grabbin cats

hey all,

i was just watching a show on the outdoor channel and the guys on there were practicing a very unusual technique to catch monster cat fish. there were about five guys in bathing suites walking around in about 3-4′ of water, then all of a sudden someone would go under and bring up an absolute huge cat with his bear hands.

i’ve never seen or heard of this before and at first i thought it was a joke. has anyone ever tryed this before. i didn’t catch the whole show but it looked like the were down south somewhere. they didn’t really explain what they were doing either.

anyway, it looked like a lot of fun although i can’t think of a place where you’d try something like that around here.

I’ve watched a couple shows just like that. It’s pretty humorous watching. I’m not sure if I would like to tussle with one of those critters though. Unfortunately the shows I’ve watched, they keep all the monsters they catch. Maybe they have more cats down south than we do??

They call it “noodling” and its illegal in Minnesota. I think there is only a handful of states were its legal. I have “Okie Noodling” on tape if you ever want to watch it. Its a documentary that channel two put out awhile back and its hilarious. Those dudes are seriously nuts!! One guy on the tape had been bitten by snapping turtles, beavers, snakes, etc. and still loves it. Watch this tape and one has to seriously re-think the notion that flatheads only live and rest in big deep river holes.

the show i saw they kept all the big ones too. they must of had 4-5 that were pushing 60 pounds. man they were ugly looking things.

so how do they find these things anyway. do they just walk around until they kick one???? wouldn’t they swim away after you step on its tail?

I saw a similar tape on “Noodling”. What these guys do is build these wooden boxes with a single door on the top of the box. They are pretty good sized boxes – about 4′ X 5′. They sink these boxes in the river in good Flathead spots near deadheads and steep banks. They run these boxes every few days like you would a trap line. One guy goes in the water, goes under the water and sticks his hand in the door in the box and grabs some big old Flathead with his hands and pulls her out. It is absolutely crazy. The tape I saw the guy caught a couple of huge flathead.

Was looking for the Okiee noodling tape and this was what I found. Lots of talk about this at film festivals and such.

http://www.okienoodling.com/tshirt.html

A shirt offer pops up with this but in the background is the site for the show where you can order the tape and a nice photo gallery. Wonder if there are instructions in there on building up your nerve to try this?