Cigarette BUTTS!!!

[Stevester 0]

I think the only difference between the pellet flies and the cig butt flies is the color! There was a story a number of years ago about a pizza place on a river that I fish. Supposedly one of the cooks there got into the habit of tossing bits of pizza dough into the river and watching the trout fight over them. A couple of guys I knew tied white, spun deer hair flies to catch those fat trout behind the pizzeria.

 

Steve

[Steeldrifter 0]

It's one of those things that you never give much thought too when you're a smoker. I smoked for about 15 years and I use to flick them in the river when I smoked till the last couple years before I quit, then it hit me that I should not do that and I started putting the butts in my vest pocket in a baggie.

 

The good thing is now I don't have to worry about doing that....because April of this year will be 4 years since I quit cold turkey One of the best decisions I ever made in my life.

[Chase Creek 0]

My wife quit smoking a few years ago. (I never started) She said quitting is easy - she;d done it several times before!

 

Another thing we need to watch out for is mono line. I fish lots of small streams in Northern Michigan, and always find wads of mono in the bushes. I cut them out and put them in a baggie. Lots of critters get tangled up in that stuff and eventually die of strangulation or starve to death. And those soft plastic 6-pack holders are just as bad. They last around 450 years before they rot away to nothing.

 

Stepping down from soapbox.

[Steeldrifter 0]

Another thing we need to watch out for is mono line. I fish lots of small streams in Northern Michigan, and always find wads of mono in the bushes.

 

 

Yep, that's why I have one of these on my vest now for the past few years. Great little item to have, I think everyone should carry one IMO http://www.llbean.com/llb/shop/69266?page=monomaster

 

Those work great for clipping new leaders etc etc. Then the big wads of mono I usually stick in the back of the vest.

[troutguy 0]

I applaud the smokers who do not litter, but unfortunately you are in the minority. Cigarette smokers are generally slobs.

 

My wonder is on soda can and bottle litter. Why do you see more Mountain Dew litter than other brands? Is it just in the South?

[ditz2 0]

Many of the young crowd love Mountain Dew. Lots of caffine .....SunDrop in the South and Mountain Dew in the north. If it is tobacco I have abused it over the years. I am free now. Camels were $.25 a pack. I find it difficult to understand how folks in the lower wage brackets can now afford tobacco. It has become very expensive. I still miss my pipe.

[artimus001 0]

up hear in Ontario it is Tim Horton coffee cups left everywhere.sure the paper breaks down, but there is a palstic shell left over. looks like a snake skin.

[mikechell 0]

Litter is litter. No matter how small (a gum wrapper) or large (complete bags full of trash left over from lunch) ... if you "flip" something out, you've contributed to the mess.

You either do ... or you don't. Justifying something small ("It's just one butt" ... or, "It's only one small piece of paper") doesn't make it less offensive to the next person who has to see it.

 

When I do keep fish for eating, I always inspect stomach contents. I've lost count of the number of "tossed" soft plastic baits I've pulled out of fish.

[portlyjoe 0]

I tend to believe that most serious fishermen are willing to do the right thing and take there garbage out with them as they leave. However, I have called out many a "weekend idiot" for trying to leave their crap. Last year a fishing dock was closed off to the public due to morons that leave everything from their house on the pier, it infuriates me to see diapers, line, garbage,drinking containers, even unwanted fish! I have seen many an access area closed off due to this type of behavior, and i feel if we dont speak up and do the right thing ,then we will lose out.

 

You bring it in you take it out!

[artimus001 0]

Litter is litter. No matter how small (a gum wrapper) or large (complete bags full of trash left over from lunch) ... if you "flip" something out, you've contributed to the mess.

You either do ... or you don't. Justifying something small ("It's just one butt" ... or, "It's only one small piece of paper") doesn't make it less offensive to the next person who has to see it.

 

When I do keep fish for eating, I always inspect stomach contents. I've lost count of the number of "tossed" soft plastic baits I've pulled out of fish.

blunt, to the point, and impossible to argue.

 

my kids were taught at a young age to pack out their garbage. my daughter worked off school community credits cleaning up a heavily polluted section of river. my granddaughters, dad and i, do a sweep of the area before we even start fishing

[P.G. Beckett 0]

1. For many years I and many other fishermen in the Melbourne area, caught small spotted sea trout under our lights on cigarette butts while when we trying to dip shrimp. Heck, some of us even made friendly wagers to see who catch the first, the largest or the most.

2. I use them to make fat bodies in some of my flies and I buy the filters for this purpose as shown in the photo.

3. A couple of years ago , I found a small sandpiper (bird) tangle up in the hair of a large fly with the hook still attached. Yes , I did free it: So before you point fingers -look at some of the materials that you use in your own fly making!!!!

 

[Kirk Dietrich 0]

Y'all are talking about filters eh? I'm pretty sure the hand-rolled filterless butts I discard don't last the day, just natural ingredients being recycled into the ground - paper and tobacco.

 

Kirk

[Freddo 0]

When I was 11 and cleaning a trout I'd caught to have for dinner I was checking its stomach contents. I wasn't trying to match the hatch either - it was all bait for me back then. Anyway, in its stomach I found a cigarette but along with other natural items the fish digested. YUCK! At first I wasn't sure, but my dad smoked and confirmed my guess!

[Bryon Anderson 0]

I enjoy an occasional cigarette, but I'm fortunate in that I never got addicted to them. I can buy a pack and it will last me several months. I used to buy unfiltered Camels to smoke while fishing, my reasoning being that everything in them (paper and tobacco) was biodegradable, and therefore the butts could be dropped in the water without doing significant damage. To prevent them from being ingested by fish or other animals, would always "field strip" the butts so that what went into the water were tiny shreds of paper and tiny flecks of tobacco. I did the same thing with cigars.

 

Someone eventually pointed out to me that, while paper and tobacco are biodegradable, the paper contains chemicals (and possibly the tobacco, too) that can't be good for anything that lives in or near the water. Since then, I carry some kind of small plastic container with a lid that seals in my vest or pack and stick the butts in there.

 

I do still empty ash from my pipe into the water--I'm guessing I should stop doing that, too. Does anyone know if tobacco ash is harmful to aquatic plants or animals?

 

I tend to agree with those who say that discarded monofilament is a bigger problem than butts. I collect giant nests of that stuff every time I fish certain streams here (Michigan). A few years back, I watched a Great Blue Heron get its wing tangled in some mono that was coiled around a tree limb. The mono caught his wing just as he landed on a partially submerged stump, so when he tried to take off again, the mono yanked him back down by the wing and he went into the water, which was pretty fast and deep where he was. It took a lot of flopping and squawking, but he finally got himself free, but it did not look good for him there for a few minutes. Ever since then I have been a faithful collector of discarded mono.

[mikechell 0]

As far as I know, no organic ash if bad for plants. Inhalation is bad for any animal. But you bring up a point.

Back when I was a kid, one of the "home made" bug repellents was a tobacco based concoction. Dad would steep old tobacco he didn't like (pipe smoker), then strain the "juice" into a spray canister. It kept the cut worms, and other plant eating nasties, away. It's possible, I suppose, that the irritants that worked for that might also work on fish.

 

But then, like people, some of them may like a little "hot pepper" once in a while.