Fishing Sinker - Materials

Materials

An ideal material for a fishing sinker is environmentally nontoxic, cheap and dense. Density is desirable as weights must be as small as possible, in order to minimize visual cues which could drive fish away from a fishing operation.

In ancient times as well as sometimes today, fishing sinkers consisted of materials found ordinarily in the natural environment, such as stones, rocks, or bone. Later, lead became the material of choice for sinkers due to its low cost, ease of production and casting, chemical inertness (resistance to corrosion), and density. However, lead is known to cause lead poisoning and enter the environment as a result of the inevitable occasional loss of fishing sinkers during routine fishing. Thus, most lead-based fishing sinkers have been outlawed in the United Kingdom, Canada, and some states in the United States. Lead based fishing sinkers are banned in all of US and Canadian National Parks. These bans have motivated the use of various other materials in sinkers.

Steel, brass, and bismuth sinkers have been marketed, but fishermen have not widely adopted them due to their lower density and higher cost compared to lead. Tungsten is now in use, especially among largemouth bass fishermen. Although several times costlier than lead, tungsten is just under twice as dense as lead and thus found desirable. The environmental effects of tungsten, however, are essentially unknown. Sandsinkers have also been developed, using sand as weight. However, sand has a comparably low density to that of lead and makes a poor replacement.

Some fishing sinkers are made from natural stones.