I don't know.. I'm sure one could line fish with a sink tip or sink line or a bead head well under 1/8 oz if wanted so..
Once again I believe it's all about intent..
The zone intent was to fly fish for lake run species .. I honestly don't know of anyone from that beginning that has not put enough weight to be in constant contact with the bottom and basically bottom bouncing with a fly rod..
Well over what I myself consider a fly fishing experience.. I did it..
We used slinkies for gripes sake on a fly rod... Again it was merely C&D fishing with a fly rod in an approved tackle area..
I truly believe at times it is absolutely necessary to be in total contact with the bottom 6" to catch fish.. Not always but times it dictates so..
I Know it is totally possible to cast heavy leaders, flies or weight to catch fish (stripers case in point).. I don't think that is most of the intent of whats happening in the zones..
I have absolutely no intent of lining fish.
I had and do line fish but not on intent, wether it means a skunk or not..
If I want or feel the best possible way of catching fish without meeting such zone regs, I'll fish below and many time with a much thinner diameter spinning rod that really will be less weight then C&D on a fly line....
Now to the point:
Kicker, zones are a high concentration of fish area..
I think the DEC has come to a good middle ground on setting a weight limit to where it becomes a skill (somewhat) rather then just dredging through a bunch of fish using a fly rod and chucking .. 
I again certainly hope they keep working towards that..
 
Back in RULE change 2010, I watched the DEC in -3 deg write tickets to slinkie chuckers when it was sketchy .."line must propel fly"
 
bottom line:
Have fun and just PHISH
 
Sorry to blow your report up Clint:
 

I'm right with you HT. 
 
I have caught fish on wet flies in the film, but most of the time, I want to at least feel a tick once in a while to know I'm down there with these fish, especially when it gets colder (like now!).  But at 500, I don't think I would need more than a 3/0 to get into that zone, unless it is crowded (like the LFZ), so the fly has to drop faster and you only get a short drift, or it is a steep drop into a pocket with fast current coming in, and I have to fish that kind of water enough around home to look for the more "swingy" spots when I get up there.  I was fishing a tail out in a fast pool on Irondeqouit Creek this weekend and using a size 2 spider, and I was having problems with the bottom just from the weight of the hook. 
 
But I definitely know where you are at in terms of intent, and agree wholeheartedly about the regs being the best possible combination.  And it has taken them quite a while to fine tune this.
 
L13 

Lucky,
I don't know what,why  you keep considering the zones as crowded. Almost anytime I fish in those parts I don't feel crowded to where my drift is limited at all or cant move around.. Many times I don't see anglers for long periods of time..
Yes there has been an issue now and again but nothing that don't happen elsewhere.. Someone sees you catch a fish so that must be the spot..
Besides , the swing is almost over until spring when the wiggler size #4 comes out.

HT not a blow up at all the post was about the LFZ

Yes -there are times in Winter when the LFZ -Kiddie in particular -is crowded but one can move around and generally find a nice spot someplace on the run to fish generally unmolested. Perhaps not as many fish -but  kinda by yourself with others certainly in sight. Quality vs quantity.
  Then there are the days when even Kiddie is lonesome.
 I would agree that on the more crowded days one is forced to use a bit more weight so as not to be the guy whos line is always in somebodys way.
  With few others around and using little weight its nice to be able to make a bit of an upstream cast with a couple of tends and work the pool nicely- but that aint always the case when it gets crowded- Bovine time. lol.

Yea, I always check first.  If I don't think I can get at least some semi  decent real estate I move on to other spots.   School house, Wires, Pineville, Town don't matter where I'll find a spot for a few casts.

I hate bein a bridge fisherman Clint but some of those pools are Ok in Winter. Specially when ya dont feel like breaking trail.

One of the best days I ever had on the river , which ain't sayin' much, because I fished elsewhere for decades, was right under the 52 bridge. It was a weekday in February after a big storm. It snowed in the morning and the roads sucked. By noon  the sun came out and a warm front blew in. Winter stones were on the banks  and midges popped out in clouds. The steel went nuts and POUNDED flies swung under the bridge. Some, I saw the V wakes coming. I used streamers with a little weight in them. Certainly would have been very legal under the current law.  Not a soul for the whole afternoon.  One of the days I had all the room I wanted to throw rope.  I'll take it when I can.  I doubt I'll ever see that happen again, but if I'm lucky something else will happen to make a memory. I must admit, I'm very use to large stretches of river to myself and when I started to fish the SR it freaked me out a bit.  I'm finding myself looking for some more open water again.   It's all relative, though.  If you have a few friends on a run and nobody else is that close, you might as well have the river to yourself. Oddly, that even happened during shark season this year!   If we have a real winter , there'll be days  I'll be looking around for someone to bore to tears with fishing stories. I'll probably be hitting  the kiddie pool for some company.  No matter what anyone says, I've had some good afternoons sharing water with decent people there.
 

I hear you Trevor.  During the winter you can usually find some decent water somewhere at a very short walk and your not huffin and puffin when you get there.
 
  If you want solitude take a walk.  It all depends on your mood and how much time you got.  At this point in time I prefer to give myself the best odds to hook up.  If there are a few folks around as long as their somewhat civil I'm good. 

Hey Charlie-One thing I have seen help by the bridges is that the stones sometimes are falling off them into the water when the sun hits the concrete.