Rule #1: NO BANANAS!

A quick fishing report before I get into the important topic at hand. I fished my guys from Craig to Stickney yesterday since we just had a short day and it usually fishes really well this time of year. John LaRue and I fished Wednesday night just to get an idea of what was going on and got a few but it wasn't lights out. We did get some in the spots I thought we would so I figured if we really put some effort into it on Thursday, we could make it happen.

The day started out pretty slow actually. We picked up a few fish here and there but never really hit the pods I thought we would stacked up off some of the big bends and shelves. A couple hours into it we decided to get really small and the fish responded. We hit a few runs where we absolutely pounded them. It turned out to be a pretty damn good day.

So last night after playing, we were sitting around BS'n with the folks that stuck around and Toby Shannon brought up the whole "banana in the boat" thing. He likes to give me a fair bit of crap and he knows I'm pretty animate about no bananas in my boat. Out here on the Missouri, it's kind of a running joke and you often find a banana peal in your boat somewhere from some other guide trying to sabotage you. But go to Alaska and they take it pretty seriously. It is a real deal and from the research I did, it has legitimate origins.

One of the stories I read is that the fishing parties in the South Pacific would put a ripe banana in their boat and head out to sea. Once the banana turned black, they knew they were too far to catch fish and they would head back. I'm not sure how plausible that one is but this next one seems to make sense to me.

Back in the day when the trade ships were sailing through the South Pacific, they would stop and barter with the Islanders. One of the things the crew members loved to trade for were bananas. When they brought the bananas on-board however, they also brought with them rats and poisonous spiders. The pests would get into the captain's quarters, which really ticked them off and often caused illness. There may have even been a casualty or something associated with these spiders and a very unlucky captain but in any event, the word got out and the general rule of thumb was that bananas and boats don't mix. Now it's pretty much a standard Maritime rule that you just don't bring bananas on the boat.

Keep 'em where they live...