Pucker Factor

[jdmidwest]

One thing for sure, keep the rods down.

On a stream, I usually just beach and stand next to a tree. Just make sure it is not the tallest tree or anything near the tallest one. A cut bank or bluff works too. Hail storms are the worst, sometimes I feel like I would be better off in the water and under the boat.

Most of the time, I see a storm coming, head for home. Weather radios usually work just about everywhere.

[ollie]

Dang, your stories are scary! Makes me want to quit fishing. Ok, not that bad, but dang those are some scary stories. Podum, I have been alone many times in the situations you describe and I know what you mean. Thought I broke my leg one night on the Beaver tail water when no one was around. I bet your ears were ringing bfishn. I could only imagine. I definitely stay away from the taller trees.

[Al Agnew]

There's no perfect answer in lightning, because it can strike almost anywhere. But just remember it's more likely to strike something taller than the surroundings. What I do, and I've been caught in a few wild ones over the years, is watch closely when the sky starts darkening and you start hearing thunder, and sart looking for a spot on the back edge of a gravel bar or on a low bank with trees that aren't too tall and are as uniform in height as possible. Stop there, and head for the edge of those trees, away from the water. Wait it out until you're sure the storm has either missed you or passed.

Also, since my canoes are all but one plastic, I figure the canoe itself isn't a big lightning conduit, so if it starts to hail or the wind is really blowing and limbs are falling, I try to prop one end of the canoe against a log or a higher piece of the bank and get under it. There have been a couple of times when I've had to get under the canoe and hold onto the gunwales to keep it from blowing away, and it protected me from one limb that fell on it that was a good four inches in diameter.

A nice bluff shelter is great if you find one, but I read one time where it's not a good idea to get up against a bluff with a very shallow overhang, where you're standing near or in the drip line. Lightning can hit something atop the bluff, come down the bluff, and jump the gap of the overhang...right through you. You need a deep enough overhang that you can get well away from the drip line.

By the way...saying the lightning comes DOWN, as I just did above, is not exactly accurate. A lightning bolt is a complex process, but it starts out with a "leader", a weak channel ionized air coming from cloud down toward the ground in a series of steps. When it gets close to the ground, this negatively charged leader attracts a positively charged "streamer" of ionized air, which connects with it and forms a conduit for the actual lightning discharge. The ground is positively charged, the cloud negatively charged, and the actual lightning bolt, the one that does all the damage, actually travels from the ground up. Not that it makes any difference to you if you happen to be part of the conduit!

[joeD]

If the fish are biting, I do nothing. If the fish aren't biting, I still do nothing, hoping they'll turn on.

I keep going.

Life is random. You can pull over at the sight of lightening, being safe of course, then, on the way way home, get broadsided by a drunk driver on a two-lane road. Either way, your actions have zero impact on the vagaries of life.

[moguy1973]

If the fish are biting, I do nothing. If the fish aren't biting, I still do nothing, hoping they'll turn on.

I keep going.

Life is random. You can pull over at the sight of lightening, being safe of course, then, on the way way home, get broadsided by a drunk driver on a two-lane road. Either way, your actions have zero impact on the vagaries of life.

Whoa...Mind. Blown.