Charged up Fishing Hole

[Texgun]

 Since most of us here on this forum have spent a great deal of time outdoors there’s little doubt we’ve all have at least one uncomfortable experience with electrical storms and lightning. I’ve personally had my wits frazzled a few times by sudden flashes of ultra bright light and the ensuing “crack”, “rumble” and “roar”. However, one time while fishing, an electrical storm seemed to actually form above my buddy and me causing some pretty weird things to happen.
 One overcast day in June, 1980, James Johnson and I ventured out on to Lake Whitney which is located about a hundred miles south of   Fort Worth. We had hopes of catching a big striper or two. At that time, Lake Whitney was known for producing some of these feisty boogers that weighed over 35 pounds.
After launching my little 16 ft boat, we headed for the Brazos River channel where the water depth drops, from the lake’s average depth of 25 feet, to over 80 feet. The fish had a habit of staying down in the river channel and, from time to time, came up to feed at edge of the drop-off.
 When we got close to the area where we wanted to fish I turned off the 115 hp. Johnson motor. James then took control of the boat using the electric trolling motor. When the first group of fish appeared on the depth finder James turned the electric motor off and the boat slowly drifted while we baited our hooks with pumpkin seed perch. We were using two identical rigs: they were both seven foot fiberglass rods fitted with steel Garcia reels that were wound with 17 pound test mono line.  We then let our one ounce weights carry our baited lines to the bottom.
 The air grew heavy and still. Thick black clouds dropped to within a hundred feet of the surface of the lake and churned above us. The atmospheric pressure was extremely low and allowed the fishy damp odors to escape from the lake.
 As we drifted slowly in the direction of our lines I reached into the ice chest for a beer. That’s when James said, “Dennis, look at your line”.
 I quickly looked up and saw that instead of the floating on the top of the water, the slack line was rising up into the air. James stopped reeling in the loose line from his reel and it also began to rise toward the low clouds. We looked at each other and laughed.
 I asked James, “What in the world is going on man?”
 Before he could answer my reel started making slow clicking sounds about as loud as chop sticks being broken in half. The volume and rapidity of the clicks increased and James’ reel started to do the same thing. We gave each a puzzled look as our lines appeared to be nearly touching the dark ceiling that hung above us and the reels got louder and louder.
 I hollered above the noise to James “Reel in and let’s get out of here before we get struck by lightning”.
 I started the big motor and headed away from the spot as quickly as possible. Not 30 seconds later we saw a bright flash and heard a loud explosion behind us. We turned around and saw a juniper tree smoldering from a lightning strike. The tree was on the side of a cliff only 50 feet from spot we had vacated.
 We headed for the boat ramp and got the boat loaded on the trailer during a downpour. When we made it to higher ground we stopped to talk about what had just happened. We decided that an electrical charge was building in the dark cloud that was above us and the static electricity was drawing the line upward. The clicking sound was a charge that traveled down the fiberglass rods and into the reels where it began to start arching between the ball bearings.
 That was enough for the day and we headed to the lake house where we drank beer and talked about how lucky we were not to have been killed or hurt.
 
 

[Old Fart]

This reminded me of something I experienced when I was a kid.
My dad had taken us boys fishing on a friends Texas farm pond.
We had long lost interest in the fishing and had started fittling around. 
Out of the blue dad started hollering at us to come on quick.
We thought we'd managed to screw up a day out goofing around. 
But what actually was happening was a tornado had blown up right by us. 

[powderman]

TEXGUN, OLD FART, Thanks for sharing those stories. POWDERMAN. 

[rockbilly]

I had similar situations on two separate occasions, the first while fishing Lake Caspe (near Zaragoza, Spain, some of the best bass fishing in the world.). We were caught up in a fast moving thunderstorm while out fishing.  Our boat was a homemade 12 foot boat with a 9.9HP motor.  We were miles from a safe shelter and the way the lake was impounded allowed the wind to create very large whitecaps, I was hammer down headed to the nearest bank when I looked over my shoulder and became aware that we were riding just ahead of a six foot swell.  We made the bank safely, but had to clean out pants afterwards.  The second time was at Lake Granbury, Southeast of Ft. Worth,  I was pre-fishing for a TABC Top Six Tournament in early May; it was a bright sunshiny day when I put the boat on the water, after fishing for two three hours I noticed the line would not lay down, about that time a friend came by and stopped, he looked at me and started laughing, when I asked what was funny, he said, “all your hair is standing straight up, I glanced down at the hair on my are and noticed it standing, I pulled the trolling motor up, started the big motor and headed for the dock.  Just as I arrived the lighting started flashing, I put the boat on the trailer and was just pulling up to the store when lighting struck two trees at the dock splintering both of them.

Another scary trip was to Lake Ivey.  We were miles from the dock when a little thunder storm blew in, lighting was flashing in the distance, I told the guy I was fishing with that should pack it in.  The fish had really turned on, almost every cast we caught one, he wanted to stay and continue fishing to see if we could catch a “big un.”  It started raining, we broke out the rain gear, about that time the hail started.  We fired up and headed for shelter but before reaching it we were nearly beat to death by golf ball size hail., it was so bad tackle boxes and rods were broke, it even chiped the gel coat on the boat, we put the life vest over our heads to keep out brains from being beaten out.

Today if I’m on the water, especially here in Texas, I head for cover at the first sign of a thunder storm.

I love Lake Whitney, I don’t fish it as often as I would like. I have caught some good fish there.

[powderman]

ROCKBILLY. Thanks for sharing. POWDERMAN.