Our very own Laura Williams was a guest on the Fish Nerds Podcast last month, talking about lead-free fishing. The podcast host, the “Crappie Hippie,” originally scheduled her for ten minutes but they had so much fun, it turned out to be the focus of the whole show.
Podcast host John King (aka “the Crappie Hippie”) and his wife Kathy formed a company called Glasswater Angling which designs, manufactures, and sells lead-free fishing tackle. Maine Audubon’s Fish Lead Free work on providing lead-free alternatives came to his attention so he invited Laura to be a guest on his popular podcast, where they talk about “fish, fishing, and eating fish with a focus on conservation and sustainability.”
Listen to Laura as she talks about how she got into fishing, the outdoors, and how she came to be a wildlife biologist, describing some of her projects from counting shorebirds and mist netting bats in Alaska to capturing, collaring, and tracking deer in the North Maine Woods. Not only is this her fifth year working with the Coastal birds project, she also leads Maine Audubon’s Fish Lead Free initiative where the goals are to educate anglers about Maine’s lead tackle law, encourage them to use lead free alternatives; and provide them with lead recycling options.
Laura and the host talk about threats to loons, signs that you are too close to loons, how loons ingest lead and what it does to them, the difference between painted jigs and bare ones, responsible use of soft plastics, tackle exchanges, and much more!
