Cheers All,
Fish Assassin - I have not used plain downrigger balls in 3 years. I use chartreuse for shallow fishing and the glow-in-the-dark for halibut and ling cod.
When presented with the concept I too was sceptical so I experimented. I put a chartreuse on one side and a uncoated lead on the other side. I put two identical set ups out and waited for the results. When the coated had 10 fish and the other side only had 1 I kinda figured the results were in. I tried it 2 more times with similiar results. As for deep fishing (over 100') I switch to the glow and you would not believe the diffrence. On Big Bank while trolling for halibut I usually only caught an average amount of halibut but, with the glow balls, I have easily doubled my catch. I also found I was catching a LOT more ling cod. Not overly concerned if people don't believe me as, if they don't use them I figure they're only leaving more for me!
I have found 2 additional benefits of using the coated balls: 1) the lead does not rub off on my hands or my boat making a mess and I am quite convinced, from my readings on the subject, that lead does rub off and over time the human body accumulates it. So I prefer to 'get the lead out!' 2) I feel I am less likely to have someone steal the weights as they are so remarkably visiable that it would too easy to walk down a dock and spot them 100 yards away. I also put my initials in the balls before I coat them so, should the police be called, the thieves will have a hard time explaining that my intials are under the coating.
I end up pouring about 1,000 lbs of cannon balls a year and none of the last 3,000 lbs have been uncoated in the end. The coated ones end up about $50.00 as well. In fact I am about to pour another 1,000 lbs this week. And I use a thermoplastic that allows me to drag them through the bottom and they hang in there. Never had one lose it's covering.
I pay $50 a weight and replace them when I have to. But what can I say my balls are just fine. They have been well worked over the years.