Fly Fishing

kray · Location: Casper Wyoming

Hey all you fish bumms!
I want to know if you have any superstitions when you go fishing?
Like a fish catching shirt, or something you do while fishing like smoke a cigar, fishing hat, waders, bring your dog, I mean anything.
We would like to hear what your fish catching secrets are!

KodiakCommando · Location: Kodiak, Alaska

I have a few superstions that fall into tow categories

THINGS YOU CANNOT DO
1. Never bring a bannana on a ocean going boat
2. Never say this is going to be a great day of fishing, you will jinx yourself
3. The most important one is NEVER EVER say a fish is done or i'll catch this fish while you are fighting it. Two great examples, once a friend of mind said "No Mas" whil fighting a 15 pound plus silvers salmon and the hook came loose soon after. The biggest mistake of my fly fishing life is when i said this fish is tired out while fighting a bow that was at least 12 pounds on the kenai. Right after that the fish bolted fast and snapped my line Sad

THINGS YOU MUST DO
1. Always thank a fish after it's caught by talking or thinking.
2. Don't Keep more than you can eat or the fish gods will punish you Very Happy

Pete · Location: New York, NY

1. When fishing offshore, always pour a beer over the side to appease the fishing gods. Don't touch the rest of the beer until the fishing is done--it's "victory beer."
2. Not only don't bring bananas onboard, don't eat one the day of fishing, and don't eat any banana muffins either.
3. Don't take your camera out of its case until someone on the boat has at least hooked up. It's a certain jinx, you take it out and the fish don't show. It's risky to even take it out during the fight.

jeremy · Location: Portland, Maine

I am superstitous about superstitions....I am of the belief that sometimes things happen for no reason at all and human beings don't deal well with things they can't control. So, it's easy to make up all sorts of crazy superstitions that gives us the false feeling of control. For example - I used to work on offshore long-lining boats....30 days out at sea....Guys had all sorts of crazy superstitions.....but the problem was that they often conflicted. One guys would say "DON'T whistle - it will cause a huge wind storm" - another guy would say, "Whistling calms the wind gods".....I simply looked at the weather patterns and said - "It ain't got a thing to do with whistling - it is a matter of science - the wind is going to come or not come due to pure scientific reasoning."

I just think that we all love to think we can control things - when in fact we are at the mercy of things we can not control. Take another example - "During the black plague - people carried a "pocket full of posees" to ward of the plague....Now we have come along way since then and everyone would agree that it is a simple matter of the virus being transmitted through certain human contacts....A pocket full of posees ain't gonna do nothing but make you a little less scared."

BOTTOM LINE: - Things happen and sometimes for no reason at all. Sometimes it's sad, it's scary, good, it's funny, it's birth, it's death, it's injury, it's miraculous recovery.......Believing that we can control events through unrelated thought manipulations is simply a way to compensate for our natural fear of the unknown - or fear of the truth about what might happen (not catching a fish Very Happy

) - Catching fish and everything else is simply, in my opinion, a matter of making good decisions all along the way...almost every outcome can be traced back to the decisions we make and sometimes outcomes have no tracability at all.....

So - I enjoy proving superstitions wrong - I believe that they are a bunch of bull - and, for me, this works best.

GOOD TOPIC KRAY - I LIKE THIS KIND OF CONVERSATION - THANKS FOR BRINGING IT UP

Pete · Location: New York, NY

A lot of superstitions stem from some sort of historical reality, for instance the banana thing really comes from the days when bananas were shipped on "banana boats" and poisonous spiders and snakes stowed away in the bunches. Regular cargo haulers started refusing to allow bananas onboard for fear of getting critters on their ships. Somehow it carried over to fishing, and came to signify bad luck.

Do I really believe that bananas are bad luck? No. But I still go along with it anyway, just in case. I don't know why I knock on wood all the time either, but I do.

RickW · Location: Syracuse, NY

I like sliced banannas on my cornflakes in the morning. Very Happy

A few years ago I fished a lot in the mornings (I was working 4-midnight) I had my 'nanners and 'flakes every day before fishing. Did VERY well that year using nymphs. I guess banannas are lucky for me. Laughing

(good source of potassium too)

waterwhippa · Location: Upstate, NY

I've been wearing the same old crusty undershirt, with a four leaf clover on it every fishing trip for at least six seasons. By no means do i consider myself superstious! I just like the shirt.