What is a noodle or noodling? It is a man or woman who catches a fish with his bare hands.
Noodlers go into the water, and then reach into holes, hollow tree trunks and other underwater nooks to find the fish.
Texans say that noodling is unfair to the fish and since they are grabbed in their burrows without a chance to swim away. Noodlers will be fined $500.00 if caught.
It is still amazing that if you have the guts reach in and grab a fish like this 60lb catfish with your bare hands that you deserve the fish.
A lot of the time noodlers will find something other than fish including snakes, muskrats, beavers and other creatures that give them a noodling adventure to last a lifetime.
There are two sides to every story so it will be interesting to see if noodling continues to be banned in Texas.
At this time only 17 states allow noodling those include: Louisiana, Georgia and Oklahoma, home of the Okie Noodling Tournament. Missouri also has a ban against noodling, but a group called Noodlers Anonymous is working to turn the law around.
Learn Something Fun: The origin of the term "noodling" is unclear. A columnist at The Oklahoman newspaper polled readers about it a few years ago and got several theories, including that catfish are as slippery as wet pasta and that a hand fisher's arm hangs like a noodle after battling a catfish.
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There are so much worse things humans do to animals and this is what they ban?
Catching a fish with bare hands is the most natural thing I know. People have done it thousands of years and it's in no way unfair. Using TNT on the other hand is.
I would not like to stick my hand in some deep underwater hole
noodling bad - fish traps ok?
go figure ...