I stoped at dicks and they said they are in the prosses of sending all there led to stores in different states so they should be ready for spring I dont usuley shop there but if they got the stuff and bp is not making any efforts to comply. looks like its dicks.
Basshunter....Yep thats right. I went there too recently and they told me that there on a "No Lead List" which from what I understand everything that ANY of their suppliers sends NEEDS to be UNLEADED/state legal. The Dicks I went to was the W.Springfield one.
I looked around for a bit and they had a ton of ice fishing stuff! I thought with this kind of ice forming?! Then I started to look at their lure packs and ALL but two packs by Celcius said contains lead with the Caution infomation! Even Sweedish Pimples say less than 1% lead....I thought less than 1% lead works for me! So i got one pack of Celcius jigs and some sweedish pimples.
Then began to look for jigheads! GOOD LUCK! They had NOTHING for jigheads! Or if they did they had lead! Man it was fustrating! I was gonna use them for deadsticking; so much for that for now! Anyone live in WMass know of anywhere local that sells nonlead jigheads yet? Im sure Cabelas does but was hoping for a baitshop thats doing it. The good thing was was that ALL of their sinkers, split shots, egg weights, etc. in the weight isle was all Mass compliant but wernt too cheap! I paid 10 bucks for a camoflauge variety set (the way I rig I like the idea of camo) of non lead split shots; man that sucked!
Talked with the sporting lodge guy, think it was George but Ed was there too, for a bit and he said it will be at least a year before Dicks gets completely on the banwagon and gets all sorts of Mass compliant stuff. He said their doing it as they get it in but especially ice fishing stuff they wont. I wouldnt even waste my time with Dicks for ice fishing jigs of any kind really. Id only go if u need something thats non jig related.
I also picked his brain for a bit about this new lead law and the penalities to see what he heard. He said what they were planning on doing was the first one was a verbal warning, second a $50 fine, and each additional time is an additional $50. He also said that the law has in there that the EP has the ability to confinskate any/all of your gear INCLUDING your vehicle that brought your gear in! Dont know how true that is and I dont see them doing that for the first couple offenses of lead but still. He said that their gonna put ur name in a Mass database and will be able to see how many warnings/tickets uve recieved.
Take what you want from what I said but Im trying to comply as much as I can but its gonna be hard. Hope this info helped! Anyone hear about what I mentioned above about the fines excetra?
yep we as anglers hav to do our part to comply. we can piss and moan about it forever but the laws what it is. and its not worth having your gear,boat ,trailor,and truck taken. and then black listed so you cant even get a fishing lic. i,m already trying to go threw a bunch led based lures and see if i can salvage any parts. and i hav bever fever trying to make me up some jigs hope fully he can come threw. someone had recently posted that bass pro had a ton of non lead products. i,ll have to go up and scout out the place to see just what they hav last time i was they had zip zero nada..and that was just before xmass
Makes perfectly good sense to me. Take my truck, boat, trailer, rods, reels, ect because I used a lead jig. Oh so Massachusetts gotta love it. Amazing how some of these laws hit the books but then others that are oh so important for society and the state/country never see the light of day.
I do agree that as fishermen and sportsmen we are stewards of the environment and as such we have the responsibility to do our part and I will.
I do agree that as fishermen and sportsmen we are stewards of the environment and as such we have the responsibility to do our part and I will.
They can take your gear because it is what you used to break the law and anything used in the act of violation can be taken..however let us be honest and say, chances are they would not confiscate gear for this offense. It is simply a blanket procedure they CAN do...
I have however seen people lose cars for buying a dime bag though..is it any worse?
Break the law pay the price. Each person has their own morals and does what they feel they need to do.
I have however seen people lose cars for buying a dime bag though..is it any worse?
Break the law pay the price. Each person has their own morals and does what they feel they need to do.
lets say i,m complying were on my boat and my knucklehead brother is useing led then what??? being the owner of the boat does that put me in charge to check for passanger complience do i get the shaft for non complience???
It can yeah and as the owner of a boat you should be sure that no laws are being broken from your boat anyway...though again they typically do not take gear for minor offenses.
My point was that the punishment hardly fits the crime ..... i.e. value of equipment could be up to $100k .... and the EP has the power to take up to 100k (I wish my stuff was worth a 100k) when the law says a $50 fine is appropriate punishment. wow nothing wrong there ...... Why the heck should any law enforcement officer have that level of power, makes no sense. I understand in reality probably wouldn't happen but to have that power is very sad indeed.
The majority of folks are passive and that is how laws like that get passed. But on occasion enough folks do get fed up and work to make some changes. The dime bag of weed is a good example .... some folks stand aside and let hard working people lose the car they need to go to work to feed their family. But folks got fed up with the waste of money on minor infractions and 75% of the voting population said that is unacceptable. I have a feeling that most folks would think it is inappropriate for the EP to have the discretion to confiscate 100k worth of gear for fishing without a license.
The majority of folks are passive and that is how laws like that get passed. But on occasion enough folks do get fed up and work to make some changes. The dime bag of weed is a good example .... some folks stand aside and let hard working people lose the car they need to go to work to feed their family. But folks got fed up with the waste of money on minor infractions and 75% of the voting population said that is unacceptable. I have a feeling that most folks would think it is inappropriate for the EP to have the discretion to confiscate 100k worth of gear for fishing without a license.
ya most of the time the only thing you can see is sneeker laces sticking out of your box. and the funny thing is they take offence when you tell them its causting me money to take you fishing. braided line cause he only uses the best when fishing my gear. lol gota love family..
I had to gear up with high speed reels to fish where there are loons!!!!
If you ever seen a loon chasing down your bait under water you better reel like a mo f#@ker!!!! They are fast! And if you get a good hookset it's game on!!!!! Especially when they clear water!! it's kinda like froggin except on steroids!!!
So i guess my new year resolution is to gear up with high speed reels and Beaver fever baits! This way i hopefully can outrun them damn loons and if they do bite they won't like the taste of beaver fever baits!!!!
I know exactly what you are talking about! I had a loon go after my line this past fall (I was fishing with a jig too). It was actually pretty creepy looking.
You guys are dorks..seriously...
I don't think you understand, a loon really did go after his jig. So if you were calling him a dork because you thought he was kidding, nope.
It also happened to us over at Putnamville Res with Seagulls... they were going after our lures so badly we had to move constantly. I also have had the heron at the Concord River start going after lures.
Its def an interesting topic, the lead ban.
I moved to NY recently so I am not as engulfed in the situation as your all. But you can be sure that when I come back to Mass and fish I will be following the new regs.
Regardless of the NY regs (which prohibit the SALE of lead sinkers under 1 oz. but not the use) I will be phasing out my lead too. Recently there have numerous attempts to ban lead outright in NY too, but have been unsuccessful thusfar. So in an effort to be environmently friendly I'll be phasing out lead, and phasing in tungsten! I love tungsten so I don't mind at all.
EDIT: oh and lastly, I know you guys were wondering what to do with spare lead. You can bring it to your local transfer station where they should have a special place for it to be recycled. Apparently from what I have read it is worth some $$, what they do with it, I have no idea. If you don't have a transfer station and your trash is picked up on the sidewalk you have to call your sanitation dept and find out when you can leave it out with your trash, during special days they will pick it up for recycling.
You can also bring it to most scrap metal yards where they will pay you for it. Not really worth it unless you have a bunch or were going there already.
I moved to NY recently so I am not as engulfed in the situation as your all. But you can be sure that when I come back to Mass and fish I will be following the new regs.
Regardless of the NY regs (which prohibit the SALE of lead sinkers under 1 oz. but not the use) I will be phasing out my lead too. Recently there have numerous attempts to ban lead outright in NY too, but have been unsuccessful thusfar. So in an effort to be environmently friendly I'll be phasing out lead, and phasing in tungsten! I love tungsten so I don't mind at all.
EDIT: oh and lastly, I know you guys were wondering what to do with spare lead. You can bring it to your local transfer station where they should have a special place for it to be recycled. Apparently from what I have read it is worth some $$, what they do with it, I have no idea. If you don't have a transfer station and your trash is picked up on the sidewalk you have to call your sanitation dept and find out when you can leave it out with your trash, during special days they will pick it up for recycling.
You can also bring it to most scrap metal yards where they will pay you for it. Not really worth it unless you have a bunch or were going there already.
So after all this talk and debate I'm still not clear about one thing. Is a skirted jig now illegal or is that considered the same as a spinnerbait or buzzbait and I'll still be able to throw them in any size? This has probably been answered somewhere here in this mile long thread but I missed it and don't really want to read all about weather or not people are gonna stop throwing lead. I am so I want to be sure about these jigs. I don't use them much but I still use em. Thanks fella's and sorry if this stirs it up again. That's not my intention. I'm not a stirrer, I'm a shaker.
So after all this talk and debate I'm still not clear about one thing. Is a skirted jig now illegal or is that considered the same as a spinnerbait or buzzbait and I'll still be able to throw them in any size? This has probably been answered somewhere here in this mile long thread but I missed it and don't really want to read all about weather or not people are gonna stop throwing lead. I am so I want to be sure about these jigs. I don't use them much but I still use em. Thanks fella's and sorry if this stirs it up again. That's not my intention. I'm not a stirrer, I'm a shaker.
If its under 1oz. yes its illegal.