the old man and the sea

Hey jb, remember the childrens poem, 'she swallowed a spider to catch a fly'. Here we have ' catch a squid to catch a fish'.

I've never heard that before, but, I don't live in a fishing community. Lake Erie is the only real place to fish in my area and the fish are not good, they are full of bad stuff.

This actually reminded me of an article i ran across in the Maine Outdoor Journal this past summer, so i went and searched it up for you http://maineoutdoorjournal.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=273931&ac=Outdoors In case you don't want to peruse the link, i will talk about my favorite one (and the main subject of the article) Apperently it is also beleived that bringing bananas (or any item containing bananas) onboard is bad luck. Just odd! they gave three reasons why though, and i suppose after reading them, it made a little more sense. 1) Manytimes the crates the bananas are in contain not only the fruit, but bugs and rodents as well. And one of the most famous bugs associated with bananas? Black wido spiders! I suppose i can't knock them for not wanting the ship infested with these!! 2) As bananas ripen, they emit a gas that causes any other produce around them tostart to ripen (and thus rot) faster. When you are out on a long voyage at sea, whatever fresh produce you bring with you is a valuable asset,you don't need it going bad any faster than it will already! and number three is my favorite, just because of the mental image it bring up. 3) A crew member might slip on a banana peel and fall overboard, thus being lost at sea. Though i suppose this is probably on a ship where women are also considered bad luck on board. There aren't any of us around to keep the men from throwing their banana peels around all will-nilly like!!

don't know about fishing. but there is one which may be related. if you steal a nail from a fishing boat, it is considered as lucky as horse shoe. why steal?..they won't give you if you asked for it..they consider it bad luck..