There are few things I like to do more than hang out on the beach and surf fish, but I live a long way from the gulf so I don’t get to do it very often.  As you might expect, the main fish chased up in north East Texas where I live are bass, crappie, and catfish and the local sporting goods stores inventory reflects this.  I can go just about anywhere and find worms, jigs, and crank baits but finding surf gear is next to impossible.

 Since next week I’ll be waist deep in saltwater I’m in dire need of some surf weights (and nobody around here has them) so I decided to make my own using only stuff I had sitting around.   The goal was to make weights that cost nothing.

 I’ll just start by saying that I tried to make a mold out of wood, because it’s all I had, but this has its own issues.  The melting point of lead is 621.5 degrees.  The ignition point of wood is 572 degrees.  This tends to leave you with burned wood and questionable weights  I’m not saying you can’t make a mold out of wood for lead weights, because I’ve seen them work before, I’m just saying mine was not good.  Plus the weights it made were uglier than homemade soap.  They will be used on the bait rods next week.

Weight sleeve cut from old aluminum tubing

 The solution I came up with was to take an old aluminum tube that came off a pool skimmer that broke a long time ago, cut it into short lengths, and pour lead into these to make weights.  I don’t own a smelter so the lead was melted with a propane torch.

I used a small cast iron skillet as a base

 I won’t go into detail on exactly how to build these but just wanted to point out that not everything you use has to come from a sporting goods store.  Sometimes the best solution is to make something yourself.  I’ll let yo know how they work next week.

The legs and eye are added

The lead is poured

The finished weights are ugly but serve their intended purpose