Smoking while fishing

Also Baccarat. The label appeals to me: "The art of doing nothing well"
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I'm a former cigarette smoker and admitted nicotine addict. I once quit smoking soon after burning through my line (mono on a spin rod), while I was holding the cig in my reel hand. A few years later after quitting cigarettes, I thought I could have a cigar while fishing. The promise I made to myself was "only while fishing". I fished almost every day for the next 6 months and soon broke down to buying cigarettes. These days I use the nicotine pouches, like Zyn and On.

I was smart enough to quit cigarettes while I was still in high school, A LONG time ago when a pack of smokes was under a $1.00.

Even though I used a pipe to wean myself off cigarettes and smoke cigars when I fish, I never once had the urge to go back to cigarettes.

When I am NOT fishing, I'm NOT smoking cigars which means during some periods, it could be months between cigars with zero urge.

I guess I'm lucky....
 
A Perdomo Lot 23 robusto is the ticket

I'm a maduro fan. Two in regular rotation are Arturo Fuente 850 Flor Fina or a Ashton Aged Maduro No. 40 Toro.

However, the first cigar I'll light up on any fishing trip of over several hours is always a Padron Maduro - Magnum or an Arturo Fuente Gran Reserva - Canones. These are LONG cigars at 9" & 8'5" respectively but they burn, draw and smoke beautifully.

I never light them until I am completely rigged up and ready to start casting because I once burned through the Spectra string on my zinger. Fortunately, it was one of several serviceable Abel zingers that I got super cheap, so I sent it back to be restrung.

FWIW - Gear Keeper now offers an aluminum bodied micro zingers for $35 that can be serviced if you are a klutz.
 
I was smart enough to quit cigarettes while I was still in high school, A LONG time ago when a pack of smokes was under a $1.00.
That's how long I've been a smoker. Being a pack a day smoker for many years, I at least cut back to a half pack a day, about ten years ago. I remember saying I'll quit when smokes go to $.75 a pack. I'm now paying $9.15 a pack.
 
I'm a former cigarette smoker and admitted nicotine addict. I once quit smoking soon after burning through my line (mono on a spin rod), while I was holding the cig in my reel hand. A few years later after quitting cigarettes, I thought I could have a cigar while fishing. The promise I made to myself was "only while fishing". I fished almost every day for the next 6 months and soon broke down to buying cigarettes. These days I use the nicotine pouches, like Zyn and On.
This sounds quite a bit like my story.. I smoked cigarettes at a rate of 30-40/day for about 20 years, then finally quit in 1990. Stayed that way for about 6 years until I was fishing a Mifflin County freestone one day and the gnats were like a fog. I couldn't hack it and retreated to a convenience store and bought a pack of the cheapest cigarillos they had. That fixed the gnat problem but it also put me right back on cigarettes for the next five years. Finally, I quit for good in 2000 after Petunia explained to me that cigarettes were particularly bad for my health because if I didn't get off them, she might coldcock me with a ball bat.

I'm still a slave to nicotine though. I've been chewing the 2 mg Wal-Mart gum for the last 26 years, starting out at 20-25 pcs/day and tapering now to 4-5. I'll eventually get off it but for now, it's progress not perfection that matters. Besides, I kind of like the gum. The only real complaint I have is that it is a son-of-a-pup to keep it lit..

I think the amount of difficulty or lack of same we might have with quitting is about our internal wiring. I believe there is an addiction gene or something very similar.
 
When I was around 16 years old I went with an uncle and a guide he was friends with who was referred to at the " captain" he was about 80 at the time and smoked a pipe , anyway I still recall that hunt any time I smell pipe smoke , windows up heat on full blast and myself in the back of a Jeep Cherokee nestled between about 50 Canada goose decoys in a haze of smoke as we drove out to the fields . Still think on it fondly though have not hunted in many years .
 
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