Show me a fisherman or woman who is not superstitious and I will show you someone from whom you should never buy a used car. We all have certain things we do before or during a fishing trip that we may or may not admit to, but if we don’t do them, we feel uncomfortable, and if the trip becomes less than successful, we will blame the lack of those things for our failure.
Let’s get the No. 1 superstition out of the way. Bananas!
Just about every saltwater fisherman I know will never allow a banana on their boat. Now, no one is born knowing this, so it is possible that an innocent person could bring a banana on board undetected.
That is exactly what happened to me back in Virginia Beach not once, but twice. The first time was when we were filming a segment of my TV show, “Outdoors Virginia.” If you are familiar with “Outdoors Delmarva,” we used the exact same format. I played the Captain Willey part, and a member of the sports staff played the Andrew Tawes part.
In this show, we had two news broadcasters on board and we were supposed to go across the Chesapeake Bay and fish around the Concrete Ships off Cape Charles for gray trout (weakfish). One newscaster was a very nice gentleman who loved to fish, and the other was a very nice and, of course, beautiful young lady who liked to fish as well.
We began our drift and the young lady was quickly into trout as soon as her lure hit bottom. The gentleman, not so much. This continued for several drifts, and since it was a very warm day, the young lady removed her jacket to reveal a very small bathing suit underneath.
Up until now, the men on the camera boat were going about their job without much interest. Once the jacket came off, they developed a great deal of interest and began to maneuver the boat to get closer to us. This did not go unnoticed by the young lady, and she told them to back off because they were scaring the fish.
Meanwhile, our gentleman angler was not doing well. He had yet to catch a single fish.
As I said, it was quite warm and he asked me to get him a bottle of water out of his lunch cooler. When I opened the cooler, what did I find? You guessed it, a banana! I came out of the cabin with a bottle of water in one hand and the banana in the other.
“What is this?” I shouted.
“A banana,” was his surprised answer.
I then went into a detailed discussion on why bananas are bad luck on boats and bring bad fishing to those who bring them on board. Then I tossed the offending fruit into the Chesapeake Bay. Since we were filming a TV show, my cameraman, Mike Bilbo, had me repeat the toss several times.
Once the banana was gone, the gentleman began catching fish. And that’s the truth.
The second time was also in Virginia Beach on board a 24-foot Grady6 White that I ran every Saturday and Sunday doing live radio reports from the bay and ocean. This time I had on board the outdoor writer from the newspaper in Newport News.
We were fishing over an ocean wreck, and everyone was catching black sea bass at a good clip – all except the newspaper guy. He could not catch anything. Since everyone on board was in some way or the other involved in the writing business, we all had pity for this poor fellow. Words of sympathy just poured from our lips to the point that our good friend began to bless us back at least three or maybe four generations.
This continued until the newspaper guy opened his lunch bag. Once again – bananas. Not one, but at least three. I couldn’t believe it. How could he not know about the curse of the banana? He claimed he had heard about it, but didn’t believe in such things. Nevertheless, we wrestled the yellow jinx from him and tossed them overboard. Believe this or not, but as the bananas floated away, a small cobia came up and began to bump them with its snout. All on board, except our newspaper guy, cracked up. Even he began to believe when the sea bass suddenly started to find his baits.
As for me, my routine includes using the same aftershave, packing peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, buying French apple Tastypies, Wawa coffee and wearing the same belt for 30 years. I finally had to replace the belt because it kept slipping, and by the time I put on my fishing pliers and took two steps, my pants were down around my knees. Nobody wants to see that.
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Eric Burnley is a Delaware native who has fished and hunted the state from an early age. Since 1978 he has written countless articles about hunting and fishing in Delaware and elsewhere along the Atlantic Coast. He has been the regional editor for several publications and was the founding editor of the Mid-Atlantic Fisherman magazine. Eric is the author of three books: Surf Fishing the Atlantic Coast, The Ultimate Guide to Striped Bass Fishing and Fishing Saltwater Baits. He and his wife Barbara live near Milton, Delaware. Eric can be reached at Eburnle@aol.com.
