Pebbles for ledger weights

[Dave Burr]

If anybody is going down the pebble/stone route, here's a tip. The pebbles you pick of the bank will be bleached by the sun whereas the one's in the water will be covered with algae. Your clean stone will stand out like the proverbials. If you leave them in some water for a day or two along with a few tea bags - hey presto, silt coloured stones that match most river beds.

To drill them, I got my tame dentist to give me some drill bits that were about due replacement. Make sure you use plenty of water as you drill and they will go through most things.

Also, a small lead/stone/coin, or whatever you have chosen to use, can be covered with plasticine to increase the weight and it also makes it less likely to snag as it often pulls away and allows the weight to go free from a snag.

[Aitch]

Pallatrax Stonze are very good on hard gravel bottoms, they even did a version with silicone tubing so it could be fished "In-Line" the one thing I did find was that the irregular shapes caused some pretty erratic casting if you were on a long chuck... another method I used was PVA bags with stones and a leadcore leader, the PVA dissolved leaving the leader and bait effectively freelined, the 3' of leadcore effectively held the bait in place.... but that was a long way in the past when I was all "Riggy" and "Ultra-Cult"...

One method you could employ is using plasticine as a bulk weight, moulded over a couple of small shot, just to hold the plasticine in place... way cheaper than lead and non toxic and safe too

[Jeremy Croxall]

I've used a tile drill bit for making holes in stones...