Melting lead today to make ingots

[swampratt]

People I want to sink do not deserve precious lead.
Fishing at Gore or lock 16 in the Arkansas river you will hang up many times and go through a lot of lead.
Or below Kaw or Eufaula dam. That just happens

 

[Dumpstick]

I would be less inclined to use lead as a sacrificial sinker.

When I sort wheel weights, I sort out the zinc (Zn) weights. I render those separately into Zn ingots, and either sell the Zn back to the scrapyard (Zn is worth more than Pb), or trade it for more Pb. I trade to a fellow that casts sinkers.
When casting sinkers from Zn, remember the Zn is about 2/3 the density of Pb. So, a 3oz mold will net about a 2oz Zn sinker.

Lead is for shooting, not for throwing in the water.

 

[swampratt]

I do not feel I am sacrificing my lead sinkers it is more like a trade.
Trade sinker for fish. That gar on the right was 66" long the state record is 64.5"
I ate them .. i did not weigh them and I have caught larger.. I will get a scale that goes to 100 or so and start weighing them and quit eating possible state records.

 

[beastep]

What bait?

 

[Dumpstick]

What bait?

Lead

 

[swampratt]

I have found mashed perch on a 3 foot leader of twisted trot line string and a hook to attach the perch works very well.
They will twist and the teeth will snap your regular fishing line braid or not .. those side teeth stick out a bit and act like a razor.
The trot line string gets wrapped around their teeth and they are stuck chuck.

Snagging works also and I still use the twisted (braided works too) trot line string as a leader.
I use 65 lb power pro for main line.
Notice the black shirt wrapped around the snouts.
I caught some earlier in the day and had to snatch them out of the running river before I lost them.
So I pulled off my shirt as I did not have a glove or rag on me and got them with it.

That shirt was left there and the next weekend it was still there and I used it again.
I took it home after that last trip.

Ate some gar last week in fact.

 

[MacFromOK]

Ate some gar last week in fact.

How do you prepare and cook it?

 

[swampratt]

You can make gar balls.. look up different recipes on the net.
Or you can cut them into strips the size of shrimp or prawns and boil them in zataran crab and shrimp boil with the salt added like
the directions state on the bottle of liquid.

Then dip in garlic butter or cocktail sauce like shrimp.
Tell your buddies it is Alaskan snow crab pieces and they will eat the entire batch.

To clean .
Insert filet knife under scales at the rear tail portion.
You filet the fish with the scales on.. knife sticking 6" in just under the scales and filet the meat away from the scales on both sides of the back bone.. do not need to filet along the belly.
Keep moving the knife out from un..shoot I can't splain it .

After you filet then cut the armor plate up the back bone with tin snips...the filets along the sides are boneless.. it has a bone structure like a catfish or bass.
rib cage and back bone. 2 strips of white meat down the sides that look like backstrap.

Those large ones I have in the picture are tough meat because the sinue.
Smaller ones like 1/2 that length are the best eating.
very tender and sinue is not as thick and tough.
Gar balls for the large ones.. shrimp cuts for the smaller ones.

 

[MacFromOK]

Thanks, I'd never heard the meat removal process explained.

 

[swampratt]

I can't explain it well easier to show someone