Being in charge of the food for a day of fishing is a sacred task that must be taken seriously. Get it right, and your crew will talk as excitedly about the eating as they did about the fishing. Botch it, and you better hope the bite is so good that your fishing buddies forget how hungry they are.
Some foods are good picks for their practicality and convenience for on-the-water snacking, while others defy explanation by tasting so much better on a boat than they do at home.
To compile this guide, we polled the On The Water staff for their favorite (and least favorite) boat snacks, selecting the most-often recommended food among our crew of serious fishermen and champion eaters.
Cold Fried Chicken
Cold fried chicken, seasoned with salt air, diesel fumes, and maybe a hint of fish slime is one of the greatest meals you can eat aboard a boat. By some magic, the chicken from your local Stop and Shop, which would be mediocre at best on land, gets better tasting with each mile traveled offshore until, at the edge of the canyons, it’s five-star cuisine.
“Salt and vinegar chips, BelVita blueberry breakfast biscuits, and cold fried chicken.” – Alex Blackwell, Creative Director
On the practical side, fried chicken is easily eaten without utensils or plates. It’s salty, savory, and plenty filling, and the bones make a great addition to the chum slick, especially if you need to the ditch the chicken quickly and get back to fishing.
Pringles
Most folks have hangups about touching bait or fish and then touching their food. This makes Pringles the ideal fishing-trip chip. Simply tip back the tube and let the salty, crunchy contents fall right into your mouth. The best flavor is up for debate, but you can’t go wrong with salt and vinegar.
“In the US, I like salt and vinegar Pringles, frozen Snickers, and a cold Narragansett. In Canada, it’s Pringles All Dressed, a frozen Wunderbar, and a Labatt Blue.” – Kevin Blinkoff, Editor-In-Chief
Soy Sauce, Wasabi, and Tuna Sashimi
Some boats never leave the dock without a jar of soy sauce and a tube of prepared wasabi to turn their catch, anything from tuna to scup, into a first-class boat snack. For white fish, like scup and fluke, class things up by bringing a vehicle for the sashimi. Triscuits (especially the hard-to-find “Wasabi & Soy Sauce” flavor) are best, but tortilla chips work in a pinch.
“A dozen random bagels from a Long Island bagel shop, and fresh, yellowfin tuna sashimi.” – Nick Cancelliere, Audience Development Coordinator
Fruit
Fruit, particularly citrus, has historically been the most important boat snack, but with today’s anglers at little risk of contracting scurvy, apples and stone fruits are more popular choices.
“My go-to boat snacks are peanut butter crackers, yogurt snack mix, and red apples.” – Patrick Washburn, Senior Designer
Scurvy aside, consider packing a handful of limes, some diced mango, pico de gallo and tortilla chips in the cooler to convert your catch of the day—whether it’s fluke, sea bass, or mahi— into a fresh batch of ceviche.
Jerky
Beef—or better yet venison—jerky is the type of frontier sustenance befitting the fisherman’s spirit. It keeps well, even if you forgot it in your pack from a previous trip, tastes great, and is easily cleaned off if you accidentally drop it in the bait bucket.
“Chomps jalapeño beef jerky, an Italian cold-cut sub, salt and vinegar Pringles, and a couple of beers when the fishing is slow.” – Matt Ryan, Director of E-Commerce and Retail
“Uncrustables, 1st Phorm Protein Sticks, Quest Nutrition cookies, and Little Bites blueberry muffins. Dietary staples.” – Matt Haeffner, Assistant Editor
The Worst Boat Snacks
Sunflower Seeds
Want to drop to the bottom of a captain’s crew call list? Leave his boat littered with sunflower seed shells. Ridding a boat of these is tougher than cleaning out all the green crab legs after a marathon day of tog fishing. The sunflower seed halves plaster themselves to gelcoats, clog scuppers, and hide for years inside rod and cup holders. If you must snack on seeds, buy them shelled.
Popcorn
Who doesn’t love popcorn? It’s delicious, an all-time crowd-pleaser, but plunging wet or fish-slimed hands into the bag will create an inedible sludge.
“Just about everything tastes better on a boat, except popcorn. One time, Cheech said he’d handle the food for a canyon trip and proceeded to bring only a big bag of white-cheddar SmartFood popcorn and a pack of cookies. The popcorn got wet with saltwater spray almost as soon as we opened the bag and made a mess, leaving us to ration the cookies for the remaining 20 hours of the trip.” – Jimmy Fee, Editor
Bananas
Obviously.
Honorable Mention
Tuna Heart
It’s not a snack, per se, but many fishermen celebrate the first tuna of their lives (or sometimes the first tuna of the year) by taking a bite of the still-beating heart. With that in mind, for many, it’s perhaps the best bite one can take aboard a fishing boat.
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