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Lightning tops US fishing deaths

2K views 30 replies 22 participants last post by  dryflylarry 
#1 ·
#3 ·
Wow! I would have guessed golf.

Yeah, not to self: If you ever feel a "tingle" in the back of your neck (like the hair on your neck is rising) or on your arms...hit the deck man. At that point, moments before a strike, the lighting has chosen you as its grounding point.

I studied about the equivalent of 9 years of electrical theory (and the like) in college. Lightening is an absolutely fascinating natural phenomenon! The point of the bolt, on its way down, is the width of just one electron. The reason it's jagged on the way down, is because it is "seeking" the most negative ions in the air, on its path to the earth.

Okay, the geek in me just came out.
 
#4 ·
I certainly don't want to minimize the risk of lightening. 26 deaths since 2006 while fishing due to lightening strikes is no laughing matter. There was an article a while back about this in one of the Flyfishing mag's.
But I wonder how many deaths have occurred due to accidents on the highway while travelling to/from a favorite fishing hole have happened during the same time period. I have a hunch it's more.
We all take risks every day and it's good remembering that.
Every day is a gift.
 
#7 ·
I think this just testifies to our dedication...or stupidity. Nah, definitely the former.
 
#8 ·
I always thought Gierach's book title should have been "Standing in Water, Waiving a Lightening Rod". Only time I was freaked was at Lake Lac LeJuene in 1997 (date is easy to remember because I had just lost my dad a couple months into that year). I had just started kicking my way out on what was a nice sunny day. I kept noticing boats coming in past me and it wasn't until I was a few hundred feet out and started flipping around to set-up that I saw the darkest, meanest looking storm front ever barreling down the cut in the mountains.

It had been approaching silently up till then, but as I started kicking hard to make it back to shore and the camper, the wind started increasing fast and then came the electricity. There was a tree on an island in the lake that got smoked -- I'm guessing .2 miles from me -- that freaked me out. By the time I got to shore, grabbed my stuff (instinct I guess) and made a bee-line for the truck, it was dropping, marble sized hail sideways and firing off strikes left and right. I threw the rods on the ground and layed on the floor of the camper trying not to touch anything. A few times I felt a buzzing sound in the air (hard to explain) and I'd prefer not to experience that again.

Within an hour, the sun was making it's way back out and folks came out from shelter to resume the fishing...though a little more cautiously that day.

I wonder if many of the fishing victims are caught on open waters vs. in the mountains? Still, if that's God's plan, at least it's while doing something fun.
 
#18 ·
I had that happen to me under the power lines on the Skykomish.
 
#12 ·
I read something somewhere that between drowning and lightning, fishing is statistically the most dangerous sport out there. I'm assuming that is because there are hundreds of thousands of people fishing on any given day, and only a handful of rockclimbers or skydivers.
 
#13 ·
I'd like to see a comparison of "death by drowning and/or lighting" statistics, to "death by car-crash-on-the-way-to-the-fishing-spot" statistics.
I think I know which grim reaper wins that one.

I wouldn't be surprised if more fisher people die of infections that they contracted in hospitals after being admitted for something totally unrelated to fishing, than die from lightning strikes. (Of course, infections contracted in hospitals don't single out fisher people, but there's something like 10,000 deaths per year in the U.S.A. from infections contracted while in hospitals. That's an average of 500 per state per year).

I'm not dissing lightning as a potential hazard, but I suspect that other, more mundane events are statistically deadlier to fisher people.

One could always lose the graphite and go back to glass or bamboo.:rolleyes:
 
#17 ·
Get caught in a major thunderstorm at a high mountain lake in the Montana Rockies and you become very humble & thankful after the storm passes & you realize you are wet but alive. That day gave me religion (and a lot of unplanned exercise while recovering the horses).
 
#20 ·
From the NWS: http://www.lightningsafety.noaa.gov/outdoors.htm

Also, from the Mountaineers site:
"Don't seek refuge under isolated trees. The highest object will tend to attract the stroke of lightning. If possible, seek groups of trees or shrubs of similar height. If the lone tree is the only choice of refuge, move away from it and seek the lowest ground available, following the tips for safety in open locations. If you're on a high, exposed ridge or peak, try to climb down as quickly as is safely possible. If low, rolling hills are nearby, seek refuge in a low spot. Such terrain is especially common on golf courses or along shorelines."
 
#22 ·
This very afternoon, fishing a small lake on HW 20 east of Colville, I watched two thunderstorms flanking the lake on the north and south....bolts hitting mountain tops, wind picking up....and suddenly the fish were hitting like crazy....after a slow afternoon. I debated riding it out, but felt pretty exposed out there in my kayak, so I scooted back to the launch area, pulled the boat onto shore, and climbed in my truck. It blasted rain, hail, and lightning for the next 45 minutes.

I guess I could have gotten all probalistic about how I was in more danger from a potential automobile accident on the trip, or from the burger gut bomb I bought in Colville, but I think, sometimes, discretion is the better part of valor when it comes to mother nature's fury.
 
#26 ·
I grew up in the Northeastern U.S. where thunderstorms and lightning are commonplace. And I had been exposed to lightning many times; while fishing, hunting, swimming, paddling, sailing etc. I had seen property damages, trees destroyed, forest fires, livestock killed, and I knew people who had been injured etc. So I have always had a healthy respect for what lightning can do.

A few years ago I was fishing with two men out on Marrowstone Point at Fort Flagler State Park. It was in June, and it had been a muggy warm day with no wind. The sky had a bad look to it as the haze was mixing with tall billowing clouds, and the water had that shaky look. At one point we could hear thunder coming from the west of us, and a storm was approaching, dropping down out of the Olympic Mountains. Looking back over the bluffs behind us we could see a huge, towering anvil topped cloud, moving fast toward us, and there was a sudden cold draft, a lot of wind, and we could hear the thunder getting closer. It was getting very dark. I told the guys to lay their rods down on the beach logs nearby, and to run for the cars NOW! As we got to the cars I told them to keep their hands in their laps, and not to touch anything or turn anything on, and to keep the windows closed.

By now the wind was gusting down heavily and their was cold rain, and that weird prickly feeling of ozone and electricity in the air. As I was getting into my truck I had one foot on the ground and one foot in the truck, and I was holding the door of the truck, and I had my hand on the steering wheel, and I was dripping wet . . . CCRRRAAAAAK! KABOOOOM! FLASH!! The sound was deafening, the flash was blinding, and I could not hear or see anything for a moment, and every cell of my being was on fire with heat and pain and utter paralysis. It was the longest little moment of my life. The Cosmic Stun Gun. An indirect hit, as the lightning had grounded through the fence nearby, and split off into little fingers in all directions along the length of the fence line. One of them chose me to ground through. The guys, safe in their car nearby, were looking at me in total astonishment. And suddenly I was free. The pain was gone. I could move again. I was giddy. I felt okay. I got back into my car and we waited out the storm for a little while, watching the occasional lightning bolt flash, as it all blew out across the Inlet and over Whidbey Island.

The air cleared, the sky brightened, the wind was gone. It was cool and clear and fresh. Everything had that green smell to it. I never felt more alive. We laughed about it all, and then we went back to the beach to fish some more. It was not long before one of the men, an elderly guy but very tough, hooked into a big fish. But he was not an experienced angler. I assumed it was a salmon as he had his six weight rod noodled over fully bent. He got the fish into the wash at his feet, and in just a few inches of water it was clear that this was no salmon, but the biggest sea run Cutthrout trout I had ever seen. I tried to get him to soften his pressure on the fish, and to angle the rod more sideways, rather than lifting the fish so hard. But this man was transfixed by the sight of the fish. If only he could slide the fish into the shallows with a little less tension . . . POP! . . . ZOOOOM!!! Off goes the fish! That was the day lightning struck me twice. http://olympicpeninsulaflyfishing.blogspot.com
 
#27 ·
Let's see... as a kid, I was walking down a riverside road with my Dad and Granddad after we finished fishing. In those days, we all used metal rods. A thunderstorm moved in. Suddenly there was a bright flash and we all felt a tingle. 20 yards from where we were walking, the top of a telephone pole was smoldering. We hadn't heard a thing.

When we reached camp, the rest of the family asked if we heard the thunder that sounded like it was very close. Nope, we hadn't. Evidently when you are 20 yards from the strike, you don't hear the thunder.

More recently, Virginia and I were fishing the Lamar in YNP when once of those sudden thunder storms showed up. I told Virginia to disassemble her rod and crouch down near the steep bank. Lightening hit a tree on the far side of the river and the tree top caught fire.

That was it for Gin. She took off running toward our rig. I figured what-the-hell, if you're running you would become a moving object with your feet touching the ground intermittently. I've never heard of lightening hitting a moving object so perhaps running isn't such a bad idea.

We reached the rig, climbed in and waited out the brief storm. We went back to our fishing spot and noticed the rain had put out the fire at the top of the tree. So we went back to fishing. It sucked. Evidently the trout were also freaked out by lightening.

From what I've heard, anglers are normally hit by lightening because they are standing under a tree and the lightening hits the tree and jumps to the angler. Regardless, I take lightening seriously and am very aware I'm carrying around a lightening rod.
 
#28 ·
Mostly in reply to Greg Armstrong and Jim Wallace:
Statistics are funny things. I agree that in the course of any given fishing trip you're much more likely to die in the car on the way in & out. However, if you find yourself in a float tube with a rod in your hand, as the highest point on a flat body of water, in a lightning storm, your time might be better spent trying to get to shore than planning the safest route to drive home.
 
#30 ·
Mostly in reply to Greg Armstrong and Jim Wallace:
Statistics are funny things. I agree that in the course of any given fishing trip you're much more likely to die in the car on the way in & out. However, if you find yourself in a float tube with a rod in your hand, as the highest point on a flat body of water, in a lightning storm, your time might be better spent trying to get to shore than planning the safest route to drive home.
True statement. I wouldn't disagree with that.
 
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