Static electricity and fishing rods

[WayneK]

Hi Groovers,

I took my boys down to Lang Lang early this morning for a gummy shark session. We got up at 3.00 am with a view to getting lines in the water by 5.00 am. According to the car, it was 24 degrees at 3.30 am in Melbourne's eastern suburbs - quite surprising for an early spring morning but perfect for a fishing session.

To cut a long story short, we cast our lines and waited for a gummy run. After about half-an-hour, I told my eldest boy to listen to the drag on his reel as I thought it was clicking to the initial slow run of something desirable. As we both got to the rod, my son told me he thought a Cicada was hiding somewhere on the rod - I nearly pissed myself with laughter! My son went to pick up his rod, then yelled out and flinched back - claiming something hurt his arm and shoulder. He went to grab it again and 'bang' the distinctive sound of an electric discharge. Believe it or not, the rod was sitting in an aluminium rod holder (sand spike) and you could hear and see the almost constant arcing between the reel seat and the rod holder - unbelievable!!! He videoed it with his iPhone - just got to figure out how to extract stills from the video. Anyway, the problem persisted while we had a warm northerly wind. I experienced a few minor shocks off my Daiwa Sensor Surf but nothing like the shocks my eldest was getting of his Daiwa Laguna 12 foot rod. My youngest was fishing with a Daiwa Crossfire 12 foot rod and didn't get any static discharge.

I've been fishing for over 40 years and have never experienced this phenomenon. We've been using our trusty beach rods for over 3 years and never experienced anything like it. The sand spikes are also a few years old and had plenty of use. I'm a vegetable when it comes to understanding electricity but I can't help thinking the warm northerly wind and the metal (earthed) sand spike had something to do with it. Have any of you had similar experiences? Oh, we also went home with 'donuts' - typical result for most of our land-based gummy sessions.

Cheers,

Wayne

[hornet]

Hi Wayne, I have heard of many strange things when it comes to carbon rods, especially with storm fronts, from low humming sounds to a glow / Ora emitting from the blank, and not forgetting the final lighting strike with nothing left of the rod but fibers ! You tube has many examples of this, under the right conditions anything is possible I suppose.. (insert outer limits music here v)

[Fishbref]

Oh yeah; about ten years ago, were off Mornington on my tinny runabout, glass conditions, when a storm passed over the Bellarine - eery as hell; dead calm, overcast, humid and four graphite rods buzzing like a tribe of cicada. Caught a nice snapper on a whole gar right in the middle of it...

[dazz999]

yep same thing happened to me at brighton pier a couple of month,s ago at the end of brighton pier was getting good hit,s from the static ended up carrying my rod wrapped in my jumper to stop getting zapped i did post it up you the search function