Went Fishing today...

[AllenOK]

I pulled my usual Monday morning fishing raid this morning, on the spot I've been hitting for about the past month. I was hoping for some rain the day/night before to put some flow in the river, plus muddy the water up a bit so I could catch some minnows.

Well, as I was walking across one of the channels towards the rock bar in the middle of the river, I saw this:



Great googly-moogly! I pour my own sinkers for catfishing, so I immediately starting picking those up. Some are usable as-is, but most will end up getting melted down to clean them up and pour them into sizes that I can use. I ended up picking up about 2 1/2 lbs of lead from that one little spot.

Well, I started heading over to another gent that was wade-fishing, to ask how the fishing was. On the way there, I kept seeing more sinkers.

After the fishing report, I headed to my spot. I made several cast, and only caught one White Bass and snagged a Gizzard Shad. I ended deciding to release those and see about getting some more lead.

It was like placer mining for gold nuggets/flakes. Look for a crack in the bedrock, or a large rock on the bottom, and check the leading and trailing edges of the rock.

I was literally just running my hand along the cracks, and picking up a handful of sinkers at a time. If I could get into the sand on the bottom of the crack, I could pull up a handful of coarse sand, shot through with split shot and jigheads.

After working one incredibly "rich" deposit, that was a little to deep, and shipping some water over the top of my waders, I decided to head back in. I picked up my 5-gal bucket. OMFG! I was thinking I only had about 20 lbs or so. It felt like 50! I found a deeper spot, and carefully lowered the bucket into the water. The bucket settled DEEP into the water, until only about an INCH of freeboard was sticking up. Another few pounds and the bucket would have sank straight down.

When I got back to my vehicle, I got out my spring scale and hooked that up to check the weight. The needle kept moving and moving as I lifted up, until the bucket came off the ground with the needle halfway between 45 and 50 lbs! KRIKEY!

Here's a photo of the bucket, although there really isn't anything in there for scale to show how deep the lead is:



Man, if I had a dry-suit, suction dredge, and a hookah rig! I could clean up!

NOTE: I DO NOT RECOMMEND running your bare hand through a crack like that. I did see, and recovered, several fish hooks. Luckily, I didn't im***e myself. Also, the water temp was 49 degrees F, so I wasn't going to be sticking my bare arm down into that water for very long.

[beastmaster704]

good find ! might be a good area to fish that many weights wouldnt just be there for no reason .

[Tuscan Toadfish]

Great deal! You get free lead for weights, helps you see where others have fished alot, and removes harmful lead from the environment; great all the way around. Congrats!

[AllenOK]

I know there's good fishing there; I've tangled with a 50 lbs. + blue last year in this area during a small flood.

I'm surprised to see all these sinkers. I know last year I remember seeing a couple guys doing the same thing. That many sinkers in that quick a time? Kind of makes me wonder....

[countryboy79]

you can even sell lead at the scrap yard ... make you a few bucks$$$