No More Bananas On Board

[finaddict]

Saturday Report
Left Cedar River State Harbor about 4 am CST loaded with a boat full of GIANTS. Ran out into pretty lumpy seas to the same area we did really well at on Friday. The bite proved to be much more difficult and after starting out 2 for 9 in the first hour I was getting a little frustrated. By 7 am we had managed a handful more fish but we were still losing well over half of our bites. Just then I caught one of the crew members munching on a banana.
http://tailhunter-international.com/bananas.htm
After a quick discussion about bananas being bad luck on a boat they were jettisoned over the side. Things didn't seem to improve in the next couple hours and I knew something was amiss when we had 2 triples in a row and only netted 2 fish. As someone was digging in the cooler my mate noticed a couple more bananas stashed. The bananas were still in the air when the braid dipsy smoked and just about the time they hit the water one of the downriggers went off. Guess what....we landed both fish!

Here is a picture of our 14 fish that we eventually landed.

http://i250.photobucket.com/albums/gg247/CR_Finaddict/shulta2.jpg

Feeling the burn!

http://i250.photobucket.com/albums/gg247/CR_Finaddict/shulta1.jpg


Sunday Report
Headed out with another group of guys on Sunday. Taking a gamble, I started out about 6-7 miles south of where we had our catches on Friday and Saturday. Our graph was lit up with lots of fish but we just couldn't get any takers. I was starting to think the curse of the bananas was still with the boat, but we slowly started to bring a few in. Our success rate for landing hooked fish continued to be slightly lower than 50% and I think we took a total of 23 or 24 bites to land 11 fish.

HA HA (CHECK OUT THE GUYS SHIRT IN THE MIDDLE)
http://i250.photobucket.com/albums/gg247/CR_Finaddict/shulta3.jpg

Monday Report
Tried my luck again on Monday morning with a crew of three including myself. We had a great early morning flurry of 10 or 12 bites but only landed 5 nice kings and a shaker in the first hour. We just kept after the fish and eventually landed 11 nice kings by about 11 am. We again lost over half the fish that we hooked including a nice 20 pounder right at the boat on a wire dipsy....man, that could be dangerous if that dipsy smacked you in the face!

http://i250.photobucket.com/albums/gg247/CR_Finaddict/7-20.jpg

Baits/Techniques
Best spoons for us over the weekend were Crabface (thanks again Capt Bill), Broken Nose, and Moody Blue. Mountain Dew Spinnies with Bloody Nose flies and Blue Hologram Spinnies with Moody Blue flies did most of the damage on braided and wire dipsies.

The downrigger bite is the best I have seen in the past couple years and I bet we took at least 10 hits per day on our two riggers. 200 and 300 feet of copper was hot both Saturday and Sunday mornings but we only took maybe 3 hits on them on Monday. The dipsies were a little off on Saturday but were really good on Sunday and Monday. I guess you just never know what method is going to work on any given day so it pays to try a little of everything.

Capt. Jim McDonald

[Mike P]

Thats the thing I really like about this site...bannanas !!!! so thats it ! Thanks that explains a lot of things latley

[slammer]

Bananas , who'd a thunk.

Wish I'd a known this little fact years ago. For those of you that have read my Ice Fishing reports, you'll find that not many fish harder with little reward than I do. In fact , I spend so much time out on the hard water , that a guy gets hungry staring down that hole, and from shear bordom from no action.
Any good ice fisherman always takes more food along than recommended by the FDA guidelines and to make sure that my food pyramid is complete, I always take a few pieces of fruit , and plenty of non-recommended beverages. Turns out , I'm not a fruit lover, and the only fruit I really eat is Bananas. And , somedays my lovely wife is nice enough to pack a lunch for me and knows how much I like bananas, so she'll throw a couple of em in like for a treat. (Can ya see where this is going ? )
So this morning , I'm reading fins report, and as I'm go to the link he provided, Thank You, and blowing the first wave of coffee through my nose into the keyboard just as the light came on. Had I known this , God only knows how big a freezer I'd need to keep all the fish I'd a caught. Probably as big as the guys doing the netting , maybe bigger. I'd probably even have enough for a lifetime supply of pickled fish for ol Fonzipoo too!
Then I started to wonder , does my lovely little lunch packer know this theory on bananas and just getting her kicks when I get home with more bait than when I left the house. Could be.
So , I figure I have a couple options - you know what they are.
Either way I can't wait to Bananaless in the ol shack and start slammin them Eyes and perches. I'll probably need a bigger truck and 4 wheeler to haul all them fishes. Won't she love that! That'l teach her to put an extra banana in my lunch.
Fin , Thank you for that article. This can only mean one thing. I don't really suck at ice fishing and I''m getting a new truck and wheeler. Thanks again.
Bring on the Ice!!!!!!!!!!! Slammer

[knick1ht]

Fin,

I guess you need to add BANANAS to the list of things NOT to bring along when going on a charter with you.

[Zulu]

Bananas are also banned from my boat. A couple of years ago fishing the Manistique Tournament we started the day fishing and went biteless for several hours. While searching around the boat I came across a brown gerocery bag and within was a bunch of bananas. As Finn so graphically described, these bananas also were launched off the back of the boat. It took some time but we finally shook the curse and strated to pick up some fish and salvage the day. No bananas, no banana bread, no banana pudding, no banana anything.

[Capt. Chris]

It's well documented on my website. NO BANANAS.

Even while keeping a vigil, one customer got one past me last year...

Fishing the Brew City Salmon Tournament. We lost not 1, but 2 12lb downrigger balls, 2 screamers so nice that I actually pulled lines and began chasing them down with the boat, one of the worst tangles of my life between a 5 color leadcore, wire dipsy, and power pro dipsy, and we missed out on $100 by less than a quarter pound at the weigh in.

As we were unloading at the dock, imagine my surprise as I watch my passanger pull a handfull of "yellow death" out of his pocket and begin to eat it. I yanked it out of his hand in mid bite, and threw it into the porta-potty on shore.

I still get a laugh out of my 1st banana experience. I caught it before departure, but the guest felt it necessary to tempt fate and immediately ate the banana as quick as possible standing on the dock laughing at me. 1 hour later had us in a small craft advisiory, some of the funnest rollers I've ever boated in, and he was chumming that banana all the way home!!! I've got it all on video too!!

[Double Tap]

Capt. Jim-thanks for the reports. I know us guys who are still learning how to put fish in the boat appreciate your reports and information you provide to this site. Thanks again. Mike