Thursday, August 28, 2008 We fished, fished and fished. Deep, shallow in between and the same luck as before. We marked several deep spots with fish and decided to come back later and try for lakers. Thomas has a great variety of structure, reefs in the middle of deep water, long points under water, short deep drop-offs and flats. This was the first trip I had never caught a fish. I donated money to the fishing economy losing several raps, spoons, crankbaits, jigs and spinners to the lake. We paddled the east, south and west shoreline checking sites as we moved. Most of the sites are adequate, none of them great and a couple are in the "desperate" category. We decided to fish the big bay area in the SW corner of the lake. After working the shoreline, drop-offs and points we noticed the south and west had clouds building. They were not building in height but were a gray/green/blue color, layered and ominous. We headed back to camp, not wanting to be caught in severe winds and waves away from camp. We stopped just south of the campsite between the islands and tried deep water for lakers but kept an eye on the storm. You could gradually hear the rumble of thunder, rolling thunder that lasted for 10-20 seconds at a time. We headed to camp as the wind really started building. We quickly had Gisselle sheltered for the night and gear put away we decided to wait the storm out in the tent. We ended up in the tent for the night, there never was hard rain but steady rain. The lightning was sporadic but immense when it cracked. They seemed to be the big super bolts and one was close. Laying in our bags talking we saw, saw/heard and felt the bolt at the same time. It felt like a small amperage of current was running through my body for minutes afterward. Both of us agreed it was the closest or in top 3 of strikes we experienced. CG reminded me of our first trip together 1992, we had just made it back to camp in the dark using lightning as our guideing light. Everyone was in their tents and I decided to empty my bladder. Just as I was getting ready a crack of lightning hit a tree near us, it was the same flash, crack and boom all at once. We fell asleep to the light rain falllin on the tent. Tomorrow would be a moving day.