Forbidden Fruit

Not every angler knows this, but Rule 1 in the book of fishing etiquette is: Don't bring bananas. It's bad luck and it's just not done.

The superstition apparently originated in Hawaii, where lore has it someone brought a bunch of bananas aboard a long-range fishing boat. They spoiled and spawned an insect infestation. The trip was a disaster. Who knows if it's true, but the upshot many years later is a widespread conviction among offshore anglers that the best way to ensure a bad trip is to tote a banana.

Which is why, an hour or two into a struggling outing for black drum on Chesapeake Bay last week, Steve Davis raised the question, "What's going on here, did somebody bring bananas?"

Davis was with a group of eight Baltimore guys aboard Capt. Randy Dean's charter boat Reel Attitude out of the Rod 'n' Reel Dock at Chesapeake Beach. Dean's party the day before had caught 14 big black drum on a patch of oyster beds known as the Stone Rock at the mouth of the Choptank River, and by all indications the drum were still there, munching away on oysters.

A knot of eight or 10 boats clustered over the oyster beds, and all around people grunted and battled black drum. For some reason, Reel Attitude was coming up empty. "It doesn't make sense," said Davis, who regularly fishes with Dean. "Randy's the best captain out here. We always catch fish."

He and his mates watched haplessly as four or five anglers aboard Worm, Capt. Drew Paine's oddly named vessel, winched in great, hulking drumfish a few yards away, while Dean's crew couldn't buy a bite. Bananas, anyone?

"Yeah, I brought one," said Tony Denicolas. He strode down the companionway into the cabin and strode back up brandishing the cursed, yellow totem. He waved it in Davis's face. "I brought it for you!"

This was my first time fishing with these guys, so I had no idea what the beef was, if any, and didn't really want to know. The immediate question was how to exorcise this demon and the answer was obvious. Someone grabbed the offending fruit and gave it the heave-ho. Then we got back to fishing and soon enough the bite came on.

And not a moment too soon. Dean was by that point a psychological wreck. He'd brought along 18 soft crabs for bait, and was confident he'd have plenty left over for a nice dinner back home, soft crabs being the Chesapeake's culinary gift to the world in May. He was down to the last half-dozen by the time our first drum came aboard, and winced every time he cut another into bite-size quarters with his scissors.

But at least the skunk was out of the boat. The exorcism was complete when Denicolas himself reared back and set the hook on a monster from the deep. His rod bent double and Dean rushed alongside to coach him. Black drum are the biggest fish anyone ever catches in the Chesapeake, ranging in size up to 70 pounds and more. "It's like tuna fishing in the bay," said Dean, and it takes some patience and care to bring one in.

I was finding it takes some patience and care to hook one, as well. As big and lumbering as they are, black drum nibble like little spot or perch. You have to pay keen attention to feel them take a bait, and even then, setting the hook is a worry. "Let 'em take it," Dean said, but I did so four times and every time I engaged the reel and jerked to set the hook, nothing jerked back.

However he went about it, Denicolas did the job right. It took five minutes of sweat and toil but eventually he worked the 50-pound golden monster to the side of the boat, where Dean swept down with an oversized landing net. It took two men to haul the netted fish on board, and two more to hoist it up for photographs. All the while, the drumfish emitted the deep, thrumming sound that gives it its name.

"Booom! Booom!" said the drum. It kept booming even after it was safely tucked away in the cooler, later to be divided into steaks for everyone. "The fillets taste like pork chops," said Dean.

Drumfish are a spring phenomenon hereabouts, moving into a few choice places, the Stone Rock being the most widely known, to feed in late May before spawning somewhere else. "A doctor friend of mine says he sees them spawning in the shallows of the Chester River in June," Dean said. Then black drum move back down the bay to their more oceanic homes.

Normally the black drum run is from the last week in May to the last week in June, Dean said, but he reckons it started early this year and may last only through early June.

We ran out of soft crabs by about 11 a.m., and with a few hours of fishing time left on the charter, Dean struck a course for Holland Point on the Western Shore, where rockfish have been breaking the surface chasing bait.

He rigged four trolling lines with small spoons and when seagulls were spotted diving on bait being driven to the surface by feeding rock, we put the lines over and quickly were rewarded with strikes. We had a limit of two rockfish apiece, mostly in the 18- to 22-inch range, in an hour or so.

Who knows what might have happened if Denicolas kept his banana a secret? I'm just glad he came clean. It's funny, we're all old enough and wise enough to know that superstitions are silly. Yet who among us doesn't harbor some?

As far as I'm concerned, a banana has nothing to do with fishing success. Still, you'll never see me bring one aboard. Life is short. Why take the chance?