Every culture and community has a number of superstitions that linger in the background of everyday life. From their surface appearance, many of these superstitions may make little sense. But often they originate from real-life situations and serve a purpose related to safety, security and/or piece of mind.
Well, the deep sea fishing community is no different. For those not familiar with the sport, they may have not heard that bananas are considered unlucky by sports fishers. In this article we’ll go over a few theories that try to answer the question, “Why are bananas bad luck for deep sea fishing?”
One theory that relates directly to deep sea trolling is that transoceanic shipments of bananas required the fastest ships so the bananas didn’t end up spoiling. Those high speeds make it much harder to catch fish.
When banana carrying ships were unfortunate enough to sink, all that would be found floating on the water’s surface would be the loads of bananas it was carrying. This spooky visual reminder would be seared into the minds of local fishers.
Of course bunches of banana are also known to harbor large spiders, poisonous snakes and other nasty insects which could make those on a crowded fishing boat a bit nervous.
There’s also the cartoon-like stereotype of slipping on a banana peel which would be even more hazardous when walking around a small fishing boat.
Whatever the actual origin of the superstition, at least you’ve been forewarned about it so you don’t show up on your next fishing trip with a breakfast banana – much to the horror of the crew.