Superstition and other fishy stuff

Humans are all in on superstitions. Sports teams have them, as do individual athletes, gardeners, and farmers. Yet anglers and hunters may be the worst of all when it comes to superstition and what can and can’t happen before, during, and after an outing. The list of things to be superstitious about when fishing or hunting is deep and wide and can vary from region to region or camp to camp. Here are some of the superstitious things I’ve experienced — and occasionally adopted — through the years. The most common angling superstition is also the one that strikes many people as the oddest one. At first blush, having a banana in a boat might not seem like a big deal. What could an innocuous yellow fruit possibly do to make an angler have a bad day? However, the banana is seen in many angling circles as the kiss of death. Tournament and charter anglers are the most liable to embrace this superstition, often in very forceful ways. I’ve heard tournament anglers freak out when they found a banana hidden in a compartment. I’ve also seen a charter captain check for bananas in the client lunch boxes. If found, the banana was removed from the boat in no uncertain fashion. Bananas brought critters So where did this most ubiquitous of angling superstitions come from? It seems that back in the early days of trade on the high seas, bananas held spiders, snakes, and other critters that could bite and kill the crew. So that was not good. When those ships went down, the bananas would be the only thing left floating. Somehow, this ancient concern has created the international disdain by some anglers for bananas in boats. I don’t share this superstition and enjoy a banana quite often when fishing or guiding. Which is not to say I don’t have superstitions when it comes to angling. During a two-decade long tournament fishing career, I discovered a personal superstition. When things were going well, and our team was catching fish, I would not change clothes. If they were dirty, I’d bring them into the shower and wring them out. There would be no changing anything. However, if we had crashed and burned day one, there would often be a change of everything. Starting fresh as it were. It didn’t aways work, but this lucky clothing superstition was something that helped form