BOB KORNEGAY: Noodling — The really unorthodox method of catfishing

When I think back to July, 2005 I don’t think of carefree lazy, hazy days of summer or the glorious Fourth. Nope. July, 2005 is a red-letter date because that’s when my home state legalized the sport of noodling.

Once, had you asked me what is noodling, I may well have guessed it to be a method of making one’s own pasta. When I became an outdoor writer, I learned otherwise. Noodling, instead, is a rather unorthodox (REALLY unorthodox) method of catfishing.

When noodling, the angler works around the perimeter of a lake or stream, seeking holes in the bank or in and under submerged debris. Finding such a cavity, he inserts his hand and hopes a big catfish (Please, Lord, let it be a catfish!) will latch onto his hand and allow itself to be pulled from its hiding place.

When the pastime became permissible in my neck of the woods, Georgia’s fisheries management chief was thusly quoted: “The best advice our agency can provide is to take a friend with you and use some caution, especially to those who are completely unfamiliar with this method, in the event that they come across something other than a catfish or have difficulty coming up for air.”

Say again, Dude? What was that last part? Something about grabbing hold of a gator or water moccasin, or maybe drowning?

Uh huh. That made me want to rush right out and get started. You betcha.

I have no idea why a fishing license is required for noodling. If one is old enough for a fishing license, shouldn’t he have sense enough not to do it in the first place?

Personally, I stopped noodling at age 13, back in 1965. My friend Marvin D. Wyatt and I were “muddin’” a creek that had dwindled down to a few landlocked waterholes full of fishes and other aquatic critters.

Understand now, muddin’ is not noodling. Muddin’ entails agitating the bottom of a closed-off fishing hole with hoes, rakes, or other such implements, thus dissipating the oxygen in the water and causing the inhabitants to rise to the surface seeking breathable air. When the fishes surface, they can be plucked from the water and thrown into a bucket. Muddin’, I think, is also illegal. But, hey, I was 13 and living in southeast Alabama, where conservation had not yet been invented.

Our muddin’ trip inadvertently turned into a noodling affair when Marv’s daddy got wind of our activity and decided to join us.

“You stupid idiots,” he opined. “You ain’t got sense enough to know you ain’t gonna catch nuthin’ but little ‘uns fishin’ like that? Get your sorry butts over there and feel around in them bank holes. That’s where the big ‘uns are.”

By the way, self esteem for children hadn’t been invented back then either.

Well, Marv and I feared Mr. Wyatt more than we feared what might be in those holes, so we did as instructed. It was pretty cool, too. Kinda neat reaching in there to see what we’d find. Like I said, we were 13 and, of course, immortal.

I waded toward one large cavity, intent upon sticking my hand in, when Mr. Wyatt stopped me.

“Whoa, fool,” he said. “There’ll likely be a big mudcat in that one and you’ll just lose him. Get out of the way.”

Obediently, I gave way as Marv’s dad inserted his own arm, up to the elbow, into the hole. Sure enough, Mr. Wyatt’s fingers got a “nibble.”

I thought the scream was a yell of delighted excitement until I saw the little turtle on the end of the man’s digits. That’s the day I learned a turtle will not necessarily hold on until it thunders, especially when slung through the air with enough force. Of course, during launch, most of the hide from Mr. Wyatt’s knuckles went with him.

Marv and I swore off noodling from that day forth. Thinking back on it, I almost regret it. We could have probably continued noodling and muddin’ to our hearts’ content for years without interference.

One thing’s certain. Mr. Wyatt wouldn’t have interrupted us again.