I am still scratching my head why the lowly banana bears the brunt of fishing superstition. Both me and Elvis figured bananas was a fine fruit, so how did the “if there are bananas in the boat, no fish will be caught” myth arise?

I read the available explanations, the most common is how a bunch of bananas held poisonous spiders and some sailors got the worst of it – but that was hundreds of years before the Internet, so the rest of the world would’ve taken a decade or two to find out.

I am much more willing to believe that bananas are found in tropical climes where gals wear grass skirts, are sun bronzed, and largely topless. Any fishing vessel from Northern Europe that laid in for fresh water would’ve been mighty hard put to go fishing after eyeballing that panorama. Bully beef and hard tack is fine, but a banana with a pineapple chaser must’ve tasted like divine intervention, or better.

A little credence to my theory is found in the “if a barefoot woman passes you on the way to the dock, no fish will be caught” superstition. Combine the two and we get what may be the real story, “If you are passed by a partially clad, sun bronzed, grass skirt wearing, tropical gal carrying bananas – you’ll forget about fishing entirely.”

Don’t blame me, you were the guys that clicked a hole clean through the gal in the fishing poster. I am just a victim of Sherlockian Deduction…

Tags: fishing superstition, banana superstition, angling myth