The Forecast Said “Isolated Thunderstorms”
Every angler has done something stupid on the water. I’ve done plenty—forgotten to put the drain plug in, run the boat onto a submerged stump, left my tackle box on the dock. But nothing compares to June 15th, 2017, when I ignored increasingly obvious warning signs and fished through a lightning storm on Lake Okeechobee. This is not a story to be proud of. It’s a confession and a warning.
The morning had been perfect: calm water, light cloud cover keeping the temperatures down, and largemouth crushing frogs along the hydrilla edges. By 11 AM, I had my limit and was practicing catch and release, just enjoying the action. I noticed the clouds building to the west but convinced myself they would pass south. Florida storms do that sometimes. Sometimes.
The First Flash
The first lightning strike hit maybe three miles away, close enough that the thunderclap arrived within ten seconds. I was standing in my bass boat, graphite rod in hand, metal hooks dangling from my shirt, in the middle of a vast flat expanse of water. I was essentially a lightning rod with legs. A smart person would have immediately headed for the ramp, which was about fifteen minutes away. I decided to make a few more casts.
This is the part where I tell you that nothing bad happened, that I was lucky, and that you should never do what I did. All of that is true. But first, let me describe what it felt like to fish through the next twenty minutes.
Inside the Storm
The sky went from gray to green-black with alarming speed. Lightning started hitting the water around me—not close enough to be immediately dangerous, but close enough that I could smell the ozone and feel my hair lift from static electricity. The hair-lifting thing is a real warning sign, by the way. It means electrical charge is building in your immediate area, and you need to get low immediately.
I dropped my rod, crouched in the bottom of the boat, and finally did what I should have done twenty minutes earlier: started the outboard and headed for shore. But the ramp was across open water, and the storm was now directly overhead. I made a decision to run to the nearest shoreline—a reed bed about 500 yards away—and hunker down until it passed.
Those were the longest 500 yards of my life. Rain hammered down so hard I couldn’t see the bow of the boat. Lightning flashed constantly, close enough that the thunder was instantaneous. I was terrified in a way I’d never experienced before, a primal understanding that nature was completely indifferent to my survival and I had put myself in this position through arrogance and poor judgment.
The Aftermath
I reached the reed bed, killed the engine, and sat in ankle-deep rainwater for forty-five minutes while the storm raged. Nothing hit me. Nothing hit the boat. When the storm passed and the sun came back out—because Florida—I motored back to the ramp with shaking hands and a new perspective on risk assessment.
At the marina, I learned that lightning had struck the water about a hundred yards from where another angler was fishing. He’d felt the jolt through his trolling motor. He was fine, but badly shaken. Two weeks later, I read about a tournament angler on Lake Seminole who wasn’t so lucky.
What I Should Have Done
The 30-30 rule is simple: if the time between lightning flash and thunder is less than 30 seconds, you should already be off the water. I had less than 10 seconds on that first strike and kept fishing. That was inexcusably stupid.
Modern weather apps and radar make storm tracking easy. If you see cells building within 20 miles, start heading in. Don’t wait for the first strike. Don’t convince yourself the storm will miss you. Don’t think that one more cast is worth your life, because it absolutely isn’t.
I still fish Lake Okeechobee. I still love bass fishing in Florida. But I leave at the first rumble now, every single time. The fish will be there tomorrow. You might not be if you make the decisions I made that day.
