One word of caution for all graphite/carnon fiber rods, carbon fiber is a great conductor of electricity. So don't be waving tha CF pole in the air during a thunder storm, especially standing in water, or sitting in a metal boat. You don't want to become a lightnig rod. That would just ruin the day..

Tight Lies and frisky fish

RJF

Yup. One sunny day my son and I noticed that our lines were not drooping into the water after a cast; they were entering the water at about 90 degree angles. Raising the rods to try to figure out what was going on we noticed an audible buzz when the tips got high. Fast retreat to the dock. A little while later there was a thunderstorm.

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That sound cool but terrifying, but at the time i would guess the pucker factor was pretty high.

Thanks for the heads up.

Carbon, in any form, is well known to be an excellent conductor of electricity; carbon motor brushes being a prime example. So the previous replies do not really surprise me BUT THEY HAVE REAWAKENED ME!!!! Electricity will ALWAYS follow the path of least resistance! If your head or rod tip (especially sitting on a lake) is higher than the immediate surroundings during an electrical storm, you have increased your chances of being “zapped” exponentially. The odd thing is that some people being struck by lightning survive while others perish; that one I cannot figure-out. Obviously, I’m off the lake with threatening electrical storms approaching!!!

Mark Talmo
FISHING IS NOT AN ESCAPE FROM LIFE BUT RATHER A DEEPER IMMERSION INTO IT!!! BUILDING YOUR OWN SIMPLY ENHANCES THE EXPERIENCE.

Michael,
I had a similar experience during our spring walleye trip one year.

We were all out in our boats, doing our usual casting in some promising spots. There were some other boats in the general area. The sky was quite overcast, and there was a forecast for thunderstorms sometime during the day.

At any rate, I made a cast and the jig dropped into the water, but the line did not go down as well. So, I tried an experiment. I opened my baile and began to feed mono line off of the reel. I fed line and fed line, but all that the line did was to go higher and higher into the sky. I suppose that I must have pulled off a couple of hundred feet of line, - all of which essentially went straight up into the sky. Suddenly, there was a bolt of lightning, a clap of thunder and the line fell into the water. I yelled, "all lines in and all rods laying down on the floor. It took about 20 seconds for all of this to transpire, and by that time, I had the engine started with the throttle pushed to the firewall. As we flew home by the other boats fishing, we noticed several women and some men with long hair and all of their hair was standing straight up from their heads as we flew by.

So much static electricity in the air that morning. But we all made it home fine with no lighting hits on the boat or on ourselves.

Be safe

Roger, "couple hundred feet" ? Slow learner, it appears. Was Ben Franklin in your family? :-) Glad you survived, must have been a close call. I'm surprised we don't hear more about this issue.

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A recent analysis from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) found that a single flash of lightning along the northern Gulf Coast spanned 477 miles across, breaking a world record.

This megaflash of lightning lit up an area stretching from Texas to Mississippi. To put it into perspective, it's like seeing a single flash of lightning spanning from New York City to Columbus, Ohio.

Michael,
I have always been curious.

I was curious as to how high the line would go, before it returned to the water.

Be safe, but remain curious.

Curiosity is good. Too bad so many are not curious.

Saw a guy make a cast one time when a storm was coming in, and while his lure maintained it's trajectory every bit of line as it exited his tiptop went straight up creating a giant arc between tip and lure. I've always been glad I saw that!

One argument for cork versus graphite rod grips?

Or Eva..

If lightning discharges can travel through moist air for some 477 miles, there is nothing on a fishing rod that will stop it in the slightest bit. Not cork. Not eva. Not rubber. Nothing. Lightning will blow right on past it and through it. I spent years repairing lightning damaged systems and can attest to the power of lightning to blow through materials that are supposed to be non-conductive.

My point about graphite fishing rods is they do not have to conduct really. Electrons will flow like water through the path of least resistance which could be surrounding air moisture and surface moisture on a non-conductive surface.

And if a rubber rod say 10 feet long can hold a static charge and still be considered non-conductive, it could be enough to initiate a lightning discharge, so it really does not matter if the rod is conductive graphite, or non-conductive rubber, or glass. Just the moisture in the air and on surface of a non-conductive material could be enough to initiate a discharge.

I use to install and repair neon signs and lighting and our top voltage was 15,000 volts. Materials that are non-conductive for low voltages do not work with higher voltages. 15,000 volts would blow through glass, especially if it had a pin hole or weak spot or got wet.

Lightning according to what i just read averages around 300 million volts and some 30,000 amps. There is nothing a human can create or hold in our hands that will stop it or block it as I now believe.

I believe the key is to not be the tallest thing around when the static energies are present and felt. I have always been taught to drop to the ground and seek the lowest place to get like in a ditch or hole or something to avoid being that tallest thing around.

I concur with Kent. Lightning is a static discharge. It takes 20,000 V to cause that discharge from your finger to that metal doorknob. Air is an insulator. The 20 KV is necessary to create the dielectric breakdown that ionizes the air, giving a path for the spark. Now think how much voltage it takes to arc from the clouds to the ground. We used voltage protection on all of our electrical outlets hat supplied our expensive telecom equipment, including special fuses to isolate the equipment from electrical spikes. in on instance, lightning dtruck a tree near one of our communication closets. it jumped from the tree to the electrical cable that fed the closet. It jumped from an unused electrical outlet past our protection, and traveled back to our hardware, blowing out several pricey circuit boards. it literally cost thousands of dollars to fix. Lightning is going to go wherever the best path to earth ground is, hence the use of lightning rods to protect buildings. So as Kent stated, be as low as possible, and don't become a lightning rod. That tree, by the way, was shattered from where it was struck, to where the lightning left it. And remember, you are made up of salt water, iron, and minerals, all of which are more conductive than pure water. You make a great path for electrical flow.

Tight Lies and frisky fish

RJF

Electricity follows the path or least resistance. Always. I play it safe, and it's safer to stand a ways back from the guy who's holding his 12' graphite spey rod upright wading wet during the storm and saying, "No use trying to hide, because lightning has a bazillion volts!"