Ok guys...this one has got me miffed.

I have seen, in several places including the board here, that of all things banana's are totally verboten on fishing trips. I know a guide who won't even let one (or anyone with a banana) on his boat!

Now, being a logical person, the reason "should" be obvious...but it ain't. Is this just a superstition, or is there a real reason for this?



MB

Heard it started on Hawaiian charter boats. I think it's a silly superstition. My kids and I eat bananas on the boat all the time and we still catch fish. Sounds like this will be like that thread about dog and tobacco stink.

Fish like Bananas, they get cramps also

I'm originally from Hawaii. I don't know if it started there, but I was told the story about it when I was a kid.
I think some guys down there do actually believe the superstition.

Has anyone tried banana peel for Halibut?

Fish LIKE banana's????

Anyone ever try one of these?



Maybe if it had a pink head and chartruse maribou?



Mike

Nice, float that thing in the cascade or something.
I was serious about banana peels and Halibut though.

Could be that the banana peel, when rigged right appears as an eel to the halibut?

Who knows what color their eyes percieve it as at that depth; but seems likely it represents a common food source for them.

Considering how many people have been hitting the Cascade, the fish have probably already been "bananaized"...:-)

MB

Kind of fun looking at a few guys faces when I reach into the pack and start peeling a banana. I guess if they believe in black cats & ladders they'll fall for banana's.
Oh, I have tried peels for bait. Caught silvers at Neah Bay, Black Rockfish, and Ling. Of course at Neah the fish are always hungry!

Mike, I'm not saying use a peel next time you fish Hali's. I saw it done with disbelief years ago.
But your right.
I have been cutting whole banana peels to look like hoochies and rigging them on a pair of hooks like you would any plastic sqiud just to go anti-superstition. It's just something to get a laugh out of my guests.
When those things are on the feed and concentrated, they'll bite virtually any thing. And I've found some weird stuff they'll bite and have found some equally strange stuff in 'em.

Biggest legal sturgeon I ever caught was on a dare...I put a smelt inside a banana peel, stepped on it, then tossed it in. Brought back a 56 incher just above the 101 bridge. One other legal fish (smaller by an inch) caught that day out of a charter of 10 guys.

I think it has more to do with bad luck happening on the boat, not with catching or not catching any fish.

Damon

I have never had good luck with a banana on the boat. I don't allow anyone to bring a banana, superstition or not. I have a book on egg cures. There was mention of an experiment in the book. I believe a drop of potassium was put into a tank with fish in it. The fish were repelled from the potassium.

Who knows but why tempt fate... its an easy thing to not eat bananas for a day... its a hard thing getting skunked... play the game, have an apple instead.

I heard that the superstition was originally due to a concern about the spiders that ived in bunches of bananas. Sailors didn't want bananas as cargo because the ship would then have big hairy biters all over it afterward.

The way I've learned it is, that the banana is a symbol that represents the land gods. And we all know that the land gods and the sea gods don't get along. So, it has always been my attitude to not mess with that. Also, ask any commercial fisherman if they ever had any bananas on board.
I have seen this alot in the Great Land. As you walk down the dock in the morning there's a few bananas lay'n around.
On another note there once was a native American from NM, that was on board with us that whipped out a banana and started to eat it while I explained this theory. That smart@$$ proceeded to catch one of about every game fish that there was to be caught that day.Needless to say I took a bad ribbing all the way back to the harbor. To this day I have never seen anyone catch such a variety of fish.

Here’s the real scoop on the banana's in boats. in the 20's cargo boats brought bananas up from south America to the southern California area. As the market for bananas went down and sport fishing became more popular and more profitable many of these banana boats where converted over to party fish boats for salmon.


The banana boats where saturated with banana oil from all the tons of bananas that had been crushed in their hulls over the years. As the boats would go thru the water they would leave a oil slick behind the boat. Whether this had an effect on the fishing or if it was a bad caption the boats got a bad reap in the san acruz area and further south. So fisherman would not get on a old banana boat to go fishing and that latter become no bananas on the boat. So party boat regulars in the bay area will not let you on if you have a banana in your lunch box. I once eat a banana on a friends boat and he damm near thru me from the boat. But Iam faster and he went in the water instead of me. Anyhow that’s the story as I got it.