Unusual Lead Source

[Phineas Bluster]

Deleted

[Bucking the Tiger]

If it is plumbous, I am bound to cast it into bullets( except battery lead: acid is ugly) Sounds like a great way to have lead. With some wheel weight lead or linotype(some source of antimony) and a pinch of tin, you can make most any clean lead into boolits. I have used diving weights, sinkers, pipe, sheeting, old shotgun shot(oxidized white),plumbers ingots, and old boolits and gave it all flying lessons.

[WILCO]

I have a secret stash of lead sinkers located beneath a dock in shallow water. There's also two sets of pliers and some lures. A tackle box went wayward and that's what stayed behind.

[Fishman]

Recently in a location that shall remain nameless, I had occasion to be working. The drought had allowed a lot of the riverbed to dry out. In the limited time I had, we picked up about 100 lbs of sinkers. Literally tons remain. Access is tightly controlled or I would have returned on my free time.

During times of extreme drought I have picked up good numbers of sinkers on front of bank fishing areas on local lakes. Most of these areas don't allow detecting (Corps property) so you have to use your eyes.

[Leslie Sapp]

We scuba dive a lot in the local rivers. I usually find a couple of pounds on each dive without really trying, just picking up what I happen to see. I've seen others concentrate solely on retrieving lead and come up with 30 lbs or more on a dive.

[John in WI]

That's interesting. When I was a kid, I would walk the shores of Lake Winnebago and come up with a good stash of lost Rapalas and other assorted fishing tackle.

When I lived in Alabama I did a little bit of gold panning up in Georgia. I was always amazed at how much lead ends up in your pan. It looked like mostly .22lr slugs. Just about as heavy as gold, they were very easy to separate. Unfortunately in those days I wasn't casting and tossed them. (I was after gold!!)