Beach combed sinkers.

[flappy]

Or fishing in the right place but doing it wrong

 

[Casker]

Rough ground =weak lead link and a rotten bottom
Keep lead use down by using spark plugs,nuts and bolts,stones wi holes in,etc

Vehicle spark plugs becoming rarer, but my garden machinery offers-up quite a few plugs (circa 1oz) which I've started saving. (Not for much longer though as I'm fed up fiddling with small petrol engines - planning to go electric.)

 

[blakdog is back]

Breakout/breakaway leads are actually very vulnerable to snagging in some circumstances ... they jam in small gullies and cannot breakout and they are more difficult to free than a plain lead if they bury in the bottom in rough weather. Their biggest nemesis though is line snags ... land one in a birds nest of line and you are not getting them out even if the grips breakout - bendy nosewires are much more recoverable from a line snag.

I am 60 now and started fishing at 6 and have never bought a sea lead to use (except for the Dvices). A few specialist types I have moulded myself (though that is rare) but the rest have been recovered from various local marks ... I literally have thousands of the things in the garage, have lost god knows how many myself over the years but one scavenging trip a year usually tops things up (assuming I can be bothered). You also soon learn that the older 1970/80s breakaways, which used high quality stainless wire last much longer ... I have tons of the things ... they don't rot like the modern ones.

If you are drilling leads to put wire loops in don't be tempted to cast hard on them as they are prone to cutting up through the lead and losing the loop - the stresses on the wire loop are different to a moulded in top loop (and some of those are poop too f they are not done right).

 

[Dutchman]

Breakout/breakaway leads are actually very vulnerable to snagging in some circumstances ... they jam in small gullies and cannot breakout and they are more difficult to free than a plain lead if they bury in the bottom in rough weather. Their biggest nemesis though is line snags ... land one in a birds nest of line and you are not getting them out even if the grips breakout - bendy nosewires are much more recoverable from a line snag.

I am 60 now and started fishing at 6 and have never bought a sea lead to use (except for the Dvices). A few specialist types I have moulded myself (though that is rare) but the rest have been recovered from various local marks ... I literally have thousands of the things in the garage, have lost god knows how many myself over the years but one scavenging trip a year usually tops things up (assuming I can be bothered). You also soon learn that the older 1970/80s breakaways, which used high quality stainless wire last much longer ... I have tons of the things ... they don't rot like the modern ones.

If you are drilling leads to put wire loops in don't be tempted to cast hard on them as they are prone to cutting up through the lead and losing the loop - the stresses on the wire loop are different to a moulded in top loop (and some of those are poop too f they are not done right).

I myself started fishing around that age and hardly ever fished "snags" that would loose your weights and now as a 60+ the area i fish is snag free, all sand but on one mark have lost leads due to being buried on the incoming tide and line snapped.

 

[blakdog is back]

I myself started fishing around that age and hardly ever fished "snags" that would loose your weights and now as a 60+ the area i fish is snag free, all sand but on one mark have lost leads due to being buried on the incoming tide and line snapped.

The worst snags are often on "clean" beaches ... other peoples lost gear. Myself and a mate used to use a device we built at the local piers to recover the massive line snags that used to build up on those about 40 or 50 yards out and that was very profitable indeed (I'm talking hundreds of rigs per snag). It is mostly clean sand or mud round here but small gullies in shallow water and the large gullies that have formed just off the fish tail breakwaters that are fashionable these days can be tackle graveyards ... a 2 inch gully in clay is almost the perfect design to get your leads stuck.

I find scavenging really tiring these days but its still really enjoyable getting a pile of gear for nothing and have found tons of other stuff over the years, everything from a discarded (and loaded) 9mm, to 50 cal ammo, roman coins, cod bottles and even human bones!