I won't go fishing with my Dad anymore. When we go out to Badger Lake, one of the cleanest, best trout fishing lakes in Washington, he constantly throws garbage into the lake. He throws his cigarette butts in the lake as well as the cellophane wrappers that the box of cigarettes come in. He also keeps a bag of balloons in his tackle box. He blows one up, ties it off, then throws it in the lake for no other reason then to watch it float off. I have had enough of his disrespectful behavior towards the lake and nature in general that he can find another son to go fishing with dammit! Oh yeah, I almost forgot, he catches trout just to kill and throw to the seagulls or an osprey just so he can watch. Last time we went out, my sister caught a nice sized cutthroat and he said it was too small and to throw it back. Well, it was already dead. So he threw out a perfectly good trout and just let it die and float away. What a waste. In my opinion, he is not a real fisherman.

Once a year there are local lake cleanup projects which remove a lot of debris like line, water bottles, etc. That's hard work, involving auto tires, treated lumber, even household appliances like refrigerators dumped to avoid a county $75 pickup service. I prefer to walk the lake edges during really low water, winding line onto readily available styrofoam, looking for great lures on the other end. I really believe the great majority of line will be found very shallow where most anglers fish, where the likelihood of hangups exists. I have a huge collection, at least 50 pounds of stored unsorted lures that need cleaning and put back in service. At least meanwhile the lake is a lot cleaner. When I get enough line wound up I cut it and try to burn it on the spot. The stuff burns clean if not too muddy. While out there I make gps waypoints of great looking spots a fish ought to hang out in when the pool level comes back up, an extra incentive for walking the lake bottom. Those walks help solve mysteries I see on sonar, too.

My career had much to do with wildlife management, line entanglement being a very rare problem in my opinion. Like said above those 6 pack beer/soda rings are far more devastating. I've seen untold numbers of ducks wearing them. Consider popping cans out into the ice and properly discarding the rings before launching.