Act)—a comprehensive sportsmen’s focused piece of legislation that includes critical language ensuring access to our nation’s public waters.
The House of Representatives is scheduled to start voting on the bill as soon as Thursday.
This bill protects traditional fishing equipment containing lead from unwarranted federal bans, requires federal land managers to prioritize fishing access, and blocks the National Park Service from arbitrarily closing waters to fishing without state approval.
This is one of the most significant legislative issues for fishermen and the sportfishing industry in many years, so please take a moment to weigh in to your Representative TODAY and urge their support.
Here’s what you can do:
- Call the US Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask to speak to your Representative’s office (if you don’t know who your Representative is, simply enter your zip code on this website: http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/)
- When you reach your Representative’s office, ask to speak to the staff person who handles environment issues
- When you reach the environment staffer, please convey these three points:
- Introduce yourself (your name, about your business, where you’re located, number of employees, etc.)
- Tell them that you strongly support HR 2406, the Sportsmen’s Act, and urge your Congressman to vote “yes.”
- Tell them you oppose Amendment #24 by Rep. Don Beyer, which would remove an important provision that protects the states’ ability to manage state marine waters.
You can also help further spread the word by sharing the link to the KeepAmericaFishing action alert to your family and friends.
Chris Megan
Publisher, On The Water Media
Northeast Representative, The American Sportfishing Association
No support here.
“unwarranted bans?” lead is poisonous (ask the people of Flint MI) – thus the use of steel shot for waterfowl. we got used to that positive move, we can get used to this.
why should federal land managers prioritize fishing access across the board? there may well be higher values at stake in any given case. the language is too broad.
why should states have management rights over federal national parks? again – there may be higher values at stake. we need to look at the broader management picture, not just how it impacts our ability to fish everywhere all of the time.
Lead is poisonous, but there really aren’t any better options. I’ve used some lead-free split shot when tossing sandworms to schoolie bass off a dock. The next morning, they are heavily coated with rust. About the only option I could see would be to cast sinkers out of bronze. It’s heavy enough to make them not too overly large and it’s castable, albeit at much higher temps than lead. However, it’s also way, way more expensive than lead. Are you going to pay $20+ per sinker?
The bigger issue with a lead ban would be things like swivels and hooks and other misc. parts which may or may not have trace amounts of lead, cadmium, etc. in them. Typically, the Fed. bans require positive certification (like they do with kids toys) where the vendors are required to regularly test them for the presence of the metals. The only vendors who can afford to do that are big box stores. Are you prepared to drive every mom&pop bait and tackle store out of business just so you can feel good about insignificant amounts of potentially hazardous metals added to the ground from which it came? After all, most of it just sinks to the bottom, gets buried and never seen again.
Bill you’re forgetting that it isn’t the “mom & pop” bait and tackle shops who would be responsible for lead/heavy metal testing – it would be the manufacturer’s themselves. As such this wouldn’t drive tackle shops out of business, only force them to adhere to the manufacturer’s higher suggested retail prices, thus driving up prices for us as fishermen.
What I am prepared to do is what I and many others have been doing while fly fishing for quite some time now – use lead-free fishing weights. To my knowledge it has yet to drive anyone out of business. It surprises me that a group of generally conservation minded anglers that will readily pay top dollar for the latest rods, reels, lines, lures, (not to mention boats!) etc. won’t be willing to pony up a little more to get the poison out of the environment that sustains us. As I said – we have gotten used to non-toxic shot in the duck blind and we can get used to this. As for rust on lead-free weights – rinse them off like you do the rest of your saltwater gear after a day enjoying the water.
@Mark, lead-free split shot, small eggs, etc., makes perfect sense. You are talking about small water and shallow pools and much of it becomes our drinking water. It is a very closed environment and it makes sense to keep it as pristine as possible. In the context of the ocean, we are talking much bigger areas and much larger volumes of water. Also consider size… a 1 oz. lead sinker is 2.5 cm^3. The same 1 oz. sinker in silicon-bronze (a standard metal in a marine environment) is 3.48 cm^3. Stainless steel would be slightly larger at 3.66 cm^3. So, typical inshore weights are around 6 oz. to hold bottom. That means I would need 21 cm^3 weight which is 40% bigger in size. It gets even worse when you start talking about offshore weights. It makes complete and total sense (to me) to protect our drinking/fresh water from lead comtamination and have a different set of rules for saltwater.
@Sea Worm, that isn’t how the Federal legislation was written for children’s toys, clothing, etc. The retailers had to foot the bill for things or show proof. So, all those retired guys making lures in their basement and all those stores which import Japanese and Australian fishing gear and even stuff manufactured in small but marketable quantities would all have to be tested and certified. This isn’t an issue for the big-brand-name-lure-sold-by-the-big-box-store. It’s an issue for the little guys.
We should be more worried about the millions of tons of non biodegradable plastic put in our ocean, not some stupid lead weights ,the only way you can do that is to ban it and take it out of the stores completely,than it would be an open market for an innovative replacement. if u have a problem with the rusty weights,try a rust resisting coating such as never wet in a 2 part spray can
I agree – plastics are a much,much bigger issue. Unfortunately fishermen as a group can’t do too much about that one. I wish we could. We can, however, choose to go along with positive steps when the opportunity presents itself.