Re: NANFA-L-- Missouri Legalizes Guddling

dlmcneely-in-lunet.edu
Sat, 01 Jan 2005 13:18:08 -0600

"Noodling" is legal in Oklahoma, and there is a community of dedicated (addicted?) noodlers around the state. My father did this in his youth in SE Oklahoma, but he called it "grabbling." From both my father and other practitioners I've talked to, I learned that the preferred technique involves carefully feeling into cavities and under banks. Evidently, the larger catfish will simply shake and settle back down when first contacted. the "grabbler" then attempts to get his hand into the opercular opening and thus into and out of the mouth, where he is able (I can only imagine that the fish is a trifle testy by this time) to grasp his wrist with his other hand and wrestle the fish out into the open. These must be big fish, too, for the hand to fit through the branchial chamber and out the mouth! Catfish have quite a pad of very tiny teeth just back of the lips and on the roof of the mouth. One fellow I spoke with claimed that the abrasions on his wrist and arm were from those tee

The "noodlers" in Oklahoma have a "tournament" each summer, and they all seem to be acquainted. At the tournament, they have a fish fry with the fish they allegedly caught by noodling. I once helped to eat a very large flathead catfish (not taken by noodling). I found it fatty, though smaller ones are very tasty, with fine grained flesh. I have found the same with channel cats. Large flatheads seem to be the main target of the noodlers I talked with.

I also once hand collected a large flathead that was trapped in a cut off pool of a small stream that had been in flood but was then-in-normal flow level. The fish appeared to be in an advanced state of stress, swimming slowly and in an uncoordinated fashion,-in-times turning onto his back. I concluded that the fish was to expire soon, but possibly mainly because of anoxia, and I waded into the pool to catch it. I intended to release it downstream several hundred yards, where it would have adequate water to find its way back into the parent stream, the Elm Fork of the Trinity River in NC Texas. However, as soon as I touched the fish, attempting to embrace it with both arms behind the pectoral fins (pectoral fin spines on flatheads are not pointed and barbed like they are on bullheads and other catfishes, and really aren't dangerous), it began thrashing, and we both ended up rather battered. When I got home, the first thing my wife said was, "You look like you've been run over by

I thought the fish would now not survive even if it briefly recovered, so I took it home, froze it whole in my chest freezer, and transported it the next week to the university (UT Brownsville) where I taught-in-the time. My ichthyology class dissected it, and its skull is still in the teaching collection there, I think, though most of the fluid collection was moved to UT Austin when I left Brownsville permanently.

In retrospect, I should have tried to use a seine to catch the fish, and perhaps I could have saved it. But it ultimately served a valuable purpose, and their conservation status is stable and common in most parts of Texas. It was 1252 mm total length (about four feet), and had seven mostly digested and unidenfifiable, sunfish and three gizzard shad, also mostly digested, in its digestive tract.

David L. McNeely, Ph.D., Professor of Biology
Langston University; P.O. Box 1500
Langston, OK 73050; email: dlmcneely-in-lunet.edu
telephone: (405) 466-6025; fax: 405) 466-3307
home page http://www.lunet.edu/mcneely

"Where are we going?" "I don't know, are we there yet?"

----- Original Message -----
From: geoff <gkimber2-in-alltel.net>
Date: Wednesday, December 29, 2004 10:07 am
Subject: Re: NANFA-L-- Missouri Legalizes Guddling

> 'Noodling' is legal here in kentucky.
>
> Doesn't seem like a great idea to go underwater and try to grab
> something as spiney as a catfish barehanded. At least, I won't be
> doing
> it anytime soon.
>
> Geoff
> Lexington,KY
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Bruce Stallsmith wrote:
>
> > Nobody else has listed this yet, so I'll take the plunge--
> Missouri has
> > legalized catching catfish by hand (my dialect for it is
> guddling,
> > yours may vary of course...). If I recall correctly, only three
> other
> > states allow this form of fishing, Oklahoma and Tennessee being
> two of
> > them (I forget the third, Arkansas?).
> >
> > The link below may break on to two lines, beware.
> >
> >
> http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/12/28/missouri_approves_fishing_with_bare_hands/?rss_id=Boston.com+/+News
> >
> >
> > --Bruce Stallsmith
> > no legal guddling in the Tennessee
> > Huntsville, AL, US of A
> >
> >
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