I've caught my share of fish and handled my share. Recently i've been a bit paranoid on picking up Native Steelhead because alot of posts on here seem to make it out as a very negative thing to do. Everytime i hook one i have my mind filled with comments on how it damages there membrane and survival rates related to touching them. It kinda makes me jittery reeling them in thinking of what i am going to do if it's a Nate cuz i want that pic.

But one thing i've noticed and am sure all of you have is the overall number of setups lost by drifters in 1 day of fishing. What's so special about that? Well lets say 4 fishermen lose 4 setups apiece in one paticular hole(i see this often). That's 16 setups lost. Now take that number and multiply it by, lets say, 60 possible days they could fish in a steelhead season. You get 960 setups lost in that 60 days of fishing. Now this is 960 setups in one hole. So imagine 1 hole per mile of the river. Given in a 10 mile river, that equals 10 holes. So throughout the 10 holes in the river with an average of 4 fisherman per mile losing 4 setups per day for 60 fishing days, they will have lost 9600 setups. That number may be a little lower or alot higher in reallity. Just imaging the numbers for a whole year.

So what am i getting at? Well those 9600 setups all have atlease a 1/4 oz. of lead on them(typical drifting setup)usually more. That works out to roughly 240 oz or 15 POUNDS of lead being dumped needlessly into our rivers, poisoning everything in site, in just those 60 days. Imagine 20 years worth! And all of us know there are far more than an average 4 people per mile on the river on the weekends. And i've seen people snap off more than 6 times in some holes with alot more than just a 1/4 oz. Lead poisoning is serious business. And we are all worried about the fish spawning when in reallity we should be worrying about our own reproductive damage caused by lead. Who knows what it's doing to the river habitat. What about the lakes?? A storm is brewin, and i'd hate to see the fall out.

Please strongly consider using aluminum as an alternative to lead. If not for the rivers sake then for your kids sake. It works just as well if not better, and comes in all application sizes. OUR future has always been in YOUR hands, you just need to realize it.