Girls Gone Grabblin': Catching a Catfish With Your Bare Hands

This is nothing new. Though I myself have never done it (I am more of a rod and reel girl), I have friends that enjoy noodling immensely, and they used to host some great fish frys.

some folks call it "mucking", it's been popular for years down here in the south, where we all are a bunch of dumb, inbred hicks. one thing we do know is how to survive. don't come asking for food when it hits the fan, ya liable to get shown a shotgun!

this is also called noodling

Yep, noodling.

I'm not sure it's fair to say that you don't understand the South vis a vis "noodling" and characterize it as the only way Southerners know how to fish. Growing up the first 20 years of my life in the deep south (N. Florida), I never even heard of it. We use poles and reels. But so what? Sometimes we tie a piece of chicken to a string and catch bucketfulls of blue crabs. Make fun of us all y'all want, we'll be here enjoying the warm weather eating fresh catfish and mountains of boiled crab. Feel real sorry for us, it's awful!

I hear some people in northern Minnesota eat lake leeches. I guess I'll never understand "the North".

I remember an episode of "King of the Hill" where they called something like this cat-fisting. I lived the first 29 years of my life in the South and have never heard of anything like this before.

Patricio, I'm from Ocala, FL originally, and agree. There's more to fishing than noodling or using a fancy lure. I only knew a few people that did the noodling thing.

Don't even get me started on alligator hunting. Most fun I've ever had!

Hi Evilbeagle,

Maybe the reason us Floridians don't know much about noodling is because we might run into a gator instead of a catfish. Anyhow, I salute you and here's to alligator nuggets, crab boils, cheese grits and fresh catfish caught by hot chicks in bikinis! If anyone can't "understand" that then too bad for them...

PBS has a great documentary called Okie Noodling

highly recommended

Backatcha Patricio! I feel for the person that just doesn't get it. I don't even like hot girls in bikinis, being a girl myself, but I celebrate all that makes us special in Florida, including that. :)

And now, I am hungry. You realize, it's nearly impossible to get gator tail, cheese grits, or fresh catfish in England, right? Gator tail is an exotic delicacy here, cheese grits a mystery, and catfish a bottomfeeder that I believe they think only the French would eat. ;)

I can only imagine "noodling" has been around for quite awhile. You think humans (semi-aquatic apes)always used rods and reels to catch fish?

I did this in Vietnam once, and I caught 2 fish. I freaked and dropped the first one, but that still counts, right?