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OVERCAST Temp: 70 °F Wind: CLM at 0 mph Saturday, October 4, 2003 SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion - Politics AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map EXTRA HomeLife Magazine Joy Magazine Tempo A & E RogueValleyAutoFinder RogueValleyHomeFinder Real Estate Showcase Wellness Connection Newspaper in Education Prime Times Outdoor Journal Personals Movie Times TV Times E The People CLASSIFIEDS Find a Car Find a Home Find a Job Find Everything E SOUTHERN OREGON Automotive Communities Entertainment Publications Recreation Calendar ABOUT US FAQ What's New Advertise Home Delivery Classified Ad Employment Contact Us Media Kit Email Story to a Friend October 2, 2003 Outdoors Peril awaits for those with bananas on board By MARK FREEMAN Mail Tribune Dawn begins to bend over the ridges and splay the slightest light on the Rogue River when Steve Morehouse of Medford sends his Kwikfish plug wiggling downstream. Not 20 seconds later, Morehouse’s rod tip jerks down and is pinned against the driftboat gunnel. A fall chinook salmon, easily more than 35 pounds, darts and jumps and thrashes downstream with the plug in its mouth. I oar the driftboat toward the chinook as Morehouse fights through jump after spiraling jump. Advertisement Then inexplicably, the line goes limp, but the fish keeps jumping with my best Kwikfish in its mouth. Morehouse reels in the line, broken halfway down the leader. I haven’t lost a Kwikfish to a salmon in, like, seven years and I can’t believe ... WHAT IS THAT THING ON THE BOAT DECK!?!?!?! "What do you mean?" Morehouse says. "The banana?" It is not just a banana. It is more like the single most widely held bad-luck charm among boaters and anglers who already are some of the most superstitious people on earth. Sure, there’s the lucky hat and the lucky shirt and the stupid little rituals like spitting on hooks or saying, "Here, fishy, fishy" to no one in particular. But everybody knows you can’t catch fish with a banana on board. The yellow crescent packs enough potassium to be known as nature’s Power Bar. But you might as well throw all your gear in the river and sink your driftboat with the bad luck a single banana brings. But it is his birthday trip, and bananas help keep his legs from cramping, so the offensive fruit stays. I tie a new Kwikfish on Morehouse’s rod while the chinook jumps again, still with my silver and chartreuse Kwikfish flapping around like a big chinook lip ring. This was supposed to be a good trip. Thursday morning. Fish a few hours, then head to work. And bring Morehouse, a 41-year-old unemployed Web page designer who is more creative than me at avoiding honest work. Sunrise on the Rogue is always special in the fall below Gold Ray Dam. Most anglers are in the Grants Pass area after larger and fresher chinook. But the flats below Gold Ray Dam come alive with salmon in late September, and virtually no one fishes there on weekdays. We have the flats to ourselves and are not about to let that disappointment kill the day. We motor upstream 100 yards to run the plugs through a rock pocket in faster water. Dynamite spot. But as we start to work the water, the chinook with the lip ring jumps right in the hole. Then again. And again. "He’s following us," Morehouse says. "I think he’s taunting us." Just then, Morehouse’s rod tip slowly bows toward the water. The tell-tale jiggle on the rod tip that indicates a plug is working well isn’t there. The plug is snagged underwater on a lost anchor rope. It’s useless. Morehouse breaks the line. Not 20 minutes into the perfect fishing trip and we’ve lost one fish and $11.50 worth of plugs. "Wow," Morehouse says. "What are the odds of that?" Go back as far as 300 years and you’ll find someone who insists it’s great odds, even insurmountable odds, that peril awaits for those with bananas on board. The stigma is traced to the early 1700s when Spanish galleons traveled to the Caribbean, usually stopping last in Cuba to fill their hulls with bananas. The fleets would then pick up the Gulf Stream in the Florida Straits and zip home. After a few fleets perished in Gulf Stream hurricanes, the fruit became suspect. Boats that didn’t sink suffered from disease, insects, snakes and other vermin that came in the banana crates. The banana became taboo. And bananas carry enzymes that cause other fruit around it to spoil faster. Bananas essentially ruin everything on a boat, including mine. But superstitions are like jokes — they sound really stupid when you have to explain them. So Birthday Boy keeps his banana. I tie on yet another plug, and start fishing the spot where that first plug-faced salmon is still jumping and flipping his defiant middle fin at us. Another jump, but this time the rod on the left side of the boat gets yanked savagely. This chinook is a bit smaller than the other one, but it’s hot and feisty and burning 25-pound line off the spool. It pulls us down the flats toward deep, slow water — an easy spot to play a fish. Then the line goes slack. The rod tip wiggles, like there’s just a plug on the other end. Another fish lost to the damned banana. There are charterboat captains in Hawaii’s marlin fleet who inspect the lunches everyone brings on board. Any bananas get tossed into the harbor. Some go as far as to send ashore anyone who ate banana-based products for breakfast, since — technically — they’re still bringing bananas on board. Some of the more chronic abusers ban Banana Boat sunscreen or Banana Republic clothing. Without saying a word, Morehouse stands in the anchored boat. He snatches the object of our misfortune and hurls it 30 yards into the brush. The stink, as they say, is out of the boat. Still with a half-hour to fish, we motor up to the top slot — a lane of swift water where you can hook one in 30 seconds or hook none at all. Thirty seconds later, Morehouse’s rod is all but yanked from his fists. The fish leaps and runs near sharp rocks that could cut Morehouse’s leader, but inexplicably that doesn’t happen. The salmon gets perilously close to the boat, where it could easily shave the line off on the chinks in the boat’s aluminum chine, but it doesn’t. And when I slip the net under it, the fish flops in with ease and without the plug hooks getting stuck in the mesh. At 20 pounds, this female chinook is smaller than the others but a beauty of a salmon for late September at Gold Ray Dam. Its meat is light orange, and its belly is full of eggs I can use for steelhead bait. A perfect hook-up, a perfect fight and a perfect outcome — a fish not fowled by the banana. "Well, I’m never going to bring a banana on the boat again," Morehouse says, "now that it’s been proven scientifically." Reach reporter Mark Freeman at 776-4470, or e-mail [email protected] Printer Friendly Version Email Story to a Friend Subscribe Archive: Click to Search Mail Tribune Home Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life Opinion - Politics | AP News | Archives | Site Map E Southern Oregon | Classified Copyright © 1997-2003 Mail Tribune. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions Website Feedback A D V E R T I S E R S SPECIAL SECTIONS Rogue Valley Auto Finder Rogue Valley Job Finder --> Rogue Valley Home Finder Joy Magazine Homelife Magazine Tempo Real Estate Showcase Food for Thought Hike of the Week Wellness Connection Outdoor Journal Moving to Southern Oregon? Volunteer Openings Prime Times