Noodling
- For other possible meanings, Noodle (disambiguation).
Noodling is the practice and sport of fishing for catfish using only one's bare hands. Catfisting, grabbling, graveling, hogging, tickling, are all possible names, depending on region. (Kentuckians call it dogging, while Nebraskans prefer stumping). Five U.S. states have laws explicitly permitting handfishing: Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Kansas. Missouri had an experimental noodling season in 2005 on sections of three rivers, from June 1 through July 15.
The term "noodling", although today used primarily towards the capture of flathead catfish, can and has been applied to all hand fishing methods, regardless of the method or species of fish sought. Noodling as a term has also been applied to various unconventional methods of fishing, such as any which do not use bait, rod & reel, speargun, etc., but this usage is much less common. In the UK this technique is known as guddling.
Method
Although the concept, catching fish with only the use of the arm in the water, is simple enough, the process of noodling is more complicated. The choice of catfish as the prey is not arbitrary, but comes from the circumstances of their habitat. Flathead catfish live in holes or under brush in rivers and lakes and thus are easy to capture due to the static nature of their dwelling. To begin, a noodler goes underwater to depths ranging from only a few feet to up to twenty feet, placing his hand inside a discovered catfish hole. If all goes as planned, the catfish will swim forward and latch onto the fisherman's hand, usually as a defensive maneuver in order to try to escape the hole. If the fish is particularly large, the noodler can hook the head around its gills. Noodlers deserve to be shot.
Most noodlers have spotters who help them bring the catfish in, either to shore or to their boat. When a catfish bites onto a noodler, it holds on for quite a while.
With some of the biggest fish caught weighing in at up to 50-60 pounds, very few noodlers are strong enough to attempt noodling by themselves. Although carrying the fish after they have been subdued is not difficult, trying to secure a fish and remove it from one's hand at the same time can be a challenge.
Noodling as a sport
In 1989, The Late Show with David Letterman introduced American popular culture to the local phenomenon of noodling when Oklahoma noodler Jerry Rider climbed into a tank with a catfish and caught it using his bare hands. For a time Rider became the face of noodling, and appeared in countless news stories and numerous newspaper articles around this time as well. Rider even traveled to India to demonstrate noodling while visiting the country for the weekend. Most of these stories were light-hearted variety pieces with little information — very few of them looked at the practice as a serious sport, as noodlers may have wanted.
The closest thing to a serious examination of noodling accessible to popular culture was a documentary released in 2001 called Okie Noodling, directed by local documentarian Bradley Beesley. The documentary covers the history and current practice of noodling as it is practiced in Oklahoma. During the course of the documentary the realization that there were no official noodling contests spawned the First Annual Okie Noodling Tournament. The tournament brought in young blood from across Oklahoma to a sport mostly passed down from father to son. The release of the documentary and its subsequent airing on PBS affiliates has, if not made the sport more popular, raised its profile to more than just a local phenomenon.
Although not mentioning women in noodling explicitly, through interviews Okie Noodling helps to explain women's relationship to the sport. Although some women relate stories of times they have noodled, the majority of practicing noodlers were and are men. Many of the male noodlers explained how they began noodling when their father took them out, and how they planned to bring their sons into the world of noodling. Also, as others who have written on noodling have expressed, if noodling is to be considered a sport, then (at least to outsiders) it is most definitely an extreme sport, which tend to draw a disproportionate number of male followers.
Noodling was also featured in a pilot episode of the Discovery Channel's Dirty Jobs, which premiered on November 14, 2003. In this episode, host Mike Rowe joins two men from Oklahoma as they noodle for flatheads. The segment ends after Rowe noodles a fish and the men clean and enjoy the catch.
In fall of 2007 a new DVD will be released describing the tactics and history of noodling. In Fox's Fearless, a first time female noodler, Angie Fox, will take a cast on a wild noodling adventure. The guide, Don Brewer, along with Manny Puig of Jackass noodle up to 72 lb catfish. This DVD will be one of the first to describe the hand catch in great detail.
Legality
Noodling is illegal in eleven states, and in some cases could get the fisherperson a fine of up to $500 or prison time.[citation needed]
Noodling outside of the South
The Argungu Fishing Festival in northern Nigeria is perhaps the biggest noodling contest in the world. This yearly festival held in late February or early March consists of up to five thousand fisherman catching catfish with their bare hands. Small fishing nets are used to secure the fish, but most of the fish are noodled from beneath a vast spread of water hyacinths and then placed in a floating gourd attached to the fisherman.
Dangers
Almost every instance of noodling involves minor wounds. Although superficial cuts are received with every catfish caught, this can be avoided to an extent by wearing gloves and other protective clothing. Even so, losing fingers is a real risk, whether from the bite or infection. A slight danger of drowning exists, as most holes are far enough down in the water that diving is required to reach into them. A person confident in their swimming abilities may be caught off guard by the sudden added strain of carrying a large fish to the surface. Spotters can alleviate this danger, but it is still present. It is possible that statistics on noodling deaths are not available or accurate due to the depths at which many catfish live. A severely wounded noodler ten to twenty feet underwater might not have the physical capacity to return safely to the surface of the water, resulting in the official cause of death as death by drowning. Another danger lies in one's clothes, getting tangled or snagged on roots or rocks. To avoid this, many noodlers will dive wearing nothing more than their shorts.
The largest danger posed to noodlers are other forms of aquatic life found in catfish holes. Far more dangerous than catfish are alligator, beavers and snapping turtles, who will take over abandoned catfish holes as homes of their own. These animals are always on the mind of experienced noodlers.