banana's as bad luck

[finga64]

Who can tell me the story about banana's being bad luck on the boat??
What other foods/drinks are bad luck???
Cheers Scott

[revs57]

Hi Scott,

there was a thread on this a couple of months back...a search should reveal it...something to do with Banana's going off and the bacteria causing serious illness among the crew in the tall ship era if I remember rightly...

It's one of those fables/legends that has become every fisho's excuse for not catching fish

Must've been the banana's!!!!

Cheers

rhys

[Sportfish_5]

Lots of different stories as to where the superstition started. Best one I heard was to do with sailing ships around the West Indies transporting them back to America. They tended to overload the ships and that area is subject to tropical storms etc. Quite often the only remnants found of a ship were thousands of bananas floating in the middle of nowhere - thats one version anyway.

I think its crap especially after watching the deckie on the Wangenalla Banks DVD hook up a banana skin as a skirt on a pusher and hook a striped marlin


Cheers

Greg

[Lone_Wolf]

Maybe it's an off shoot from the old adage, "pay them peanuts and you get monkeys."

Feed the crew bananas and you get .....

[fish2eat]

Maybe it's an off shoot from the old adage, "pay them peanuts and you get monkeys."

Feed the crew bananas and you get .....

and you get.....apeshit

[Blackened]

G'day
I'm not superstitious but if i find banana's on my boat it's not on. I believe in this 100% as it's happened too many times. As for the wanganella banks dvd, what a great show. I couldnt believe it that they had bananas n that boat but what can i say??. They were kiwi fish afterall.
Davc

[LizardWizard]

hehe, its funny you ask this, i just researched this yesterday...

before reading the stories below, it should be noted that in West Africa, fishing lines are made from the pseudostem fibre of the banana plant.

also, i once found some information that said due to bananas having high nitrogen content, fish hate nitrogen, and will not take any bait that is handled after consuming a banana.

however....

One visitor to our Home Page (Mr. James Coppage) has a bit of a different story. Of course, we received his permission to print it here. If you have another story, please send it to us (along with your permission to publish it)!
First I would like to say I love you web page. I read your reports regularly. I hope to fish with you this coming season. I would however like to take issue with the story of the Bananas and being bad luck. While spending time in Hawaii fishing I spoke with some "native" Hawaiians who clued me in to the origins of Bananas and bad luck. Back before fiberglass and powered boats the Hawaiian men would go out in dugout canoes and fish for weeks at a time. They would always take Bananas. Well it happens that the Bananas would rot about the same time they would get to far out to really catch any fish. So they associated bananas as bad luck. I learned this the hard way when I took banana boat sun screen out fishing. We were not catching anything and I was baking in the hot sun. I was putting the sunscreen on when the 1st mate saw it was banana boat. He immediately grabbed it from my hands and threw it overboard. Not 5 min later we hooked into a 950# marlin. So I am a true believer in the banana superstition and will not allow anything to do with bananas on my boat at any time. I look forward to possibly fishing with you this year.

Thanks

Jim Coppage

Back in the days of the transatlantic crossings by wooden sailing ships many hazards would befall the captains, crew and passengers. Disease, pirates, shipwrecks, storms, etc., claimed the lives of a good percentage of the captains, crew and passengers attempting the dangerous voyage. Needless to say, a transatlantic crossing in the 17th and 18th centuries was a very risky endeavor. Often the vessels would stop along the way in tropical islands to gather provisions such as food and water. There the passengers and crew would often purchase wooden crates of bananas from the locals and bring them aboard the ship. These crates would have all manner of critters in them such as bugs, spiders, vermin and snakes.

These critters would make their way into the bilges of the ships, multiply, and then find their way into the captain's quarters. The captains circulated the rumor that bananas were bad luck in an attempt to keep the critters off the ship and out of their cabin. The crew and
passengers were more than eager to follow suit because of the inherent risk of the crossing. So, if the captain announced prior to the voyage that bananas were bad luck and not allowed aboard the vessel, everyone complied. You must remember that these were the days of burning witches and the like, so superstitions were taken very seriously.

and a story here..
http://www.striper-csba.com/story6.htm

[bidkev]

Folk lore:

"A long time ago in an ocean not so far away, the God of Bananas and the God of the Sea both desired the same woman - the most beautiful maiden that had ever delighted the eyes of any man.

"After many years and oceans competing for this woman, the God of Bananas finally won her. He promised the fair maiden anything she could ever wish for, including as many bananas as she wanted for the rest of her life. That was the clincher, and the God of Bananas soon had a new wife.

"So why is it bad luck to bring bananas on a boat?

"When the God of the Sea heard about the wedding, he swore revenge. But instead of direct revenge on the Banana God and the woman, he vowed to bring bad luck to any sea traveler of the human kind who had bananas on board."

But - and here's the clincher - the God of the Sea didn't swear revenge on ALL bananas. In the final edit of the story (space is always limited and deadlines looming), one word must have got left behind. This word is the key to the misunderstanding, the false rumors, the bum rap. The poor banana has suffered long enough. It's time the truth was told. The word is hulahula.

The God of the Sea didn't say "any old banana". He specified hulahula bananas, the red ones, like the kind Captain Cook confronted at Savage Island during his second circumnavigation. Why red ones? These hulahula bananas are banned from boats because both fruit and stems stain decks, fingers, lips and teeth a bright blood-red colour and would remind the God of the Sea of the deflowering of the fair maiden he'd lost and who had been bribed and won by the God of Bananas. Besides, they don't taste very good.

The fact that the hulahula species is rare and little known perhaps explains why the word was dropped. But Captain Cook encountered the hulahula banana at Savage Island. Now known as Niue (pronounced NEW-ay) Island, Savage Island "welcoming committees" were scary. When the ex-Yorkshire farm boy turned map-maker and his men arrived, they were confronted by natives "dripping with blood", a sure sign of cannibalism, or so they thought. In fact, these hulahula bananas were used ceremonially by warriors and at weddings as a cosmetic accessory not a culinary delight. The fact that many sailors and marines were lost to these fierce natives, could explain the bad luck story.

>>>>>>>>>>>>&g t;>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>
Or:

In the days of sailing ships many crew visiting the islands would stock up on provisions such as wild bananas. These carried many exotic species of fauna such as poisonous spiders and the like and the fact that these could multiply in the enclosed confines of a sailing ship and cause havoc, led superstitious crews to believe that they were bad luck.

>>>>>>>>>>>>&g t;>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>&g t;>>>>>

I read a while ago that one game boat sailing out of Florida exclusively used banana skin skirts as an experiment.....he outfished all other boats on that day.

kev

The farther backwards you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see

[land_based]

i think there was a whole story on myth busting this in modern fishin last month??

[shaman]

Sounds like a load of bananas to me!

Bad luck to go fishing while your wifes in labour as well

[roz]

G'day
I'm not superstitious but if i find banana's on my boat it's not on.
Davc

If thats the case you are superstitious.

Bananas bring bad luck........ biggest load of rubbish.

Forgetting the bait..... now thats bad luck.

cheers Roz

[Maryanne]

And they say women are superstitious!!!

Forgetting the bait might be bad luck forgettting the bungs is even worse.

Cheers Tracey
aka mrs skippa

[Fishin_Dan]

Forgetting the bait..... now thats bad luck.

cheers Roz

That's just an excuse to use plastics Roz!

[DICER]

perhaps the banana bad luck is why rob (aka mackmauler) eats banana lollies and gets the good fish

[Blackened]

G'day
Fair enough roz, good call. What i meant was the banana thing is the only exception. As for forgetting the bait? Not a chance, never do.
Dave