Lets face it: anglers are a very superstitious lot, especially those seasoned anglers and captains in Costa Rica.
Spend more than a few days on a fishing boat, and you start to understand the feelings of “Good and Bad Luck” … and everything in between.
When it comes to bananas, they are considered the epitome of bad luck by many Costa Rica captains. Some will flat out tell you, "Las bananas llevan mala suerte a un bote de pesca. Por favor no las traiga!" (Bananas are bad Mojo on a fishing boat. Please don't bring them!)
There is a hint of logic in this, and psychologically it can influence your catch. There are many reasons why bananas are considered Bad Luck, but the one that is most used comes from the misfortune of dockworkers unloading banana boats from Central America. The cargo most often contained these nasty biting spiders that not only were painful, but occasionally deadly. Other stories have banana oil rubbing off on one's hands and “spooking" the fish; therefore the fish don't bite. There is always the story of a crew member slipping on the banana peel left on the deck , etc., etc. 
Nevertheless, the effect that this superstition has on anglers is real. Good Karma is very important! And many fishermen bring along Good Luck charms, like their favorite shirt or hat. Some claim that powering down a beer before boarding the boat is good, and others will bring along some sort of stuffed mascot.
At Americana Sportfishing we have a group of anglers who always bring along Shrek (see photo) as their good luck charm. The mere thought of bad luck can cause an imbalance in the captain and/or crew's Ying and Yang. The imbalance results in a poor catch. Bananas are bad luck only for those who believe they are bad luck. However, one superstitious crew member can affect an entire boat's Karma.
Bananas and Fishing – You Be the Judge
An epic tale well worth reading about sportfishing lore and a lesson to be learned. Our thanks to Captain MJ Alligood, 33ft Epic out of Los Sueños Marina in the Central Pacific, for this great story: We started the day fishing inshore with a couple of guys from Escazú (a popular San José suburb) and their two boys.
After catching some small Snapper for the boys to reel in, we decided to run offshore because the bite has been so good. We had lots of action offshore, around 20 Sailfish bites from 11 AM on. Unfortunately the hooks were not sticking well, and we jumped off about 15 or so in the first few hours. We also pulled the hook on a nice Blue Marlin.
By mid-afternoon we discovered one of the guests eating a banana – which if you don't know, bananas are very bad luck for fishing. Very bad juju, we explained. So he quickly ate the banana and tossed the peel over. We thought that problem was solved.
Just before we pulled the lines out, we hooked four Sails out of a pack that covered us up. And there were even more Sails following the teasers as I pulled them into the boat. As our two anglers chaotically fought the four Sails, two jumped off, but my mate Randall quickly hooked two more while we were still fighting the two of the first four.
As luck would have it, we only landed one of the six Sails hooked in the flurry. So that left us with a tally of five Sails for 20+ bites and 0-1 on Blue Marlin. By the way, we also boated three Dorado – not a bad day, but could have been an EPIC day! On the way back we discovered that our guests still had a whole cluster of bananas in their backpack!
Article by Costa Rica Fishing … Americana Sportfishing
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