BRAINERD, Minn. (AP) - Anglers are leaving tons of lead on the bottoms of the state's lakes, a few jig heads and sinkers at a time, according to a new study from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.
The study, the first of how much lead tackle is lost in the state's lakes, was presented earlier this week at a meeting of 400 scientists and natural resource managers in Brainerd.
The results - including that about a ton of lead was lost in five lakes during the summer of 2004 alone - could provide ammunition for those trying to ban lead fishing tackle which can kill the loons and other water birds that eat it.
Researchers performed 8,068 interviews with anglers on five popular walleye lakes, Rainy, Namakan, Leech, Mille Lacs and Lake of The Woods about how much fishing tackle they lost on each trip.
It was remarkably little, the study found, but it added up. About one jig of any type was lost for every 40 hours on the lake. A piece of lead tackle was lost about every 31 hours.
Anglers on the lakes told surveyors they lost 215,000 pieces of tackle to broken line and snags. Of that, about 100,000 pieces were made of lead. In total weight, that's about a ton in one summer.
Using DNR survey data from 1983 to 2004, the study's authors estimated that anglers left more than one million pieces of lead in Lake Mille Lacs alone. Over 20 years, that amounts to about nine tons of lead.
The lead author of the study, Paul Radomski, a DNR fish biologist, said he expected to find anglers losing much more tackle.
"I was amazed at how little tackle anglers are losing out there. It was much lower than I anticipated," Radomski said. "Yet, even at the very low loss rates we found, the amount of lead ending up in the lakes is incredible."
The study notes that the lost tackle is probably concentrated on reefs, rocky points and other areas where fish, fishermen and loons congregate.
It only takes about 1/8 ounce of lead to kill a loon as the toxic metal attacks its nervous and reproductive systems. Other studies have shown the loons eat lead because they mistake it for the grit they use to digest food, or they eat small fish which had eaten the lead.
"In critical wildlife areas with high angling effort or high tackle loss rates ... prohibiting the use of lead tackle may be necessary," the report concludes.
Radomski estimates more than eight tons of lead are lost each year in Minnesota's 300 most popular walleye lakes, mostly in the northeast and north-central regions of the state, where loons also are most common.
"It really opened my eyes on the volume of lead involved. And if you go back for all the decades we've been fishing these lakes, it's not hard to figure how much lead is down there," Radomski said. "It's caused me to re-evaluate what's in my tackle box."
In 2003, state Sen. Yvonne Prettner Solon, DFL-Duluth, unsuccessfully sponsored legislation to ban small lead tackle in Minnesota. The study may jump-start another push to ban lead tackle.
"The issue is still out there and we still need to take action," Solon said. "We need a grass-roots effort by people in Minnesota to convince the Legislature to do the right thing, protect the environment and ban lead tackle."
