# be aware



## JC Designs (Apr 5, 2020)

Oh no, it’s a pandemic! Everyone must stay indoors until the storm season is over! This is for your own good! Go outside and you will die!


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## JC Designs (Apr 5, 2020)

Sorry TN, had to


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## topnative2 (Feb 22, 2009)

Hey, it is all about the graphite rods of privileged microskiffers


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## JC Designs (Apr 5, 2020)

MSLM!


topnative2 said:


> Hey, it is all about the graphite rods of privileged microskiffers


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## Smackdaddy53 (Dec 31, 2012)

You really have to watch out for murder hornets that get sucked up by tornados...


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## JC Designs (Apr 5, 2020)

JC Designs said:


> MSLM!


@slewis we need this on a shirt!


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## matt_baker_designs (Nov 27, 2012)

I used to not care much about lightning. Then I was present when someone got struck and died. Now I’m more cautious at the first sign of it around. Not worth chancing it.


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## Smackdaddy53 (Dec 31, 2012)

Shit happens, it’s the raw truth.


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## Smackdaddy53 (Dec 31, 2012)

topnative2 said:


> Hey, it is all about the graphite rods of privileged microskiffers


Nothing to do with the 20’ lightning rod


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## lemaymiami (Feb 9, 2007)

Whenever electrickery is snapping and popping we hike up our skirts and run like little girls... 

You haven’t lived until a bolt hits a
piling fifty feet away from you - and you’re sitting in a small tin skiff... I was more scared than I was in Vietnam when someone was actually dropping rockets on us. No, I wasn’t a combat guy - just a pencil pusher, but I didn’t like it one bit.. and will do whatever is necessary not to ever be in that situation again.


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## crboggs (Mar 30, 2015)

lemaymiami said:


> Whenever electrickery is snapping and popping we hike up our skirts and run like little girls...


@K3anderson and I got popped once in his skiff...almost knock me off the poling platform and him off the casting platform. Burned up some wiring on the boat as well if I remember correctly.

My cavalier attitude towards lighting changed drastically that day, for sure.


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## Mako 181 (May 1, 2020)

Late 80's guy got it down in Stiltsville area. DEAD on the spot. Did not touch other guy on the boat. Clear blue sky. Was stormy in Ft Lauderdale.


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## topnative2 (Feb 22, 2009)

I knew a guy who got hit dead center while water skiing on lake Hollingsworth in Lakeand,fl in the mid 70's...nope did not make it.....

It is a crap shoot....................


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## anytide (Jul 30, 2009)

i was in belton, TX and the hair on my arm was straight up. then bam! a bolt split a old oak tree like a knife thru broccoli..


i pee'd a lil.


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## Czech_Mate (Jan 4, 2019)

Always trying to get in that one last cast. Good thing I was 3min from the ramp. Shouldn’t have pushed it like this.


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## Surffshr (Dec 28, 2017)

I’ve pushed it enough that I head for the house immediately when that first bolt shows up...I feel like my luck is running out these days.


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## Salty Dawg (Mar 10, 2020)

A lightning strike on my boat made one of my privileged graphite rods look like a crow with a stick up his azz!










Also lost all electronics and the ECU on the motor.

I had just tied up to a dock at the ramp, and was about 100 yards away bringing my truck and trailer around to load it.

The storm was several miles inland from me, and the sun was still shining.




.


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## lemaymiami (Feb 9, 2007)

Additional stuff I've actually been through... Years and years ago, wading for bonefish at a spot on Key Biscayne... I was in such heavy static that when I made a long cast with 6lb mono line - instead of the line settling onto the water it rose up into the air and hung there for a bit.... Definitely time to get off the water... I've also been wading (two of us) with graphite spinning rods in hand when the tips of the rods began buzzing - and the pitch went up or down as you raised the rod up or lowered it down... seriously spooky - and once again - time to get off the water... 

Here's what I was taught about surviving in a small boat when you couldn't get to safety... and it's exactly what I do with customers aboard. First, every rod gets laid down - nothing sticking up at all.... Every person on board sits down on the deck - no one touching anyone else and each person with knees up to their chests and no hands or arms touching anything if at all possible... If I can get into a river with lots of tall trees all around us I feel a bit safer - but who knows... If at all possible in a bad thunderstorm I'll put my bow into an island tied up tight and with everyone aboard doing just what I've described until the threat has passed... Where I don't want to be is out in the open in a small skiff - and we're the highest thing around.... In the summer if we fish an offshore wreck (off the gulf coast of the 'glades, ten miles offshore you're only in 18 feet of water) we're there at dawn and gone back inshore before 12 noon... That's a hint...


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## commtrd (Aug 1, 2015)

Years ago had our monofilament fishing lines hanging up off the water on a cast a few feet off the water. That was scary.


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## K3anderson (Jan 23, 2013)

crboggs said:


> @K3anderson and I got popped once in his skiff...almost knock me off the poling platform and him off the casting platform. Burned up some wiring on the boat as well if I remember correctly.
> 
> My cavalier attitude towards lighting changed drastically that day, for sure.


Ended Up with a new outboard. That thing never ran right again.


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## Ben (Dec 21, 2016)

The thing I learned after a few harrowing experiences is it can come out of blue skies. Don’t wait for the first strike because that strike just might hit you. When it’s hot and those clouds are building up high with the little nuclear bomb halos on top it’s time to call it a day.


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## Mako 181 (May 1, 2020)

lemaymiami said:


> Additional stuff I've actually been through... Years and years ago, wading for bonefish at a spot on Key Biscayne... I was in such heavy static that when I made a long cast with 6lb mono line - instead of the line settling onto the water it rose up into the air and hung there for a bit.... Definitely time to get off the water... I've also been wading (two of us) with graphite spinning rods in hand when the tips of the rods began buzzing - and the pitch went up or down as you raised the rod up or lowered it down... seriously spooky - and once again - time to get off the water...
> 
> Here's what I was taught about surviving in a small boat when you couldn't get to safety... and it's exactly what I do with customers aboard. First, every rod gets laid down - nothing sticking up at all.... Every person on board sits down on the deck - no one touching anyone else and each person with knees up to their chests and no hands or arms touching anything if at all possible... If I can get into a river with lots of tall trees all around us I feel a bit safer - but who knows... If at all possible in a bad thunderstorm I'll put my bow into an island tied up tight and with everyone aboard doing just what I've described until the threat has passed... Where I don't want to be is out in the open in a small skiff - and we're the highest thing around.... In the summer if we fish an offshore wreck (off the gulf coast of the 'glades, ten miles offshore you're only in 18 feet of water) we're there at dawn and gone back inshore before 12 noon... That's a hint...


In The Glades I put the bow into the mangroves. They say stay away from trees but that's better than being the high point in the water which actually you stick out like a sore thumb there.


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## Shallows (Mar 29, 2020)

This is why I don't miss my Alumacraft.


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## MikeDinWP (Jan 2, 2020)

I believe it was either the 11th or 18th of June in the Indian River North... when we stayed out too long... already knowing a storm system was rolling in that afternoon. We pack up and headed back to the Titusville ramp... when we got to the railroad bridge... the Titusville causeway was whited-out with the storm... you couldn't see it! I got behind the North East side of the railroad bridge tucked as close to the land as possible and we weathered out the storm. Even took down the Poling Platform assist bar. Took about 30-40 minutes of hard pounding rains, switching winds, chop and Thor Himself delivered lightning! The lightning strikes around us were extremely unnerving. I was hoping that the Railroad bridge (normally up) would take all the strikes.. but they seemed to crash all around us. Really dumb move... at my age I should have known better. My only solace was that I wasn't willing to go into the open channel towards that storm... I sought the best place I could find to hunker down.


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## FlyBy (Jul 12, 2013)

Shallows said:


> This is why I don't miss my Alumacraft.


Saw an interview with a guy who got struck. He was in an aluminum boat. Knocked him out and left a white streak in his hair. Dr's opinion was because he was in an aluminum boat with rain water in the bottom the lightning passed through his body so quickly it didn't kill him.


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## Frank Ucci (Jan 20, 2019)

...So I stopped working on the roof of my ranch house, packed up and walked over to my motorcycle, headed to the beach to camp out and do some fishing with some friends and somehow I'm still alive!


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## byates (Jan 12, 2016)

I'm in Capt Lemay's camp......hike 'em up and run fast. Several years ago another guy and I were poling down the edge of Northwest Channel just west of KW, toward a guide I know and his client who were staked up. Early morning, overcast, flat calm, no rain or lightning. I signaled to the guide that I'd pole behind him, and he waved me on through. When we got within a couple hundred feet, the guide yelled out that he wanted to show me something. His client cast a large mirrolure towards us. I asked what I should be looking at, and he said "look close.....the line won't land on the water!". Asked my buddy if he heard his rod buzzing, and when he said yes, told him to reel up, and I yelled at the guide to be careful as we hauled ass back to the east. Approaching the cut into Jewfish Basin, I saw Tom Pierce's boat about to enter the cut. We eased off to let him come through, but instead of passing, he came off plane and idled up to us. He said his client's rod and his push pole had been buzzing all morning, and he was heading in for a bit. No sooner had he finished talking, a static discharge arced from his helm to mine, giving us both a shock. Tom never said a word, just slammed it and headed in. We weren't far behind.
Been in many, many awful lightning situations with bolts flying all around, but that particular episode always sticks in my mind, and we never saw a single bolt until we hit the dock.


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## Smackdaddy53 (Dec 31, 2012)

The new chinese swine ******** is called G4. We are going to need a steel chastity mask over our asses too because they’re about to stick it to us harder.


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## Capnredfish (Feb 1, 2012)

I don’t take chances with lightning. Growing up we were in a tree fort and it hit the tree next to us. Riding bike down road it hit a tree next to me. Dealt with the buzzing and floating line. Been too close getting caught on the water. And I deal with burned up equipment at work constantly. I now take cover early, suspend work.


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## finbully (Jan 26, 2013)

Time to go...


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## JC Designs (Apr 5, 2020)

rcbrower said:


> Time to go...
> View attachment 143952
> View attachment 143954


Pushin’ it a little were we?


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## TravHale (May 17, 2019)

Shallows said:


> This is why I don't miss my Alumacraft.


Make no mistake about it... You are not safe in either an aluminum or glass boat, but you are "safer" from lightning in an metal hull for the shear fact that metal is a better conductor, and allows the energy to dissipate more quickly into the surrounding environment.


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## JC Designs (Apr 5, 2020)

TravHale said:


> Make no mistake about it... You are not safe in either an aluminum or glass boat, but you are "safer" from lightning in an metal hull for the shear fact that metal is a better conductor, and allows the energy to dissipate more quickly into the surrounding environment.


And this is the reason that many large vessels have grounding electrodes that go straight to the water and have lighting rods on them! Catch the current and divert straight to ground!


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## JC Designs (Apr 5, 2020)

I used to keep a pair of 20’ 00 jumper cables in my offshore boat. If pinned down in a lightning storm, I would attach one end to the t top and toss the other end over board. Lightning will blow a hole through a boat!


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## Zaraspook (Aug 3, 2017)

topnative2 said:


> Here are the top 10 activities that have contributed to deadly lightning strikes from 2006 to 2019 as compiled by the NLSC.
> 
> *1. Fishing:* 40 deaths (10 percent of the total)
> 
> ...


Yes, I encourage all of you to stay off the water whenever there are clouds.


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## Hogprint (Feb 23, 2020)

Used to clam for a summer job when I was in HS. We were on the back bays of Ft Fisher near BaldHead and there were three or four boats of us digging. Huge storm rolls in and we were the last goobers to pull out...waaaay to late. Loaded down w clams, three healthy bubbas, and in an old underpowered Albemarle net boat we tried to outrun the storm. 
I can tell you there is nothing so scary yet impressive as watching bolts come down and explode in the spartina grass 30-50yrds away! I’ve never been caught in an artillery barrage but this has to run a close second to that! 
After dropping our load of clams to lighten up (we secured those later), thankfully my buddy’s sister and brother in law had gone up a wrong creek and I jumped into their much less loaded Jon and beat the others to the the hill. 
I have a healthy respect for lighting after all these years.


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## TravHale (May 17, 2019)

My grandfather and uncle were both commercial fisherman, and I spent my summers working with them offshore when I was growing up. Tough work, but you learn a lot/see a lot, and this is were my love for the water began. However, we'd regularly get caught in intense storms, and take a bolt here and there. These were larger 90-100ft steel hulled boats, and as far as I know, no one was ever hurt. I remember lightning taking out the AC on one trip in the middle of a hot summer, but we were catching fish, so we stayed out 4-5days more after it happened... The steel hull and superstructure would get so hot during the day.. and it made our bunk area into an oven. Many of us made hammocks out of spare net so we could sleep outside.


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