Man!!!We just had a huge bolt hit no more then 75 yrds away and hit a transformer and it just exploded. The wife and I both jumped out of our chairs and ran for the basement. When the bolt hit the transformer sparks flew 30 feet in all directions and Man It was loud and it lit up the whole front room. I’ll tell you what, I never want to get hit, boy is that alot of power coming all at once, lightning is nothing to mess with.
I was at a track meet once that lightening struck a goal post. People scattered like cockroaches.
I worked at tomahawk scout reservation and would watch it hit the 100 ft plus flag pole all the time pretty sweet. Had a tree explode less then fifty feet away too scary on that one. Hair stands up and the flash and crack were crazy. 
I was driving by a transformer when it got hit by lightning a couple years ago. Even inside the car with the windows up it was unbeleivably loud and everything around me turned white for a second. Couldn’t see a thing. Scared the crap out o f me.
The tree outside my bedroom window, maybe 20 feet away was hit by lightning. You could hear the sound of the sizzling even before the light and it was the loudest boom I have ever heard. I still remember it Ike it was yesterday.
Was sitting in our house once when a maple tree in the yard was struck. Melted a #9 wire that had a bird feeder hanging from it. Went down the tree to the ground and plowed a furrow about 2 inches wide and 4 inches deep to ground out at a telephone pedastle. The ped was completely melted inside.
We had a bolt of lightning hit a tree in the back yard once. Split the tree in half with the one half punching through the roof. The tree looked like it had been split with a torch. Kinda makes you second guess your chances of actually getting hit…
This is what it does to ya….
Lightning scares the crap out of me. My fear is a little irrational, if that is possible when you talk about lightning.
Here’s a good powerline re-enactment.
http://youtu.be/iLx6ZeJNjmg
I don’t think its an irrational feeling at all Pug. Down this way we have alot of tall cotton wood trees. I seen one years back that was hit by lightning and it stripped the bark off one side completely from one of the top limbs all the way to the bottom. The bottom width was about 3′ wide, completely blew it off the tree, that must have been one he– of a strike grounding out a huge amount of electricity,,, and splitting huge trees right down the middle all the way to the ground. What do they say; one big lightning storm could power America for one year if we could harness it, thats unreal.
Has anyone seen the power before a electricial storm on the water? My son and I were on Vermillion a few years past before he was to go to Iraq. A storm was just starting and we were thinking that we should head in when my son said to turn around and look at his line. It was as stiff as a 1/4 steel rod and when out 20 yds. and then turned 90 deg. down to slip bobber. What got me was the sound of the line buzzing and then the look on his face and his hair standing STRAIGHT up!!!! We left so fast I forgot to pull up 
anchor, found out when we slowed down . He said it was a great story to talk about home when the goings got tough in Iraq. Have a GREAT friday…. 
years ago, when I was camping as a kid, lightning hit the tree next to our tent.. and then hit the tree next to my uncles trailer.. it split both trees, in three.. like you were chopping wood.. it felt like a bomb went off..
When I was a kid we were helping our neighbor put up some hay and we were busting our tails to get it done before the weather moved in. It started raining and we were pulling a tarp over the wagon and lightening hit the top of the tarp. my cousin and I were knocked to the ground and our neighbor got the worst of it. We had to pry his fingers off the tarp. He was completely out of it for an hour or so. Turns out if we hadn’t just taken the tongue off the tractor and put it on the ground, the neighbor would have likely been killed as he would have been the primary ground contact. Scary stuff. I get inside now as soon as I hear a rumble.
Can anyone confirm this. I swear when I was a kid lightning struck the house and it wasn’t as loud as I thought it would be, but instead sounded like the thunder was rolling away from us.
I remember pacing the shores while the idiot girlfriend and her family were swimming and on a pontoon on the shores of Mccarthy beach. There were other idiots out there too. There were 2 lightning bolts about 1/2 mile away on the points of the bay. I was a wreck.
I would have sworn you were struck by lightning. I mean who fishes with Bk with his zipper open. 
Need to made sure my pp isn’t toughing metal. You never know.
2 years ago fishing with Brian, he would have seen first hand a guy losing his mind had the thunderstorms not gone around us.
This isn’t a plug…however, since adding Sirius In-Land Weather to my gps/sonar I worry less (notice I said less) about lightning or storms.
Not only does this track the lightening strikes on the gps screen, an alarm goes off and a warning appears on the screen telling me lightening or a storm is less than xxx miles away.
Then it’s up to me to make the decision if it’s coming my way and if I’ll need to take action. It’s cut short trips (for good reason) and it’s extended trips that I would normally have headed to shore with.
Sirius can be a PITA to deal with, but since I found the Marine Dept it’s been much better. They actually know what I’m talking about when it comes to boats/locator’s/weather.
All well and good, but here is an example of my irrationality. That tracks lightning that has occurred. Well every storm has a first bolt of lightning.
I’ve fished in the rain where I got nervous just because it felt like a storm that could start lightning at any moment. I’ve also heard stories of sizzling spools and line floating above the water I check for that constantly in the rain.
The sizzling/floating line followed by shocks while trying to bring in the trolling rods is something I’ll never forget. Pepin is not a nice place to get caught during a storm. Put on my life jacket and tucked my tail. 
Quote:
Well every storm has a first bolt of lightning.
No need to worry about that one!
I must live right (knock on wood), never seen the line going up in the air, frizzy heads of hair or the like. 
Ha! Touche!
I worked at a Marina while I was in highschool. We would have a sailboat get hit occasionally. Sometimes the “exit hole” would be below water line so we would have to watch during storms and check them. There always seemed to be an exit hole. It was pretty cool…esp since it was a blow boat. 
I was shutting down a Fire hydrant at one time when lighting struck nearby on the airfield. That knocked me on my Ash.
My crew member thought it was quite funny after he picked me up. 
I was casting a jig and had the line float six foot above the water.
There was a strong smell of ozone in the air but no lighting strike.
I think I was very lucky.
Not sure how close “close” is… but I can think of 2 instances that I won’t forget.
One was by our lake cabin, we were just pulling off the main highway on the road that headed to the road behind all the lots. As we turned this corner, there was a magnificient old oak tree that stood alone in a grassy area that got struck, probably 75 yards away or so. That white flash was something you can’t forget.
The other one while not as exciting was about 2 blocks away from my house. It was one of these 3am-4am summer thunderstorms that wakes you up at night. I’m laying there in bed listening to that sizzle, crack, Ka-boom of a lightning storm very near you. Well the timing between the flash & Ka-boom got so close together is was splitting seconds. And then a white flash and BAM happened like that and I’m thinking holy crap, what just happened. The house was shaking and everything.
Didn’t know until I left for work the next morning that this monster Cottonwood tree just down the street was stripped of half of its bark and most of it was laying in the road 30-40 yards from the tree. The tree seriously looked like a candy cane. Just unreal!
Heres another one that happened to my stepfather when he was younger. He ran out of gas and was walking down a gravel road twards a farm house a couple miles away. He seen the clouds rolling in and it started to rain, then it rained harder and he knew it was getting serious
So he hastened up his pace and then next thing he said he remembered was he was laying on the farmers couch and the farmers wife was cutting the zipper out of his leather coat. He said evidently he got hit by a lightning strike and it welded his zipper solid from one end to the other, he said the farmers wife told him thats the only way we could get your jacket off so he could get dry. He came around and they drove him into town after the storm passed, now get this,,,he has been hit 2 or 3 times by lightning and never died, thats called lucky.
I have not measured it out, but the one that hit about one block from my house this afternoon seems close enough for me…the fire department had the road blocked off for about 2 hours…. 
I love lightning for viewing, but I have had the crap scared out of me a few times. I’m not ashamed to admit it, I get scared and a bit panicky when it comes up and I’m out in it.
I was about 14-16 miles out on Lake MI when a freak storm rolling in from the east. It exploded so fast that we had no chance of out running it. About a mile had passed and the engine killed. Had caught some floating line and had my prop wrapped up in 20 or so# line. Terry, the guy that was with me has to bear hug my legs while I I laid out past the transom with a knife cutting the line free between getting dunked by the waves. We witnessed lighting hitting the water, watched fire balls roll out from it, and briefly felt like someone was tickling you. Needless to say, the bowels were ready to clear themselves for the rest of the way in.
Was casting a wind swept shore on Beaver Dam lake when a single bolt of lightning struck a tree about 40 yrds from me. Bark was landing in the water all around my boat. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. When I got to the launch and started to put stuff away, I noticed my husky jerk was gone from the rod I was casting. I have no idea if I just casted and strapped the rod down and went, or if it was zapped while casting. The line was so curled up on the spool as if it started to melt.
Neighbors house across the street took a direct hit and the transformer in the corner of my yard blew up. Every GFI in my house was tripped and a few of the breakers were tripped. Fortunately, nothing was lost. Had to replace 4 or 5 of the GFIs and that was it. Neighbor had about 10K in loss between physical damage to his house and all the stuff that blew up.
Nothing to mess with!
Quote:
I was casting a jig and had the line float six foot above the water.
There was a strong smell of ozone in the air but no lighting strike.
I think I was very lucky.
I was casting the breakwater in Two Harbors one humid summer morning. The lure was a 1/2 ounce Krokodile and the line was 8 pound mono. Some serious looking clouds began to show to the west of the ore harbor and were really trucking along so I figured the fishing to be about done. One last cast I told myself.
That cast went out about 150 feet and the lure “just” hit the water….it skittered across the surface like a toy. The line was being hauled up in the air from the static enough to carry that bait across the water. That’s when the smell of ozone got so strong it was almost sickening.
When I got that lure in the collapsed the rod and net, stowed the gear and hit a lower walkway towards shore. About 1/2 way back the fireworks began along with the wild wind, hail and rain. There were several lightning strikes that hit the ore docks across the harbor and that thunder sounded like 155mm howitzers on a practice range.
This storm cell had split before I was able to see it and the other 1/2 of it really tore up the inland areas along its path. It crossed over our cabin and we had 22 trees down in the yard.
That ozone small is a darned good indicator of whats to come. That floating line is even a better one. Niether is something to ignore if you are out in the weather.
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