Thunderstorms?
Moderators: bman, Chalk, Tom Keels
I got caught in Alligator Harbor headed back to the ramp. Freak wind & rain + lightning. Ripped my bimini in half. It was soo bad there were 4' waves in the harbor. Could not believe the waves (for those of you who have never been there, outside the channel the water hardly gets deeper than 4' on a high tide)
Time is the most precious commodity we have in life, stay focused.
It's static electricity,Your rods and antenas will start "singing". A Boron rod has a nice tune to it. I actually seen a free lined shrimp hang about 10 inches off the water one time.Mr Flats wrote:Why is that? I think I have an idea but you know what they say about assumptions....Charles wrote:When your mono line hangs in the air long after you cast, it's time to reel in and put the graphite rod down. Sitting down would be a good idea, too.
I have been lucky enough to have avoided such situations thus far. Probably because my kids are all so young and I have been willing to push it at all.
Probably close to 20 years ago I was about 50 miles offshore of Jacksonville working on king fish. The weather had been great all day. We had a hook up and couldn't tell what kind of fish, only that it was big. I handed the rod to my step son and watched him work hard on this fish. There were 3 of us in the boat and all of us were watching the fight. Out of nowhere, we hear this huge clap of thunder and turn around. Less than a 100 yards in front of the boat a thundercloud had formed and was rising fast. We turned the boat away from the thunderhead, but still had the fish on. Soon the step son boated a huge barracuda that was longer than he was tall. As I removed the gaff, the hair on the back of my head stood up. I turned just as were enveloped in this thunderhead. The seas went from 2-3 to over 15 foot almost instantly under this cloud and the temperature dropped way down due to the powerful updraft. Lightning popped all around. We were in an open console boat, so nowhere to hide. I had the step son lay down in the bow and had to knock his hands off of the bow seat pedestal. We turned toward shore and eased out. Everytime my hair stood up, I let go of the stainless steering wheel just in case. There was a wicked glow after multiple lightning strikes. I don't know how we got missed. To say it scared the daylights out of me would be a gross understatement.
Never before and never since have I seen one form so fast and furious.
Today, if I see a thundercloud, I give it wide birth.
Never before and never since have I seen one form so fast and furious.
Today, if I see a thundercloud, I give it wide birth.
Yep. Never seen the shrimp thing, but I've seen mono hang in the air until I started working the lure and pulled it down.RD wrote:It's static electricity,Your rods and antenas will start "singing". A Boron rod has a nice tune to it. I actually seen a free lined shrimp hang about 10 inches off the water one time.Mr Flats wrote:Why is that? I think I have an idea but you know what they say about assumptions....Charles wrote:When your mono line hangs in the air long after you cast, it's time to reel in and put the graphite rod down. Sitting down would be a good idea, too.
I have been lucky enough to have avoided such situations thus far. Probably because my kids are all so young and I have been willing to push it at all.
Don't know if that works with the superlines. Anybody tried it?
If you're looking up at the storm clouds and see a tight roll in the clouds...you might want to be somewhere other than where it touches down when rising air within the thunderstorm updraft tilts the rotating air from horizontal to vertical.
As someone else once said, "I don't think we're in Kansas anymore, Toto."
I went fishing one summer with my uncle and grandfather in the Acthafalaya river basin in Louisiana in my uncles aluminum boat. A storm started brewing up but my uncle was telling us it would blow over. About 5 minutes after he said that the lightning started up all around us. My grandfather and I were all for pulling up on one of the shell piles and getting out of the METAL boat. Well my uncle (being a manly guy) decided we'd make a run for it through the bayous (it had taken us 45 munites to get where we were). We ran out of the bayous onto a nice big wide open stretch of the river with lightning crashing down and rain so thick that you couldn't see more than 50 feet ahead. The pucker factor was at about 9. Then I noticed something that sent it past 10. About the time we were halfway across that open stretch I noticed we were popping rivets out of the hull becuse of the chop and twice the motor bounced off the bottom when we crossed some really shallow spots . I never went out fishing in that boat with my uncle again!
. I never went out fishing in that boat with my uncle again!Those fishing lines will start "singing" also...sounds similar to a violin to me! Also, touching metal objects on the boat can create a shock.Charles wrote:When your mono line hangs in the air long after you cast, it's time to reel in and put the graphite rod down. Sitting down would be a good idea, too.
Scary for sure!
It may be that my sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others.