(Editor's note: BassFan Charles Bowman is a structural engineer who lives in Kernersville, N.C. He regularly competes in BFL tournaments and often fishes tour-level events as a co-angler.)
Do we as tournament bass anglers have any sense at all when it comes to our own safety?
Recently, at a BFL event at Kerr Lake, I began to ask myself that question when it comes to competing during thunderstorms. It's becoming all too common for me to participate in a tournament and, at some point in the day, begin to worry for my safety during bad weather.
Now, I understand that all of us “tough” bass anglers fish tournaments in a variety of poor weather. We fish when it's freezing cold. We fish when it's scorching hot. We fish when it's raining, when it's snowing, when it's windy, or when any combination of these metrological events take place on our tournament day, and I am fine with that. What I am not fine with is fishing during a thunderstorm.
Tournament fishing during a thunderstorm is not smart. During my BFL tournament this past weekend, I asked my co-angler, “Does it make sense for us to be sitting out in the middle of the lake, lightning flashing all around us, thunder bursting our ear drums, and here we are, the highest point (in terms of elevation) of any item around us for hundreds of yards?” Additionally, here we sit with 7-foot lightning rods in our hands and with our rear ends propped up on metal shafts that stick out of the deck of the boat. It is not smart, it is not safe, and something needs to be done about it.
When my partner and I were confronted by a fierce thunderstorm this past weekend, we moved to the closest dock, tied up the boat, got off and sought shelter at a nearby lake home. When the weather cleared, we went back to the boat and continued to fish the remainder of the day.
When we returned to the weigh-in site at the end of the day, we polled the fishermen we recognized about whether they'd sought shelter during the storms. Every angler said that he fished right through the storm as if it wasn’t there. Does that make any sense at all?
If one thinks through what has transpired here, an obvious question comes to mind: “Would I, if I were at home during a thunderstorm, plant a metal pole in my yard, sit on it, grab a 7-foot flipping stick, hold it high in the air, and sit there until the storm passed?” The answer is absolutely not.
If the problem with fishing tournaments during thunderstorms were confined to the BFL series, I believe that very few people would pay much attention to it. But I have experience as a co-angler in the Bassmaster Elite Series, and I must say, it is an even worse problem there. The Elite Series is comprised of folks fishing for a living. It is my experience that a majority of the Elite Series pros are not going to stop fishing during a thunderstorm.
My most recent such experience occurred at Santee Cooper in 2003. My draws for the tournament were Gerald Swindle and Kota Kiriyama.
The first day of the tournament began with a fierce ride up the lake through a thunderstorm. Our protection once the boat was off plane, during the lightning storm, was to bend down or kneel in the boat and continue to fish. I decided that wasn’t smart, so I put down my rods and got down onto the floor of Gerald’s boat.
Following an hour or so of being “convinced” by lightning to seek shelter, Gerald, Denny Brauer, Chad Brauer, Rick Clunn and Joe Thomas, along with their co-anglers, headed for a marina at the upper end of the lake. Other anglers did not seek shelter and continued to fish. Under pressure to fish, all of the anglers and co-anglers at the marina headed back out onto the lake with lightning still cracking and streaking through the sky. Did that make any sense at all?
On day 2 I fished with Kiriyama. Again, while fishing, we were faced with lightning, but this time, we did not seek shelter. I stopped fishing and got down into the bottom of the boat. Kota continued to fish. Does that make any sense at all?
It's clear that most anglers, at all levels of competition, are not going to remove themselves from harm's way when it comes to thunderstorms. I don't know if this stubbornness is driven by testosterone, competition or not knowing what else to do. Whatever the case, we need to do something about this problem. The question becomes what.
The two biggest governing bodies in tournament bass fishing – BASS and FLW Outdoors – have not addressed this problem directly because, in my opinion, they see no real solution. In fact, at the tournament briefing for my Kerr event, the director said that if you didn't feel safe to go when he called your boat number, you could “stay with him and help put up the weigh-in tent."
While he did go on to say that he had no problem in delaying the start should lightning or poor weather occur, he offered no advice as to what to do if, later in the day, we found ourselves in a lightning storm, which is exactly what occurred.
I liken this problem to an issue NASCAR had not too long ago. NASCAR had had many drivers suffer neck injuries (and even fatalities) over the years from wrecks during competition. Once it became apparent that neck injuries were a problem, some drivers started using a head-and-neck restraint, while others did not. It took a ruling from NASCAR to force all of the drivers to use the restraints.
This is exactly what is happening in tournament fishing during thunderstorms. Some anglers, such as myself, recognize the danger and seek the closest shelter during a storm. Others choose to ignore the danger and fish right through it. It is only a matter of time before this catches up with professional bass angling.
Some folks would say that my concerns are founded upon a “worry wart” type of perspective. Some folks said the same thing about NASCAR and neck injuries. I wonder what Dale Earnhardt would say. Better yet, maybe we should ask David Fritts.
All other outdoor sports, regardless of time, day, event, or any other variable, suspend play during thunderstorms. Baseball, football, golf, tennis, racing – all are postponed until safer conditions prevail.
Solutions to the problem of fishing during a thunderstorm are difficult to come by. I believe that one may lie in technology. What if each boat were given a pager that the anglers kept with them throughout the day? The tournament organization could monitor the weather via computer, much like NASCAR does during competition.
If lightning were detected within a certain radius around the lake, the governing body could send a page to all contestants that would require them to stop fishing at that moment. All anglers would know that if the pager went off, competition would be stopped for a minimum of one hour.
The 60-minute halt to competition would put every angler into a decision mode – stay where he is (in the bad weather) and not be allowed to fish for an hour, or seek shelter. Removing the element of competition for that length of time would force most anglers to seek shelter.
Each boat could also be equipped with a buoy to mark the place in the lake where each angler was at the time of suspended play. This buoy’s deployment would eliminate the possibility of one angler taking over another angler’s fishing location after the suspension. While the idea might seem impractical to some, I believe that it is a good place to start in terms of finding a way for tournaments to deal with thunderstorms during competition.
Some anglers and tournament organizations may say that a pager-type of suspension is not practical on very large or remote bodies of water. Some may say that some playing fields for bass tournaments are so remote that there may be no place to take shelter during a storm. Again, while I do not have all of the answers, I do believe that the safety of the anglers and co-anglers must be addressed.
It is my hope to bring the danger of thunderstorms to the forefront as we head into the summer season, when anglers will be faced with these storms. It is also my hope that the governing bodies will focus on this problem in our sport and try and develop a practical solution.
It just doesn’t make sense to participate in our sport during conditions that, at any other time, we would not expose ourselves to.
