Cattle Duffers Flat 24-3-07

So who here has heard about the famous banana superstition/theory? For those that haven’t, it’s well known amongst many fisho’s that bananas are bad luck to have on a boat and if one is on-board then you can forget about catching fish. I’ve heard stories of boaties that won’t let those banana lollies on-board or even yellow shirts and I’ve heard of an instance where one guy wasn’t allowed on a boat because he was eating a banana while waiting on the wharf to be picked up. And if you’ve touched a banana, then wash ya filthy, stinkin’ hands before you touch anything else!

I’ve bought this topic up as last week Gary and I said ‘Any bananas around here?’ in response to the decidedly slow fishing we were experiencing. We checked that no monkeys had stowed away and put it down to just plain bad luck.

Now, I’m not overly superstitious but in all my years I have never taken a banana with me on any of my trips. Last week I was thinking that maybe bananas are GOOD luck, as we couldn’t have done much worse. So I decided to do a bit of an experiment and last Saturday I launched from the Georges River National Park at Cattle Duffers Flat, near Alford’s Point Bridge. And I took with me the biggest banana that we had at home.

At 6:45am, the tide had only 2 hours to go till low and I figured the shorelines would be a waste of time and decided to concentrate on the bridge itself. I knew I’d find deeper water, a strong current flow and lots of eddies for the fish to sit in around the big concrete pylons. Bream were my target and my plan was to flick 1/16 oz jig heads loaded up with 6” Berkley Sandworms (Camo colour) upstream right next to the pylons and slowly jig them back towards me. And all with that bright, yellow banana sitting right next to the fish finder…

By 7:15am I had two in the well, but they were just legal: 25cm’s and 26cm’s. Hmmm, so far, so good. I moved around a bit and half an hour later I landed a better one, 32cm’s and really fat. I checked to make sure the banana hadn’t fallen overboard.

As the tide slowed, so did the bites. I landed a couple of small flatties and decided to only target the shadowy areas now that the sun was up a bit. With half an hour to go I get another: 31cm’s and it’s another porker! It pretty obvious these guys are getting ready to do the spawning thing very soon.

With 5 minutes left, I get a solid hit as the sandworm is sinking. I strike and this one really puts a good bend in the rod. It zips away from the pylon into open water which was a big mistake on its part and I take my time landing the best of the day. I was going to lift it straight into the yak but as soon as I saw it I decided to slide the net underneath it. And just as well, too because as I lifted it, it just fell off the hook and into the net. Phew! Lucky me, and out of the corner of my eye I saw the banana smiling at me…or maybe it just looked like it was because of it’s shape.

So this guy went 37cm’s total length and gave me my 5 bag in just over two and a half hours. Maybe I’ll take these bananas with me more often as it didn’t seem to stop me catching fish. But I suppose someone could also say ‘Aha, but if you hadn’t taken the banana, you’d have got 10 bream, 3 10kg jewies and a barramundi…’

Let’s just say that test number one gives bananas the thumbs up so far. Stay tuned for the next instalment on ‘Banana Theory’ in the next few weeks. Happy yakkin’, everyone.

Cheers,
Cid