Pelagic Line-weighting Factsheet. English, Bahasa Indonesian, French, Japanese, Portuguese, Simplified & Traditional Chinese, Spanish.

Seabirds are vulnerable to being caught during the short period between when the hooks leave the vessel and when they sink below their diving ranges. Line weighting helps sink hooks beyond the dive depths of surface and shallow-foraging seabirds and thus helps reduce the likelihood of birds accessing baited hooks. Because most seabird dives occur in the upper reaches of the water column (down to 10 m), effective line weighting should sink hooks rapidly beyond this depth.