There are so many stories about bananas being bad luck in the boat.  Some anglers go to extremes to avoid bananas at all costs including banana muffins, Banana boat sunscreen, and even fruit of the loom underwear.  I think it’s time to get to the bottom of this one.  I did a little research and found a few interesting factoids from history.

  1.  The fastest ships were used to transport bananas to avoid spoilage, crew members attempting to troll along were typically unsuccessful due to the speed.  Hence no fish is caused by bananas = Bad!

2.  Deadly spiders, snakes and other vermin would hold up in crates of bananas while they were being                       shipped across the ocean from Africa.  These creatures would come out at night and wreak havoc on                    people on these ships, consequently people would get sick or die during the day!  In this case also                       bananas are real bad to be on a ship with

3.  Other nearby fruits would spoil more quickly due to the ethylene gas emitted by bananas when they                       ripen.

4.  When ships would run ashore or hit coral reefs  the only thing sometimes left would be floating masses of bananas and wrecked ship debris.

With these fun facts in mind I can see why people in history and maybe today would not want to risk going to sea with bananas.

As far as my experience goes I know fishing guides in Montana that freak out if their guest brought or tried to take a banana on the boat.  I’ve seen bananas at the put in where the boat ahead of me forced his guests to ditch these perilous fruit items.

I happen to like bananas and eat them every morning before my trip, if I forget to eat my banana it’s usually fortuitously in my cooler, I’ll grab it and eat this snack as we float down the river.  We usually catch 1 to 40 trout on our trips.  I don’t think I have had a skunk in 20 years of guiding and I always have a banana in the morning or bring some with.  I’ve overheard other guides talking about how bad the fishing is and they found out that their client stowed a banana on board.  I’ve taken a few ass kickings and didn’t catch many trout, I blamed it on the choices I made. Example : the river, the section, fly choice,  or my teaching ability that day, but I didn’t blame the tough day on a banana!

OK if I’m going to Kon Tiki it for weeks across a barren ocean, I will probably leave the bananas on the beach. That doesn’t mean that I believe in Bigfoot, Santa, the tooth fairy, black cats are bad luck, etc. But why take a chance in the open ocean, hence I’ll keep bringing bananas on my drift boat or raft in Montana.