Weird Experience With A Graphite Rod

[Gil]

I had a very weird experience fishing Friday at Chain lakes. The weather got bad, so we decided to head in. As I was walking to my truck I got a series of shocks from my graphite rod I was carrying. As I was about to tell my friend of about this strange event when he jumped from a shock he got from his graphite rod. What I believe was happening was that the ground was becoming charged in responce to the charge of the storm clouds above us. In other words we were about to get hit with lightening. A good reminder graphite rods are pretty good conductors and that you are essentially holding a lightening rod while fishing. We were almost at my truck when this happened and made it home without a problem. By the way the fishing was poor with lots of mud. A couple of fish took a dry fly but that was about it....

[gillmy]

That's a little frightening. A Graphite rod is a good conductor, so not a great thing to hold in an electrical storm I would guess. Interesting fact about lightning is an opposing charge comes up from the ground to meet the charge coming from the sky, when the circuit is complete, that's when you see the flash. There are some cool photographs of this, but here is an example. Your conductive fishing rod (at this point a lightning rod ) helps to complete the circuit. That is pretty freaking experience. Glad you didn't get zapped to bad... What damage could a billion volts do? Good warning.

[fishpro]

Heard an interesting story last summer. I was guiding up north, and one of the guides had his clients out fly fishing for pike from a boat. A storm started to roll in and when the guy put his fly rod up in the air, it actually starting buzzing. It would stop when he lowered it, then start again when he raised the rod.

[highwoodfisher]

sketch

[gillmy]

Just because lightning is so cool.... (or more than you ever wanted to know about lightning)

 

Found this good explanation on a website.

 

"Lightning does indeed come up from the ground. Even though we commonly view lightning as 'striking' the ground...the process of lightning is a bit more complex. The internals of a thunderstorm effectively separate electrical charges, with positive and negative charges accumulating in different parts of the cloud. These charges are still attracted to eachother, despite being separated. In a thunderstorm, most often it will be the negatively charged ions at the base of a thunderstorm.

 

The Earth is charged as well, and in response to an increase in charge at the bottom of a thunderstorm cloud, the opposite charge will be

climbing up anything it can find to get as close to the charge building in the cloud. In most cases, this would be large amounts of positive

ions finding their way through the crowd, up sky scrapers and radio tires, sailboat masts (and even people holding fishing rods...) to get as close to the cloud as

possible. This is a feedback process, which mutually encourages charges to increase in concentration toward a central location in both the cloud and on the ground.

 

Finally, the air itself can no longer insulate the electricity and breaks down ("ionizes" -- happens at a very high electric charge

level)...The electric charge thus begins to travel in the air beneath the base of the cloud toward the positive ions on the ground, but only

in about 50 meter 'steps', because it eventually encounters more air that has yet to be ionized. Since the electricity is in such a high

quantity by this point when it gets to this lower air, it takes virtually no time at all to push this air beyond the breaking point and

ionizes it. Each successive 'step' is a new voyage for the electric charge, and often creates crazy patterns in the sky of travel toward

their end. Each time, lightning is attempting to be lazy; to get to the opposite charge at the ground as quickly and as easily as possible,

though it often doesn't end up that way by it's stepped appearance. However, eventually (all happening in a fraction of a second), the

lightning bolt makes it down toward the ground.

 

Now, the charges on the ground have been building as well, itching to make their move. When the electric charge from the cloud (normally

negative ions) make it within 100 yards or so from the ground, all the positive ions that have been growing for a long time, think it's 'Go

Time', and launch up from the ground toward the path illuminated by the ionized air. When the connection is made, there is a violent release of

pent-up electricity (that can match or even exceed the temperature of the Sun), and in a split second, multiple flashes and 'return strokes'

go back and forth up that established channel (sometimes you can see it flicker), until the charges have been released enough for that ionized

air-path to once again fall below the threshold for electrification. One other thing, when the air column along this path has been ionized,

there's a loud sonic boom caused by its quick collapse, which is often loud: Thunder."

[monger]

This is actually pretty common for guys who fish lakes often. A couple of years ago my boat mate got shocked a couple of times when the storm was still about 4 miles away. It was heading our way and we quickly got of the water before it reached us. At the boat launch just about everyone had a story of getting shocked at one time or another. I have seen lightning strike quite often a few miles in front of the storm front. I guess it is better to leave earlier rather than later.

[mikefromsundre]

You want to avoid crossing barb wire fences during a lightening storm as well. Several ranchers in the area have had cattle hit when they were huddled against the fence during a storm. Blew a couple of posts out of the ground as well. Several years ago on the Crow we were rushing back to our truck ahead of storm. I crossed over the fence while my partner held it down for me. He began to feel a tingling in his hands and could feel his hair start to become charged with static just like a wool sweater in winter. He quickly let go and rolled under the fence. When you think about it a metal fence is a great big wire in a great big loop.

[SanJuanWorm]

Wow a good reminder. Thanks for the heads up.

[reevesr1]

Used to tell people:

When your rod starts buzzing, drop it!