> There is a little paragraph on the end about "noodling for flatheads".
> Interesting stuff. "Tennessee anglers who noodle for flatheads hiding in
> cavities in the bank have been known to dispense with the rope and use their
> arms to reach directly into the fish's mouth."
>
> Any TN people care to shed some light on this? Like, why?
Okay, I'm not from TN (my wife is, sorta), but I've read that noodling "can
allow harvest of large flathead catfish that may not be vulnerable to
harvest by conventional angling. Perceptions that hand grappling is not
'sporting' reside primarily among individuals who may not have participated
in the fishery" (Jackson, 1999, "Flathead catfish: biology, fisheries and
management") from the book _Catfish 2000_.
Another reason for noodling is that it's cheap. No bait! No rods and reels!
I've heard that people noodle for brown trout, too.
Chris Scharpf
Baltimore
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