Texas fisherman has extremely close call with lightning bolt

Lightning is one of those natural phenomena that's really best experienced from a distance, unless you happen to have a Faraday cage handy. However, as professional angler Tucker K. Owings found out over the weekend, if you're lucky enough to see it up close and come away unscathed, the experience can be pretty spectacular.

Owings was out on Lake Athens, located just to the southeast of Dallas, Texas, when a fast-moving storm rolled over the lake before he could make it back to shore. The lightning bolt only lasts for about two seconds, but you can see it (especially in the slow-motion part of the video) strike about five or six times as it plays across the water in front of Owings' boat.

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As cool as the video is, Owings is lucky to have come away unharmed. There's no telling exactly why the storm clouds chose that specific spot to discharge the lightning, or whether Owings' position on the water would have made any difference to it. However, it's scary to think that if he'd just left for shore a little bit earlier, or if the storm had been moving just a little bit faster, this might have been a much different, and far-less cool kind of story.

Happy fishing, Tucker!

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