With much ado about lead and the environment in recent years and a proposed lead ban for fishing tackle, panic ran through the fishing industry to hastily develop more environmentally friendly weight options. Brass, tin, bismuth, Ultra Steel, and various other alloys and concoctions now are available in limited (and more expensive) sinker selections, though generally less dense, requiring larger, bulkier shapes to achieve equal sinking power. And no one knows for sure if they are indeed any better than lead for the environment. But until legal mandate dictates, anglers likely will remain reluctant to let go of traditional lead sinkers, particularly walleye anglers who need lead to take livebaits, jigs, spoons, and spinners down into the fish zone and keep ‘em there. Without clear and documented evidence linking lead sinkers to aquatic environmental chaos, the dense efficiency and cost effectiveness of lead weights never will go out of style.

Slipsinkers Give ‘Em the Slip—Slipsinkers are the heart of livebait rigging presentations, weighting, and sending baited rigs to the bottom for drifting or trolling, enabling feeding line to finicky biters. Slide the sinker on the line, then use a barrel swivel, split shot, or bobber stop to hold it a set distance above your hook, bait, or lure. When a fish strikes, release tension; the line slides backward through a hole in the sinker, and the fish feels no resistance until you set the hook.

Northland Fishing Tackle, Lindy-Little Joe, Let m Run, Quick Change, Walleye Angler, and Cabela’s all manufacture or sell some form of walking slipsinker designed to stand up under tension and skip over rocks. Popular sizes include 1/4, 3/8, and 1/2 ounce, sometimes 1/8 ounce for the shallows or 3/4 ounce for deep water, in either plain lead or fluorescent finishes. Hot colors and easy on-off rigging to change sinker weight or color without retying highlight recent innovative models.

Egg sinkers are good alternatives to walking sinkers and are available in a wider range of sizes. Magnum eggs excel for drifting or trolling in deep water, strong wind, or current. Smaller eggs are great for casting and for letting the rig sit stationary while the bait wriggles to tempt fish, then retrieving a few inches before repeating. Bullet sinkers—primarily used for Texas-rigging plastic worms for bass—also are excellent for livebait rigging along or through sparse weeds or wood snags. Some even rattle, potentially adding a bit of attraction.

For Whom the Bell Trolls—Bell sinkers, bass casting sinkers, drop sinkers, pyramids, and miscellaneous pencil-shaped weights are traditional casting sinkers adapted to trolling and drifting approaches. In most cases, they originated for casting some variation of three-way rig from a riverbank, incorporating enough weight to remain stationary on bottom in current. The same rigs, however, are ideal for drifting or trolling livebait, artificials, or combos of each in strong current or deep water.

On traditional bell sinkers, a wire runs through the weight, ending in a round loop eye for tying line or attaching a snap. Bass casting sinkers feature a molded-in barrel swivel to minimize line twist. Water Gremlin features bell sinkers with plastic quick clips for traditional attachment or to snap over your line and function like a slipsinker. Some have rubber band style attachments designed to break under heavy pull, sacrificing the sinker to snags while retaining the rig.

Most anglers use traditional bell sinkers (1/2 to 3 ounces) for fishing three-way (Wolf River) rigs with livebait snells, spinner rigs, crankbaits, or flutterspoons. About 13⁄4 to 21⁄4 ounces suffices in most cases. In some areas, river anglers have opted for longer, thinner pencil-shaped weights to minimize line twist in current and to provide enhanced snag-resistance in craggy rocks. Plain dull lead finishes are standard. Ever seen a bell with a fluorescent paint job?

Magnum 3-ounce-plus sinkers may be difficult to find at retail outlets other than in river towns where bank fishing is popular, or where deep trolling is common, such as near the Great Lakes. The best outlets for obtaining heavy lead are catalogs catering to trollers or commercial fishermen. In a pinch, heavy pyramid or bank-fishing sinkers suffice, though they’re better suited for catfishing or as marker weights.

It Trolls for Thee—Trolling sinkers basically are in-line weights, tied in-line or attached on-line at a desired position. Traditional trolling sinkers are long like cylindrical pencil sinkers, but slightly larger at the midpoint, tapering to a smaller diameter at each end. They may have simple looped wire tie-ons, snaps or snap swivels, or swiveling chain attachments (Bead Chain Tackle). Keel sinkers basically are trolling sinkers with a finlike projection off one side that functions as a rudder, minimizing line twist at trolling speeds. They’re available in numerous sizes from about 1/2 ounce to over 3 ounces.

Several manufacturers offer quick on-off rigging via an internal rubber grip that fits inside a slot in the trolling sinker. Insert your line into the slot, twist the ends of the rubber strip, and it grips your line without actually tying. Twist in the opposite direction to detach. Rubbercor sinkers and their imitators minimize rigging time.

Gotten to the Core—Leadcore line functions like a living sinker—an outer core of braided Dacron with a thin, flexible internal filament of lead for weight. Simply reel the line and internal sinker up through the guides, and onto the reel. Tie a 50-foot leader of 10-pound-test monofilament ahead of the leadcore to avoid spooking fish with heavy line and to allow your lures to achieve proper action.

Leadcore trolling line comes in 100-yard spools, with every 10 yards a different outer color to indicate line length. Very simply, the more line out, the deeper your lure runs. With 18-pound-test Cortland or Gudebrod leadcore—popular for walleye trolling—every 10 yards of line weighs about an ounce. A large-capacity trolling reel is necessary to handle the bulk of the line needed to sink crankbaits, spoons, or spinners to depths exceeding 50 feet and to hold them there. Trolling more than 30 yards of leadcore, however, tends to sink the average side-planer. Sometimes side-planers are trolled with a small amount of segmented leadcore—1, 2, or 3 colors—tied into main 10-pound-test monofilament line to reach down to 40 feet.

Snap Weights—More versatile than leadcore, snap weights are easy on-off fasteners that grip the line without damaging it, holding an attached weight at a specific location, typically 50 feet ahead of a lure for most open-water trolling. Run your lure out 50 feet, attach the sinker size of your choice, let out enough additional line to reach the target depth, and troll. When you get a strike, reel in till the sinker comes within reach, then reach up and pop it off the line, fighting in the fish the last 50 feet unencumbered by an in-line weight. Should you wish to change sinker size, simply clip on another snap with a lighter or heavier weight. Best for suspended fish, snap weights may pop off the line on bottom contact.

Off Shore Tackle Snap Weights dominated the snap weight market for years. The recent addition of Church Tackle’s Mister Walleye Super Clip Drop Weights add a nonslip-grip clip for use with skinny superlines. Original snap weights grip mono tightly, but may require a second wrap around the clip or a backup snap-swivel attached to the line to prevent the snap weight from popping off superline on strike impact.

Most kits come with pencil-shaped or standard trolling sinkers (no bead chain or swivel), though virtually any sinker will work with snap weights, including heavyweight 3- to 6-ounce bell or round sinkers. Tight-gripping Wille Zonies can handle heavier sinkers of a pound or more for deep or fast trolling, or in heavy current.

Hop, Skip and a Bounce—Wire-legged bottom bouncers skip and bounce over rocks, logs, or clean bottom, and excel in situations requiring coverage or snag-resistance. They’re also used for slow trolling, drifting, or for presentations of 3/4 to 21⁄2 mph—fast enough to spin a spinner blade or wobble a minnow-imitating crankbait. To rig up, tie your main line to the bend in the wire form, then attach the looped end of a leader snell—plain, spinner, floater, whatever—to the snap or snap swivel at the top of the wire arm. The leader stretches back 3 or 4 feet to your bait or lure. Anything longer than that tends to drag a bait on bottom, increasing the possibility of foul-hooking debris or snags.

While 1-, 11⁄2-, and 2-ounce models dominate most drifting or slow-trolling conditions, they’re available lighter or heavier, from about 1/2 ounce up to over 3 ounces. Lake trout anglers fish deep water with 6-ounce Gapen Bottom Walkers. Anglers trolling Great Lakes basins for walleyes often skip heavyweight bouncers across bottom, though anything heavier than 3 ounces tends to sink planer boards when multiple lines are trolled.

Bouncers also can be fished nearly motionless, with just enough line out to touch bottom, dangling bait in front of a fish’s face. Use ‘em with plain snells (no spinners or hardware) just like a livebait rig. It may not be possible to feed much line to a biting fish, but you can drop your rod tip back toward a biter while the bouncer simultaneously pivots toward the fish, for at least 6 to 10 inches of give before setting the hook.

To feed line to a fish while retaining the snag-resistant features of a bouncer, try a slip bouncer like the Quick Change Lite Bite. Much like a sliding slipsinker, the wire-legged lead weight clips into a clevis that slides down the line until it hits the barrel swivel at the end of the snell, positioning it a set distance ahead of the bait. Got a bite? Now feed all the line you want, so long as the bouncer doesn’t topple and fall between crags. And should you need a bigger bouncer, simply snap the first weight from the clevis and insert a heavier version. No retying.

Bouncers come in different wire lengths and thicknesses, depending on the manufacturer. Cabela’s and System Tackle offer bouncers with slip-on detachable lead weights for easy weight change. Walleye Angler adds a little rattle in their lead-free bouncers so fish hear ‘em comin’. Missouri River Tackle even has bouncers with spinners rotating on the wire shaft for added attraction. Once limited to dull lead finishes from basement manufacturers, sinkers now sport fluorescent orange, yellow, and chartreuse colors from tackle companies like Bait Rigs, Lindy-Little Joe, and Northland.

Split the Difference—From the heaviest heavyweights to the tiniest tidbits, lead provides depth control, even in the most subtle situations. For the ultimate in casting stealth, a simple split shot attached to your line about 18 inches ahead of a livebait combines slow-sinking stealth with on-bottom fishing. The ultralight weight minimizes snags and avoids spooking light-biting walleyes. Adjusting size and number of split shot fine-tunes the balance of slip bobber rigs, making them barely buoyant bite detectors, hovering a livebait at the desired level. A few shot up the line from a trolled minnow imitator sends the bait a bit deeper on the troll, reaching the exact depth needed to catch fish.

Carry an assortment of split shot in sizes BB, B, 3/0, and 7/0 for fine-tuning the balance and depth for subtle presentations. Shot like Water Gremlin’s removable and reusable split shot have tiny wings to bend the shot open and remove it from your line. Standard round shot is difficult to remove unless you pry it open with a pocketknife. Purists believe round shot reacts truer in shallow river drifting conditions to avoid snags and allow the most natural action. Most steelheaders carry round shot, and walleye anglers the reusable kind. Serious light-line bank fishermen of the Euro-persuasion often prefer ultrasoft shot like Dinsmores (available through Cabela’s or fly-shops) to prevent damaging extra-light line on the pinch—not a bad idea for ultralight ice-fishing for panfish. Some brands are billed as nontoxic.

Many walleye-oriented tackle companies offer sinkers in various shapes and sizes, colors, and configurations. Much of the time, however, plain old generic cheapie no-name lead sinkers perform just fine. Carry an assortment for adapting to conditions.