How Noodling Works

our first one in two the future. Yes. And I told Josh I'm having re entry problems like I always do. Yes, I like walk to my cube and everything looks strange, and it was like being it's like the first day on the job. He's constipated. Huh yeah, a little bit. Actually, that's what happens when you stay away for too long and you wake up, sit up like a stiff as a board, and you're like, I have to work today and poop and how was your good good break? Yeah, it was great. I went to the Isle of Palms

and Charleston. It was very nice. It was super cold, but it was nice went to Drayton Hall. I don't know what that is. It's the oldest intact preserved plantation of its kind on on the Eastern Seaboard as far as I know. You know the difference between a farm and a plantation the plants. I'm gonna start two thousand ten with the fact plantations only grow one crop. Is that right? That's what I'm told. I would have thought it had to do with the size or something. One crop,

farm many crops? Very nice? Is that is farm Latin for many crops? I think. So there's a good fact for Mr Charles W. Chuck. Quit while I'm ahead, and we'll check out here. Yeah, we'll give you the email address so you can say congrats, Chuck. We'll give it to you at the end of this podcast, which happens to be on a little something called noodling. Yes, you may also know it as hogging, dogging, stumping, hand fishing. That's that's yeah, that's a popular one. Actually, that's when

the city folk call it. And now, actually I was on the YouTube's and they were all all those dudes were calling hand fishing. Have you ever done this? No? No, nor have I, And um, it doesn't seem like a sport that will ever become real popular because it's so thoroughly terrifying. Yes, absolutely, I would never ever do this. What we're talking about is, as Chuck said, hand fishing, but it goes by all sorts of colloquialisms. We called

it noodling in this article on how stuff works dot com. Uh. And basically what it is is you stick your hand into a underwater catfish nest, which they tend to nest underwater, and you're in the water. We should point out you're not doing this from a boat, no, um. And you get the fish to bite your hand and you pull it out and there you've just fished. You've just noodled. Yeah, Yeah,

that's it. That's pretty much it. Of course, there's all sorts of other interesting stuff that surrounds this, which we will discuss at length starting now. Right it You know what it reminded me of was you saw the eighties Flash Gordon movie? Right of course? Oh, come on, tree, did I didn't You didn't see Flash Gordon. No with

the Queen soundtrack and all that. No, definitely not. Wow. Well, Timothy Dalton in one scene they have this it's like a test of courage where they reach into this these different holes in this big like rock type thing, and there's a creature in there that will bite you if you stick your hand down the wrong hole. So they go down to the elbow and then of course one of the guys got tagged on the wrist and like green ooze, who's out his wrist? That's did he perish? Um?

Noodling reminds me of that sand monster in Return of the Jedi, Yes, except you know it's smaller, not much no, uh, and actually noodling can be deadly. There's all sorts of peril that the sport is fraught with. Let's talk about the history of it. First Native American and its roots. Evidently, yeah, apparently the first time it appears in Western literature is

in seventeen seventy five. This trader historian named James A. Dare traveling the South and he said, uh, yeah, the Native Americans have this weird thing where they get in the water and they actually apparently used like red cloth like you know, enticed to fish like toro toro to the catfish. And then yeah, but then they'd use their hands to pull them out. I imagine that the Native Americans would use kind of whatever means they could to get the fish out, and this is one of them.

And since catfish are so huge, this was you know, a prized catch. Yeah, apparently they, like you said, there was all sorts of other methods used to to fish among the Native Americans, including clubbing them over the head, using spears, bows and arrows, um, and I think scaring them up with torches and then just grabbing them like as they came to the surface. So yeah, no dynamiter

or right, that occurred in the night eighteenth century. And they also actually in the article said that the Great Depression clearly, probably in the South, it was a good time to go noodling. Yeah, because it's totally completely free, using nothing but your hands, your body, uh, and whatever gas it took to get your pickup truck to the

noodling hole. And that's about it. So yeah, and then interesting, I mean like it, I guess it was still around, um, but then in the Great Depression, everybody's like, we need to start this up again, right, and then it's passed down from father to son. Although there are female noodlers, yeah, much braver women than I am. What's that one? Girl's name, Mr McFarlane, I don't know, Champagne. Yeah, she she's pretty good. Her father's like this well known noodler named Rusty McFarland,

who's a plumber slash noodling philosopher. Yeah, he was in that documentary I watched. Yeah, I think he's a big one. He likened plumbing to noodling, actually, I'll bet. And he even said the word turd, he did. I hate that word. It's awful, So, chuck, Yes, this is uh as you might have imagine, a fairly rural activity. Yeah, the rural south. And then Oklahoma is a huge noodling state. Yes, so's

Missouri as well. And it's only legal in thirteen states as far as we know right now, right, and that is up from just eight years ago, only four states allowed noodling. Two one. That's nine years ago, now, buddy, that's right. Welcome to the future, twentie century man. Uh. Yeah, the thirteen states up from four, that's that's a big increase. Yeah, it's it's definitely gaining popularity, thanks in part to that documentary you vaguely referred to earlier. That's right. What's the

filmmaker's name. The filmmaker's name is Bradley Beasley, and he I believe it's called okay noodling, right, And he really put it on the map. Not not only did he put it on the map, he established the first noodling tournament for the documentary, right, so we could get better shots or whatever, because, as as it says clearly in the documentary, there ain't no noodling tournaments because no one's taken the initiative. Nic that's one of the guys, well Liver.

So Brad said, hey, you know what a great way to end this documentary. I'll start my own noodling tournament. And that's exactly what he did, and it's taken off from them, right, all right, So Chuck, we talked about, um, just the generality, just your hand in a hole. Little history, let's get a little more into it. Yeah, why would

a catfish bite onto your hand? Josh, what's the reason? Well, actually the reason is that they're What you're doing is you're reaching your your hand into a catfish nest um where there are thousands of eggs waiting to be hatched. Exactly. Um, what I find interesting is you're not catching the female. The female comes and lays the eggs, and then the male comes along, chases her off and takes over the duty of protecting the eggs. So that's what they're doing,

catching males. They're guarding when they come after your your hand and apparently how you noodle as you wiggle your fingers around to get their attention, which may be the reason that it's called noodling, is your fingers look like wet noodles, although no one is No one is quite sure, no they're not. It remains a mystery. Um. But yeah, So you stick your hand in, the catfish goes to bite you, um, And sometimes it will nibble and you can kind of get a grasp on it. Sometimes it'll

try to swallow your entire um arm. Ideally, it sounds hard to say that, but I think that's what you're looking for. Either way. Once your hand makes entry into the catfish is mal you you wiggle it down as far as you can to the gills and hook the gills from the inside out. And then all of a sudden, now you have a real firm grasp on that catfish. Plus, when you have your hand in and something's gills, it tends to really focus on that and freak out a little bit, right, So then you pull it to the

surface and there you have it. You've got your catfish. Although, as we said, this thing is kind of fraught with peril. Yeah, the first thing you're gonna encounter is the teeth, right, Yeah, there are. They're not super sharp, but there are lots and lots of them. And they likened it to sandpaper in the article. Actually, this is written by my good friend Debbie Rnka, who's a freak girl. Yeah yeah, freak

girl dot com. And she's about the least likely person on earth that would ever write an article in Newdling. She did a good job with it. Well, that's the great part about our job. I'm writing about giving a facial at home and uh, she's writing about noodling. We should switch articles occasionally, it seems like. But anyway, Debbie

wrote this and she did a great job. And she says that it's like sand paper on your arm, which doesn't sound too bad, but if it's really they said, they start twisting and turning when it's on your arm, and then it can, you know, cut you up a little bit, right. I read a quote from a noodler that said once they start twist spinning. Um, it can rub your hide, It can plumb, rub your hide to the bone something like that. Right, Um yeah, that's good.

So um yeah, that's your first problem is that this catfish who's gills you have your hand in is is rubbing its sand paper teeth all over your wrist and that can turn to hurt. Um. Also, some catfish can get pretty big. Yeah, I mean, um, forty six the eighty pounds, that's the flathead. I think the blue cats get even bigger, upwards of a hundred pounds, I believe, right. So, if you were in water that's say chin deep, it can pull you under, hold you under, and you were

a drowned noodler. Yeah. And you know in the documentary to that was, um this one one of the legendary guys noodles. There were these I'm not sure how this works, but these highways where the lake and the river is now over the highway. So I guess it's just poor

planning or something. But these old broken roads basically in the water cool and they will go under the asphalt to uh, these broken asphalt to get because that's where the prime layer is and they will get trapped into there sometimes and yeah, um apparently it's also something of a pastime. When you're searching a lake for a drowned person, people will also noodle while they're looking for the dead person. That's called killing two birds, right exactly. And um uh.

Every once and while, somebody who's looking for a drown person and noodling in the meantime will end up drowning themselves and getting found. They did this in rivers too. I saw one guy drowned from the current sweeping him under like a beaver den, which is why noodling is not a sport to ever be engaged in alone. Yes, they always want noodling buddies. You gotta have partners spotters, because once you bring the fish up, generally your spotter will help remove the fish from your arm and get

it into the boat or on land. If you're by the banks, or if the fish pulls you under, it's good to have a two pound friend to pull you back above water. Um. Also, they helped barricade the way so that if the catfish tries to escape, it will just bump into their legs or something like that. Right.

There's there's one funny part in the end documentary where they're interviewing these two guys that are like chest deep and there's only two dudes in the scene, and they talk about, you know, do you ever worry about your buddy, you know, when he's under there for a long time. And he says, well, you know, we worry about him sometimes when it's been a long time. That's usually when

he pops right up. And as he said that, the guy like comes up from underwater, like you didn't even know now at it, and you didn't know there was a third person there, but he was noodling underfoot during the interview, right, So, because you can drown Chindi water is kind of dangerous, but you know, you have to go where the catfish are. Sometimes you dive down underwater completely and sometimes your head is above water. Another danger to noodling. And if you're picking up that this is

kind of a dangerous sport, you're you're very sharp person. Uh, And we should probably take the time to say that how stuff works does not recommend you try noodling alone or as an inexperienced person with other inexperienced noodlers. I'll just say at all, sure, go ahead, at all? Okay Um. You can also every once in a while, stick your hand into a catfish nest that turns out to be a beaver's dwelling. Yes, a underwater snake. Muskrats. Muskrat snapping

turtles are real bad too. They'll take a finger off. Um, And if you encounter one of those guys, you want to take off. Yeah, as Ronka says, get out of there right. Well, unless you're Jerry Rider. That's kind of the legendary noodler that was on Dave Letterman. He um is a big snake guy too, So when he sees a snake, he sees that as a as an opportunity, not a bad thing. Oh yeah, oh yeah. So he

grabs the snakes. He'll grab snakes, and he bait him a few times and he was like, see there, I'm bleeding from these three spots, and that's what it felt like. He was like, just kind of like a little hypodermic needle. Yeah, he said yeah, And he said I'll have him tame pretty soon. So he was so he catches him and tames him. Well, that's what he said. Well he's a snake guy. Wow, Jerry Riders snake circus. Yeah, he's the toughest guy I've ever seen. He sounds pretty tough. Actually, Um, normally,

unless you're Jerry Rider. Uh, you don't want to put your hand in a snake hole now because most snakes that live underwater near the water are deadly poisonous. Um. But most noodlers will tell you that they can tell a catfish nest from any other kind of nest just by feeling the outside of the nest. Sure experience. Um. The reason for that is that the opening will be uh sandy, uh and clean, got you uh, and pretty compact because a once once the mail comes in and

is guarding the uh, the the eggs. Um, he's just moving back and forth constantly keeping sand analgae off of the eggs and out of the nest. So the male catfish keep a pretty tidy nest. Apparently, you could not pay me any amount of wanting to do this. Man, I get a little weirded out, Like I go trout fishing in the North Georgia mountains and I'm up to my waist and beautiful clear mountain water where you can see what's going I can see what's going on, and

I'm still my head is still on a pivot. When I'm near the bank because I just know I'm gonna look up and like a snake is gonna drop on my head. But these are like the muddy waters of these river banks. Muddy river banks, well, yeah, that's where catfish twell. And actually, the fact that noodling has become such a popular popular sport, noodlers are kind of um barometers of the health of a waterway, depending on how you look at it. The Army Corps of Engineers love

to keep a tidy river way, right um. And so do most trout anglers because you can see what you're doing, and that's where you know, trout generally living in clean water, but catfish like a murky, shady, muddy um. And so you can. But that's that's how a waterway is naturally, they're not naturally clean or tidy, right um. So apparently the the Army Corps of Engineers kind of fell asleep at the switch for a couple of decades in the

seventies and maybe eighties. Uh, and basically let the Mississippi Delta go to pot unless you're a catfish fisherman. And then you're like, the catfish population came back right right. So the fact that newdlers are finding catfish easily. Uh, is a an indicator of the health of the waterway. Right, But there's also a lot of contray diversity over noodling. Yeah, we have to mention this. Yeah, And apparently it's it's a cultural thing most neodlers, um, you know, like like

Chuck said that they there legal in southern states. It's legal in southern states. In Midwestern states, very rural activity. Most city folks aren't going to go stick their hand in an underwater hole and hope a catfish bites their hands, right. You know why. One of the guys in the documentary addresses that, he said, because they're own golf courses. That's that's excellent points. Excellent point. Chuck and I are fairly cidified, and of course neither one of us would ever ever

do this. Um. But so I think part of the part of the reason why noodlers are kind of looked down upon by regular anglers, um, is that it's a rural city. Yeah. Yeah, head collision, I guess you could say, because there's plenty of you know, city types that grab their their trout boots and go out on the weekends

and go trout fishing, that kind of thing. But there's also a um an environmental concern which may or may not be true, right, because what you know, clearly what you're doing is you're pulling out a catfish that's guarding, uh, you know, a big stash of eggs. And many times you don't return that fish back to the water. You'll keep it and eat it for food, because catfish is

good eaten. Uh. And even when they do return these fish to the water, which they sometimes do, they you know, just like catching release fishing, there's a proper way to do it. And they you know, they get beat all the heck on the on the shore, so they think they might not survive from just massive injury. Right. And like you're saying, you're removing this catfish from its role of protecting these eggs, which means that once that catfish has gone, all manner of petitors go, I'm gonna go

eat meet thousands of catfish eggs. And how could that not logically have an impact a huge impact on the population of the catfish. Here's how. Because most people don't stick their hands in catfish nests in the hopes that it will bite them and they can pull it out and eat it. Yeah, it has gained in popularity, but it's still a fringe sport. We're talking like maybe a thousand people across the country that do this, maybe three thousand.

That's why there's been no studies. They can't prove anything because no one wants to put any money into a noodling study. Right, Well, I think we should study it to see if it does have an impact. But in the meantime, most um fish and Game d n R departments in the various states where it is legal are hedging their bets and are keeping the number of catches a new ler can make from May to August, which

is spawning season. Um it's three in Missouri. I think that's the average, and that's lower than if you're just a hook and line angler. You can get ten in that per day, three per day and tem per day, depending on if you're an angler. Noodlers, of course find this unfair, but again, there haven't been any studies, so I think three is an arbitrary number. Probably. I wonder if anyone's ever caught a noodler A dead noodler probably

cooked a noodler underwater. Apparently there's this boy in the nineteenth century who went noodling and he got held under by the by the catfish he caught. But I guess his grip was so tight that like a day or so later they found the boy and the catfish dead side by side on a sandbar. Really yeah, hand in mouth. Still wow. And that's something that's the way to go if you're a noodler, that is the way you die. Well. And that's what Jerry Rider said. He said, I'll noodle

till I die unless noodling kills me. And he shouldn't have said it unless he probably meant especially if noodling kills me. Should we talk about the tournament? Yeah, we mentioned it briefly. Uh. It is the biggest North American hand fishing tournament. I thought it was the only one, but apparently it's the one. It's the Oakey Noodling Tournament.

That's what it's called, and straightforward. It's in July. It's at Bob's Pig Shop in Paul's Valley, Oklahoma, and there's prizes up to like two grand I think if you win. There's different categories like Fish of the Day and then total catch of total pounding of your three Yeah, stringer. There's also natural and scuba noodling, and scuba noodling is exactly what it sounds like. Yeah, imagine they're frowned upon.

It didn't get any working. So so is gaffing, which is noodling with the hook, right, because basically you're a woose. Is that what that means? Pretty much? Yeah, because you're not sticking your hand in there, you're sticking a hook in there and their gills and pulling them out. Number one, you're immediately doing more damage to them, I imagine, but you're not using your hand. It's hand fishing, not hook fishing. But they they even frown upon gloves, dude, So this

is how these guys are. Well, yeah, they frown upon gloves because you can't tell. You can't tell from touching whether it's a snapping turtle or a muskrat or a catfish. But also they can get snagged on things underwater and keep you under So yeah, these are tough fellas and women. Yes, Josh, there is a DVD series even called Girls Gone Grabbing. Yeah, I heard or grabbling grabb No, No, I don't think it's a typo. Maybe it's called then um and and

the there's been some records. Apparently every year somebody sets a new record at the Okay Newling Contest. And what's cool is these people aren't like all in the same hole. They're all over the state. As long as the fish is caught within Oklahoma within a twenty four hour period from seven thirty pm on Friday to seven thirty pm when they're weighed on Saturday. UM, there's a gentleman's agreement to not go into the same noodling hole that some

other people are already in. It's like a fishing spot. That's pretty much it. Oh, the fish has to be live when it's weighed, um. But other than that, that's that's pretty much it. And the most recent record was set this past July two thousand nine now future um sixty eight point six pounds by a guy named John Bridges. And he had a stringer, the three fish that you're allowed to catch in that twenty four He won that one too. I don't know if you if he won that.

I don't see how he didn't because he had another fish they called it was almost the same weight as part of his stringer. So I imagine he won the stringer that year. Josh, do me a favor. Close your eyes and picture a sixty six pound catfish up to your elbow. Sixty eight point six. Sixty eight point six? Can you imagine that? Don't you think I've learned by now the hard way not to close my eyes when you tell me. To good point, that's a big old catfish. Yeah,

you got to eat catfish. Yeah, I'll eat it. YEA sure, I'm not that cidified. Well, I was just you know, for the nice of four graw of course, block sauce and all right, thank you, chuck um and catfish always. You know that sixty eight point six that's huge. It's definitely not as big as they get. You know, every like uh rural area has a legend of a catfish that's like two fifty pounds. Did you ever see that King of the Hill where he I think he was

trying to catch General Sherman. No, that was the Simpsons, was it? Yeah? I think it was. They called it like General Sherman or something like that. It was this huge catfish and here Homer and Marge around like a save our marriage retreat, and Homer sneaks out and catch the fish. And I think I did see that one. Hilarity ensues that stuff. Yeah, I think it's like seasoned fiber or something. It was. Yeah, but you hear you do here, definitely hear the rumors like Hogzilla. It's the

same thing, isn't. Well you just artist about like several hundred pounds that like Arkansas. I think it's real though I don't know about hag Zilla, but that the huge catfish definitely are Chuck. Let's end this by mentioning that noodling is not necessarily exclusive to North America. No, it's not, Josh, since ur there's a tournament in Nigeria or a festival. I guess you're gonna take the should I the room? Goofish? That's how I take it. That's exactly right, our goo.

That's a that's a different colt one that is that's why we live in Georgia. Well, this is a one hour long contest, which is yeah, kind of cool. But I think you can catch a fish anyway you can well you can, well it is hand fishing, but you can um use nets. I think you can't use like cooks and poles, so you can use nets and uh.

In two thousand and eight, the winning fish you're right, Josh was one hundred and forty pounds, right, and um, they take their hand fishing very seriously in Nigeria because they found out that the winning fishermen in two thousand and eight, Uh, bellow ya Cube. They found out that he brought a dead fish from another river and said look what I caught and they arrested him. Yeah, he was arrested for fraud in a fishing contest. I want to know how you sneak a one hundred and forty

pound fish into a river. That's probably how he got caught. I mean you can't. You can't do it very covertly. So somebody saw him and like hello, Yakube cheated and they went chink, chink and through the bookhead. Those were handcuffs by the way, just so people understand that sound effect was all about. Uh so yeah, that's noodling, right, h. I don't think there's anything else to add. So it wasn't too bad for our first one after eight years.

That yeah, on Monday morning. So if you want to learn more about noodling, you can read Debbie Ronka's Riveting Tale in article form. By typing noodling into the handy search bart how stuff works dot Com, which of course leads us to listener mail. Listener mail. Josh, before we read listener mail, we're gonna send a special shout out to our friend Chance and his little sister who have had a really rough go of it over the holidays.

We're not gonna get all into it, but Chance did say it would really make keen his little sister's day if we said hello, and so we're saying hi and hanging their guys and Happy New Year too, Yeah, Happy New Year. So having said that, Josh, I'm gonna call this. We are frauds and we've been found out. No, hey, Josh and Chuck. Allegedly, I am writing you a very

distressed fifteen year old boy living in northern Illinois. The reason for my distress is that, after closely examining the last several podcast I can come to the conclusion that your podcast is a sham. Fifteen year old call. Yeah,

he's just figuring this out. This is the evidence for this is that after listening to one of your podcasts on healthcare, I noticed that the voice quality seemed different, leading me to believe that you two never actually sit down and do the podcast together, But the podcast is merely a series of recordings and phrases cleverly put together through some sound editing equipment. It's really just a series of chucks and right right, and then Jerry just makes

it all happen. Right After listening to that podcast, it made me wonder, and I went through other ones and notice that you two never skip over each other when you talk. Not true, we are talking over each other as uh. To further reinforce the suspicion, I recently view the webcast on December two, and Chuck was disappearing into the background out of the drape. You know how Sometimes a blue screen mess up and I'll disappear. That's what

that is at UH. If this is just an honest technical mistake, or if this is a work of clever video and audio syncing gone wrong, please right back to confirm your existence. Until then, I have no choice but to assume there is no podcast but merely a series of recordings played with editing equipment from Zach Zack. I think you would very much appreciate one of our fellow podcasts here at how Stuff Works dot com called Stuff They Don't want you to know. It's about um conspiracy theories.

I think you'd be right up your alley. Yeah, you can find that free on iTunes, right, chuck uh. And of course you can always find us for free on iTunes, which is probably where you found us, um to begin with them. Yeah, if you want to send us an email accusing us of fraud, we wouldn't be the least bit surprised. You can wrap that up and address it to stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how

stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works, check out our blogs on the how stuff works dot com home page. Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you