Brook trout actually do eat cigarette butts

[Millsertime]

I've heard the "joke" that brookies are this stupid and hungry but thought of it as more of a joke.

I was checking my trail camera yesterday and saw a cigarette butt nearby. I threw the butt in a deep hole that typically holds a couple 5-6" brookies. Sure enough....They started attacking it. Crazy!

 

[RLeep2]

Under the right set of circumstances, sure they will. Bluegills will as well, not to mention chubs/shiners and that whole crowd.

I've caught fish on strips torn from a legal pad, a piece of aluminum foil, Purina cat kibble (hard to keep on a hook) and a bunch of other stuff. All just to see if I could. And I could...

If you're going to use cigarette butts though, you should consider using the filter sections from new, never lit cigarettes. Because, eventually you're going to get tired of the game and pull stakes and leave. And if you've been using smoked down butts, filtered or unfiltered, and then quit and go home, you're leaving a pool full of fish that in a couple hours will be thrashing and beaching themselves as they begin to go through nicotine withdrawal.

I would hope that we're better than that...

 

[outsider]

If a trout ingests a cigarette filter, They cannot digest and pass it. They would die. This info came from the PAF&BC.

 

[FarmerDave]

They definitely will at least try, but I never saw one actually ingest one. I preferred to cut a small piece of twig when prospecting a new location. I'll toss it on the water and watch for brook trout to take swipes at it. I don't smoke, and cig filters are for the most part made of plastic fibers so I wouldn't toss them in a stream.

RLeeP, Add stocked trout to the list.

On opening day, I sometimes used to hit Tionesta Creek and use an ultralight and a small float. The float was mostly brown in color and actually looked kind of like an elongated cigarette filter. I remember one day where ... If I had a nickle for every time a trout hit it... I'd probably have had enough to buy a cheap beverage.;-) I was tempted to slide the float down to a bare hook.;-)

 

[Bamboozle]

This solves the problem of testing the theory without killing fish:



I made this "butt fly" a LONG-LONG time ago to annoy the fish in the Run during my "Scratch the Hatch" days, which all started after watching trout gobble McDonald's french fries tossed in Falling Springs.

Other creations were a French fry fly, with & without catsup (they are almost impossible to keep away from ducks); a "spit or loogy fly" and the old time favorite bread fly, deadly when some is chumming from the bridge. ;-)

 

[redietz]

Millsertime wrote:
I've heard the "joke" that brookies are this stupid and hungry but thought of it as more of a joke.

Not just brookies. Any trout will, if hungry enough. It's never been a joke, just a vivid way of pointing out that fish will try anything once.

 

[KenU]

Because they evolved in small infertile streams, brookies must eat anything edible that floats by. It’s not stupidity, it’s a matter of survival. I once pulled a dying 11-inch brown trout from the Juniata and gave it to a couple of kids fishing nearby. I asked them to open it up and see what might have caused the problem. Its stomach held a rock about the size of my thumb from the tip to the knuckle. I suspect it was rolling along the bottom and the fish thought it was a crayfish and swallowed it.

 

[Wild_Trouter]

Cigarette butts on a bare hook are killer at the wooden bridge and spillway on "The Run." I've watched many people throw bread in the water there and then have a spin guy toss a cigarette butt lure in the water. I was there one day when a WCO showed up. Nothing he could do since it was constructed of artificial materials.

 

[PennypackFlyer]

I've seen them use them up at Salmon River as well...

 

[jacob]

Haha that deer hair cigarette is hilarious! Have you guys seen the taco fly / other “human food” flies. Just funny as hell.