A DIFFERNT SORT OF FISHIN'

Long Arm of the Law Penalizes Texans Who Nab Catfish by Hand
State Noodles With Decriminalizing Fish-Grabbing; Watch Out for the Tail


DALLAS—Brady Knowlton believes it's his inalienable right as a Texan to shove his bare hand into the mouth of a 60-pound catfish and yank it out of a river.
But wrestling a flapping, whiskered giant as it latches onto your arm with its jaws isn't among Texas's accepted methods of capturing fish. It is, rather, a class C misdemeanor, with fines of up to $500.
So Mr. Knowlton, a 30-year-old-private citizen, oilman and outdoor enthusiast here, is pushing a bill in the state Legislature to legalize hand fishing, also known as noodling, grabbing or hogging. Noodlers go into the water, then reach into holes, hollow tree trunks and other underwater nooks to find the fish. (click below to read more)

Nothing beats "the heebie-jeebies you get underwater, in the dark, with this little sea monster biting you," he says. He recalls that his arm looked like "the first stage of a chili recipe" after his first noodling experience about 15 years ago. Catfish are equipped with bands of small but very abrasive teeth.
The bill swam easily through the state house, but now rod-and-reel anglers are speaking up against the proposed law, currently in the state Senate.
They say noodling is unfair to the fish, since they're grabbed in their burrows without a chance to swim away.
It's more sporting, antinoodlers argue, to dangle a hook and give the critters the option of biting or not. Snatching a catfish from its underwater nest also leaves thousands of eggs exposed to predators, they add.
Jesse Zuelly, a 50-year-old project manager for a telecommunications company and a lifelong catfish angler, is concerned the state won't have sufficient manpower to keep legal noodlers from taking too many fish out of smaller lakes and rivers.
He'll give hand-fishers some credit, though. "Those guys are brave to stick their hands in them holes, I'll give them that," says Mr. Zuelly, who fishes with a line in Lake Lavon, northeast of Dallas.
While noodling has a long history in the U.S., only 17 states permit hand fishing, including Louisiana, Georgia and Oklahoma, home of the Okie Noodling Tournament.
In Missouri, which prohibits fish-grabbing on grounds that it would deplete the fish population, a group called Noodlers Anonymous is supporting a bill similar to the one in Texas.
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.
Noodling can have some image issues, as suggested by the title of a reality show scheduled for this summer on Animal Planet: "Hillbilly Handfishin'."
Mr. Knowlton says noodling opponents "want to paint people who do this as lower than a snake's belly in a wagon rut." Many people are under the erroneous impression that "everyone who noodles is an uneducated, toothless hillbilly," he says, noting that he is a college graduate. He also has all his teeth.
Noodling is illegal in Texas because officials didn't consider it a "sporting way" of taking fish when they sat down to write the rules decades ago, says Ken Kurzawski, regulations director at Texas Parks and Wildlife, the agency that oversees fishing in the state.
So anglers are allowed to use a variety of tools, including fishing rods, some kinds of nets and jug lines—baited fishing lines that are attached to plastic bottles that float on the surface—but not their hands.
Noodling practitioners say the tradition comes from American Indians, who transferred the knowledge to settlers. Since then, it has been passed from generation to generation, particularly in the South.
Many noodlers see it as the purest form of fishing because of the direct contact between man and underwater beast. Some sportsmen use protective gloves when they venture into the darkened cavities that catfish prefer, but others say bare hands are better to identify what lies within.
It's not always a fish.
"There's muskrats and snapping turtles and snakes," says Gary Webb, a 67-year-old farmer and noodling authority in Missouri. His brother had to get 13 stitches on his chin after inadvertently encountering a beaver, Mr. Webb says.
Techniques vary. When the fisherman puts his hand into the hole where the fish is, the fish usually bites. Then he can grab the catfish by a lower-jaw bone, or, if he sticks his arm in deep enough into the fish's body, he can poke his fingers through its gills.
But most important is controlling the tail, Mr. Webb says, which is usually done by the noodler wrapping his or her legs around the fish. "If you don't get that tail immobilized, I don't care how big or strong you are, you're not going to whip that fish," he says.
Mary Grigsby, 58, a rural sociology professor at the University of Missouri, Columbia, is working on a book on noodling, tentatively titled "Fishing for Collective Identity—The Intersection of Gender and Class in the Identity Work of Rural Men and Women Noodlers."
Noodling, she notes, is usually done by a group of people and "instills close ties of trust, respect, reciprocity and provides recognition of manhood for the initiates."
Ms. Grigsby spent many hours in the water with noodling families for her research and tried hand fishing herself. "I can affirm it requires skill and endurance," she says.
She has no opinion on whether it should be legalized, she says, because she's not sure what effect that would have on catfish populations.
Texas has plenty of catfish at the moment, says Tim Bonner, a biologist who heads the aquatic research station at Texas State University in San Marcos, south of Austin. And as long as it is well managed, noodling shouldn't threaten that, he says.
To some in Texas, the ban on noodling is a sign of government run amok.
Gary Elkins, a Republican state lawmaker who represents part of Houston and sponsored Mr. Knowlton's bill in the house, says the state should have no role in telling noodlers how to go about catching their prey.
That does not mean he has any desire to try their methods, he says: "I'm not sticking my hand in a fish's mouth."