Monte Hale
If you’ve never ever noodled, you don’t understand what you’re missing out on:
Poking your hand into an undersea hole in a muddy riverbank in hopes a huge, slimy catfish will munch down on it with its effective jaws and sandpaper teeth.
Then attempt to battle it to the surface area prior to it drowns you.
To contribute to the enjoyment, in some cases rather of a catfish you might get – or be gotten by — a snapping turtle, horrible hellbender or squirming water moccasin.
Full disclosure: I’ve never ever noodled. But I’ve viewed others noodle.
Also referred to as grabbling, grappling and hillbilly hand-fishing, noodling is the oldest form of fishing. It doesn’t get anymore basic than capturing a fish with your bare hands.
It’s so easy even a cavern man might – and most likely did — do it.
Cave mommy to cave daddy: “Honey, can you run out and noodle us up some supper?”
Today noodling is provided for enjoyable and, sometimes, earnings.
Noodling competitions use huge rewards, and celeb noodlers appear on television to pitch their items.
Noodling videos are popular. A couple of years ago I composed a publication story about noodling, and started getting complementary videos in the mail.
One was a how-to video made by some grizzled old noodlers in Mississippi. Another was entitled “Girls Gone Noodling” and included comely young lasses battling huge catfish using swimwears. (The lasses, not the catfish.)
The web is chock-full of such videos, in addition to sites and podcasts committed to the art of noodling.
Here’s how it works:
Wade along the bank of a lake or stream sensation into immersed holes and under rocks and logs where catfish prowl. Experienced noodlers understand where to look, much like Tom Brady understood how to discover an open receiver.
When something smooth and slimy is touched – ideally a catfish – the noodler probes to find the head, then takes the fish by its jaw.
This is where it gets fascinating. Small catfish go silently, however a huge one – state a 90-pound mudcat – doesn’t take kindly to being searched and gotten.
It will acquire the noodler’s hand and hold on. Since the noodler is frequently in water approximately his/her chin, it’s in some cases touch-and-go regarding who has actually noodled whom.
I spoke with one battle-scarred noodler whose hand was secured onto by a huge cat that pulled him under. He said he would have drowned if his friend hadn’t hurried to his rescue.
Older catfish don’t have sharp, harmful barbs on their fins as do younger, smaller sized ones. When battling a whopper, the noodler doesn’t need to fret about getting stuck. All he needs to fret about are snakes, snapping turtles and drowning.
The larger cats are grisly and very little good to consume, so after positioning for images they are launched to enter peace — up until the next noodler occurs.
