Weights and leads
Tackle · Last reviewed 2026-08-10
Mass added to the terminal tackle to cast it, sink it and hold it — and the tackle component with the most direct environmental history.
Safety
Lead and toxic materials — Can cause injury needing treatment
Lead is toxic. Ingested lead weights have been implicated in poisoning waterfowl, and the traditional angling habits of closing split shot with the teeth and holding shot in the mouth put lead directly into the angler.
What reduces it: Use non-toxic weights where they are available and suitable. Never put lead in your mouth. Wash your hands before eating. Retrieve lost tackle where it can be done safely, and dispose of old lead weights through a proper waste route rather than in domestic bins.
A weight does three jobs: it provides the mass to cast, it takes the bait down, and it holds it in position against flow, wind and tide. The shape decides which of those it does best — a pear-shaped lead casts well, a flat one grips a tide, a barrel rolls with the current, and a split shot simply loads a float.
The material is where the significant story is. Lead is dense, cheap and easily worked, which is why it was used for centuries. It is also toxic, and lost or discarded lead in fresh water was implicated in the poisoning of waterfowl — particularly swans, which ingest weights while taking grit. Restrictions on the sale and use of certain sizes of lead fishing weight followed in Britain in the nineteen-eighties, and non-toxic alternatives — tungsten, steel, tin, bismuth, brass — are now widely available.
The wider point survives the specific regulation: any weight that is lost stays where it falls, and lost tackle is the largest single contribution recreational angling makes to litter in the water.
- Category
- Weights
What it does
Supplies casting mass, sinks the terminal tackle at a controlled rate, holds the bait in position against flow and wind, and — in bolt-rig arrangements — provides the resistance a fish hooks itself against. In float fishing, small shot also balance the float and control the rate at which the bait falls.
How to choose one
- Use the lightest weight that does the job; excess weight kills sensitivity and increases the disturbance of every cast.
- Match shape to purpose: aerodynamic for distance, flat or gripped for holding in tide, round or barrel for rolling with current.
- Prefer non-toxic materials where they are available and suitable, and be aware that the sale and use of certain lead weights is restricted in some places.
- In snaggy ground, use arrangements that let the weight be shed if the line parts, so a broken-off fish is not towing it.
- For float work, distribute shot deliberately — the pattern controls the fall, and the fall is often what decides whether a bait is taken.
What the numbers mean
WEIGHT is given in grams or ounces. SPLIT SHOT sizes run in a traditional sequence — SSG, AAA, BB, No.1 through No.8 and smaller — where the letters are the largest and the numbers get smaller as they increase. GRIP or WIRED leads have wires that dig into sand to hold against tide and are released by a sharp pull. SHAPE is functional rather than cosmetic: pear and bomb for casting, flat for holding, barrel and olivette for rolling and for in-line float rigs.
Care, and how it fails
Weights do not fail so much as get lost, and the loss is the problem. Check the swivel, ring or attachment on a lead before use, since a corroded swivel is a lost lead and a lost fish. Where lead is used at all, handle it sensibly — wash hands before eating, and never hold shot in your teeth to close it, which was once common practice and is indefensible.
What this is called elsewhere
FishingHQ’s headword is the term used in Britain & Ireland.
- Sinker — North America, Australia, New Zealand, East & Southern Africa, Global
- The standard term almost everywhere outside Britain and Ireland, and the more durable one — it names the function rather than the material.
- Shot — Britain & Ireland, Western Europe
- Small round split weights pinched onto the line. The British sizing scale — from SSG down through AAA, BB and numbered shot — is its own system and does not correspond to anything used elsewhere.
Where to go next
What it works with
What these connections rest on (1)
Practitioner consensus — 1 connection
Widely and independently recommended by experienced anglers and specialist sources. This is real angling knowledge, not proof: controlled evidence for it is limited, and FishingHQ records it as convention rather than as a demonstrated effect.
Floats
A float only works when correctly loaded, which is what the shot is for.
- Coarse Fishing — A. & C. Black, 1912 (Specialist angling publication)Relied on for: Float shotting practice.Citation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
- Angling Times — Bauer Media (Specialist angling publication)Relied on for: Contemporary float and shot practice.Citation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
Understanding it
- How weights and sinkers workWhat each shape is for, why grip leads hold in both directions, and why lead is a regulated material in some sizes and places.
- Sinker, weight and lead: regional vocabularyOne of the three words names a material that a growing number of jurisdictions restrict.
What these connections rest on (2)
Practitioner consensus — 1 connection
Widely and independently recommended by experienced anglers and specialist sources. This is real angling knowledge, not proof: controlled evidence for it is limited, and FishingHQ records it as convention rather than as a demonstrated effect.
How weights and sinkers work
A link from a practice or a piece of equipment to the explanation of what it is for. The two records are halves of one answer and the edge is what lets a reader arriving at either find the other.
- Sea Angler — Bauer Media (Specialist angling publication)Relied on for: Contemporary UK sea angling practice as reported by practitioners, including tackle matching, casting and terminal arrangement.FishingHQ's interpretation of what it saysCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
- General angling website restatements of established technique — Various (Credible secondary source)Relied on for: Widely restated descriptions of what each component does and how it is set up, recorded as practitioner consensus rather than as scholarship.Background and mechanism onlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
Authoritative guidance — 1 connection
Stated by a fisheries authority, scientific institute or recognised angling body. Authoritative, but summarising rather than demonstrating.
Sinker, weight and lead: regional vocabulary
The vocabulary question becomes a compliance one on this record.
- FAO fishing gear types and fishing technology information — Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (Scientific institute)Relied on for: Weight and sinker types, their functions and the vocabulary applied to them.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
Instead of this
What these connections rest on (1)
Practitioner consensus — 1 connection
Widely and independently recommended by experienced anglers and specialist sources. This is real angling knowledge, not proof: controlled evidence for it is limited, and FishingHQ records it as convention rather than as a demonstrated effect.
Sinkers and leads
A comparison that carries the internationalisation point concretely: this is the clearest single case of British and international terminology diverging on a component every angler owns.
- Sea Angler — Bauer Media (Specialist angling publication)Relied on for: Practitioner treatment of sea sinker shapes and of changing weight through a tide.Citation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
- Coarse Fishing — A. & C. Black, 1912 (Specialist angling publication)Relied on for: The established British vocabulary for freshwater weights and shot.Citation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
Environment and conservation
What these connections rest on (1)
Authoritative guidance — 1 connection
Stated by a fisheries authority, scientific institute or recognised angling body. Authoritative, but summarising rather than demonstrating.
Lead in angling
Lead angling weights were identified as a source of waterfowl poisoning and are restricted accordingly.
- Environment Agency fisheries management, byelaws and rod licensing information — Environment Agency (Government fisheries body)Relied on for: That certain lead angling weights are restricted, and the reasoning behind the restriction.FishingHQ's interpretation of what it saysCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
- JNCC species and habitat conservation advice — Joint Nature Conservation Committee (Conservation authority)Relied on for: Conservation framing of lead exposure in waterbirds.Background and mechanism onlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
Check the rules before you fish
Fishing laws, bylaws, access rules, seasons, bait restrictions and permitted methods vary by location and can change. Check the current rules from the relevant authority and the water you intend to fish before fishing.
Check with:
- Current national or regional law for where you are fishing
- Current local bylaws
- The relevant fisheries authority
- The landowner, club or fishery whose water it is
- Any restrictions specific to the species or the method you intend to use
Sources for this page
- Environment Agency fisheries management, byelaws and rod licensing information — Environment Agency (Government fisheries body)Relied on for: That the use of certain sizes of lead angling weight has been restricted in Britain, and that non-toxic alternatives are the intended replacement.FishingHQ's interpretation of what it saysCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
How FishingHQ labels evidence is explained in the evidence policy.