okie noodling ... do you know what it is?

[arlo 0]

well......... do ya?

arlo

[flyangel2 2]

Well if it has anything to do with you, then I'm sure it's pure

May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds. - Edward Abbey

[McDuck 0]

You catch fish with your bare hands? You are SO my hero! Wait...there wasn't any connotation to that, I SWEAR.

Kevin - Sonic Beef #5 - OrFun #28
"I never take myself too seriously, 'cuz everybody know fat birds don't fly." - FLC
Online communities: proof that people never mature much past high school.

[Brian425 0]

Catching fish with your hands!! Thanks Google!!!

The only time you should look down on someone is when you are offering them your hand.

[Brains 2]

I do, and those people who do that shit take "Redneck" to a whole new level.

Could you imagine sticking your hand in a hole and finding out it was a big turtle in there or something other than a catfish.

Never look down on someone, unless they are going down on you.

[arlo 0]

my brother saw a documentary on it and told me it was some of the funniest shit he's ever watched. so of course, i had to see it.

but i'm with you brains, there's no way in hell i'm gonna stick my hand into some hole wiggling my arm as bait to catch some catfish (not just ANY catfish, CHANNEL cats) beaver, snapping turtle, or any other various and asundry creatures. these catfish are 30-50 lbs. your head could fit into these cats' mouths.

but by the time the documentary is said and done, you're almost left cheering those okie noodlers on for trying to keep the tradition going. so if you guys have the opportunity to see this () you will be enlightened. you'll also sit there saying to yourself "i can't believe they really do this shit."

so long live the okie noodlers!

arlo

p.s. mar, i love you AND your reference to my purity!

..and kev? we also squat over buffalo chip fires to cook and we bury food in pots. hide the dogs. bwahaha!

[Kris 0]

I have sooooo got to move out of this godforesaken state.

Sky, Muff Bro, Rodriguez Bro, and
Bastion of Purity and Innocence!™

[bubblehead 0]

my friend worked at an ER in Oklahoma this summer and he had to treat a guy that came in there with his arm completely torn up from noodling. what happened was the guy stuck his hand under the bank and there was a beaver there that just torn the shit out of his arm.

I saw the documentary on it. that shit is crazy but looks like fun.

[rower 0]

I saw this documentary several years ago at SXSW. It was my favorite documentary that year and in fact it won the audience award for best documentary (or maybe it was runner up). Frequently, directors are available after screenings to take questions. For Okie Noodling, the director as well as some of the noodlers in the film were there, which was pretty cool.

It's definitely worth checking out if you can find it.

[McDuck 0]

You almost got me in trouble for laughing my ass off at that one.

See? now you HAVE to come visit us so we can prove we aren't as bass-ackwards as people like to think...well, at least CORA and I aren't, seeing as how we're transplants from elsewhere. We even have a spare bedroom in our new house, and you don't have to worry about sharing that room with every known species of insect...just two.

I'm still giggling over that "hide the dogs" comment.

Kevin - Sonic Beef #5 - OrFun #28
"I never take myself too seriously, 'cuz everybody know fat birds don't fly." - FLC
Online communities: proof that people never mature much past high school.

[arlo 0]

Quote

I have sooooo got to move out of this godforesaken state.

oh sweetie, don't sweat it. we'll still play with you in zhills even if you ARE from okie.

if it's any consolation, the documentary stated that noodling goes on in several states - it was just yours that hosted the first ever noodling competition (complete with a Miss 2002 Okie Noodler ).

in all seriousness, if anyone's curiosity is getting the best of them, i have a copy of it for a large group gathering/viewing. chuckie b, katie, myself, kim and kev broke it in monday.

and kev, thank you and cora for your open invite. :) i think you guys are alright regardless of what anyone says.

[Taylor610 0]

Arlo, Will you hold my okie noodler????

Just for a minute...

The we can do some noodling together!

[PLFKING 4]

Here in NC we always called it "gravelin"....same game, except we'd go after carp too. And it taught me that you CAN run through waist-deep water pretty damn quick, when a water moc is providing the motivation.
Gravelin' and frog-gigging....growing up on a farm, it didn't get much better than that.


Don

"When in doubt I whip it out,
I got me a rock-and-roll band.
It's a free-for-all."

[AggieDave 6]

Not my thing, but I've known a few folks that did that. Actually, quite a few folks up on Lake Texoma would do that...although all the big catfish were close to the dam's intake and were deeeeeep. All you needed was some heavy line and some good stink bait.

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[BIGUN 1,307]

I have sooooo got to move out of this godforesaken state.

I was sooooo ready to pack up and leave and them someone offered me a decent job back in technology. Dammit!

I'll be at SDD this weekend.

Nobody has time to listen; because they're desperately chasing the need of being heard.

[Kris 0]

Quote

oh sweetie, don't sweat it. we'll still play with you in zhills even if you ARE from okie.

Aww...you're the best, Arlo. I don't care what everyone else says about ya'.

Sky, Muff Bro, Rodriguez Bro, and
Bastion of Purity and Innocence!™

[Kris 0]

Quote

I was sooooo ready to pack up and leave and them someone offered me a decent job back in technology. Dammit!

I'll be at SDD this weekend.

Have fun at SDD, I'll be at Z-Hills this Sunday and the weekend after.

Sky, Muff Bro, Rodriguez Bro, and
Bastion of Purity and Innocence!™

[BIGUN 1,307]

grrrrr....

Nobody has time to listen; because they're desperately chasing the need of being heard.

[base311 0]

Quote

well......... do ya?

arlo

You're not gonna believe this shit... but I work at the state legislature in GA and one of the standing committees that I staff is the Game, Fish and Parks Committee... This past legislative session there was a bill introduced to make legal (mostly to define it as there was no prior code addressing the matter - a grey area) the taking of certain fish species by "Noodling" or "Grabbling". 2004, HB 1095 - the "noodling bill", we called it. Eventually a bunch of other items ruled germane were tacked on and it ended up killing the bill for the session. I expect it back next year probably engrossed.

Here's the text of that section:
_______________________________________

SECTION 4.

Said chapter is further amended by adding a new Code Section 27-4-37 to read as follows:
"27-4-37.
(a) It shall be unlawful to fish for game fish, catfish, and all other species of fish in the freshwaters of the state by grabbling, noodling, or hand grabbing except as provided in this Code section. Flathead, channel, and blue catfish may be taken by hand without the aid of any device, hook, snare, net, or other artificial instrument and without the aid of any scuba equipment, air hose, or other artificial breathing apparatus between March 1 and July 15 of each year.
(b) It shall be unlawful to alter any natural or manmade feature by placing boards, wire, barrels, buckets, or any device or obstruction in any stream or other body of water or to modify any log, hole, or other feature in an attempt to attract or capture fish by grabbling, noodling, or hand grabbing or to take fish by grabbling, noodling, or hand grabbing from such altered devices. It shall also be unlawful to raise any part of a natural or artificial device out of the water to aid in the hand capture of enclosed fish.
(c) Any game fish, except channel and flathead catfish, taken in violation of the provisions of subsections (a) and (b) of this Code section, in the possession of a person grabbling, noodling, or hand grabbing fish shall be prima-facie evidence of taking and possessing fish illegally.
(d) It shall be unlawful for any person to engage in the grabbling, noodling, or hand grabbing of flathead, channel, or blue catfish in the fresh waters of this state without a resident or nonresident fishing license as provided in Code Section 27-2-23."


SECTION 5.

All laws and parts of laws in conflict with this Act are repealed.
__________________________________


Anyway... My grandfather used to do that kinda crap whenever we went fishing... it always made the hair on the nape of my neck stand up to see him run his arm down into some hole or up under some rock. I saw him pull out catfish, trout, turtles, and one time even a monstrous watersnake that had to be 5 feet long. NUTZ! Then again, he was really old-skool... a beekeeper who would watch bees collecting water streamside... track them back to their hive in the woods and then go in after the hives in old oak trees sans veil and gloves to collect the colony and take back home to his apiary. Sometimes some of the experiences he shared with me were painful, but man I miss that Guy. There was no way I was gonna put my hand down into a muddy waterhole and grab whatever happened to be there. There are some things I simply will not do; noodling is one of them.

Neat stuff,
Gardner

[kimgriffin 0]

Verrrry interesting, base311... So, you can only Okie Noodle Flathead, channel, and blue catfish 5 months out of the year in GA. Are there so many Okie Noodlers in GA? (Yeah, you all might as well go on and fess up to your secret noodling fetish.)

I watched an Okie Noodling documentary (yuup, thanks Arlo!) and don't think overfishing by getting a catfish to bite you on the arm should be of much concern.

Now here's a sport that's really man against nature.

Funny shit!

[arlo 0]

wow gardner, thanks for that post. :) very informative. so if there is no code addressing it, does that make it illegal? that's interesting stuff... i hope that they quit tacking stuff onto the bill so that the noodling bill will pass next go-round.

i'm with kim on this one too: if people want to go out and hand-fish (grabble, noodle, or whatever you wanna call it) it seems that would be the MOST legal way to go about it...if that makes sense.

what started as absolutely curiosity watching a 'bunch of freaks' fish, i've started to gain an appreciation for these folks trying to hang onto a tradition that has been passed down from generation to generation. this was covered in the documentary too.

if you're piss drunk floating in a lake wearing a life-jacket around your legs instead of your arms, and you try to grab for bream nipping at your legs, does that officially count as noodling? whoops. i just re-read the stipulations and it looks like it's only noodling with cats. any other game fish and it's illegal.

arlo

[BlindBrick 0]

Every spring, Oklahoma gets a lot of rain and they have to open up the flood gates on the lakes to control the water levels. After they shut the gates, the bigger cats are trapped in the stream below the floodgates.

Grand Lake terminates at the Pensecola damn at Langely, Oklahoma. Below the spillway is Blue Hole state park, that's prime noodling country.

And FWIW, I have a lot of respect for the guys doing this. A few years after they built the Penescola, they had to send divers down to clear the inlets for the hydroelectric turbines. They divers came back up way early and refused to go back down without a shark cage and weapons. The cats there are that big.

At another lake in OK back in the 90's, there was a 7 yo boy who almost died after a catfish swallowed his leg. Luckily he was a strong enough swimmer that he was able to remain on the surface long enough for some people to get to him and convince the blue cat that he could find an easier dinner somewhere else.

-Blind

"If you end up in an alligator's jaws, naked, you probably did something to deserve it."

[Skymonkey13 0]

I used to noodle all the time on the Grand Lake in Okie.

We wo use 55 gal drums.

We would cut the drums in galf long ways, then weld them together so you had a 6 foot long half barrel.
Then we would cut a hole in one end.

We put them on the bottom of the lake and set some big rocks on top of them;

The we would use scuba gear, but only the weight belt, goggles, and the mouth piecs, we had the tanks in the boat and 150 feet of hose.

We cut the arms off of a wet suit and used them to protect our arms.

I have seen many over 100 pounds, but the biggest one i got myself was 94 pounds, and it almost drowned me.