[karibear]

What kind of cats are these? When I was a kid we used to catch blue and channel cats in the Ozarks, but none of them looked quite like these.

[LadyRobyn]

Originally Posted by BillyC64

This ole boy on the bottom looks like he may have been noodling for that cat,but how about that top one....tell me it was on a pole or trotline....I don't even want to think about reaching in that mouth What's the story LadyRobyn? I haven't been noodling since I moved out here from OK and I kinda miss it...They gots gators out here!

LOL! The top one is our Son-in-Law with a 44lb flathead he caught down at Waurika Lake. (the smaller one was 27 lbs.) The Son-in-Law is only 5 ft tall. He was using a pole with braided line when he caught those two. Then just for fun they put our Grandaughter on it for a pic.



The bottom one was a Blue channel cat that our daughter caught a few weeks after all of the flooding rains we had last year... it got mired in the clay when she reeled it in so their friend (being a true OK gentleman) dove into the mud to help her bring it in. So, no noodling on those trips, but our Son-in-Law has done it quite a few times...

After all the pics were taken they tossed them back in to be caught another day... Wonder how big those flatheads are THIS year?

There is a story behind those flatheads... I'll try to tell it proper tomorrow.

[mkfarnam]

Can you guess which one is LR hold a fish?

[karibear]

What is noodling? If it's anything like tickling trout, that's something we never did - too many cottonmouths, copperheads, and water moccasins, to say nothing of snappng turtles. I wonder if the colors are somewhat different is different areas - our blue cats were a dark steel blue, channel cats were dark gray, and mud cats were - well, mud-colored. And we always used trot lines for catfish, poles [cane poles] were for bass and sunfish. Those sunfish were little buggers, but my heavens, they were good rolled in cornmeal and fried.

[Bass&Catfish2008]

Originally Posted by karibear

What is noodling? If it's anything like tickling trout, that's something we never did - too many cottonmouths, copperheads, and water moccasins, to say nothing of snappng turtles. I wonder if the colors are somewhat different is different areas - our blue cats were a dark steel blue, channel cats were dark gray, and mud cats were - well, mud-colored. And we always used trot lines for catfish, poles [cane poles] were for bass and sunfish. Those sunfish were little buggers, but my heavens, they were good rolled in cornmeal and fried.

Noodlin' is basically hand-fishing. Most Okies I know believe that it originated with the Native Americans. In some other parts of the South they call it "hoggin" or "grapplin." The idea is that you go looking for holes where the larger cats are and you reach your hand into the mouth of the fish...waiting for it to bite down on your arm. Oklahoma is the front-runner on hand-fishing as I think it is pretty much illegal in just about every other state in the Union (with the exception of TN and MS if my memory serves me correctly). You should check out the award winning film called "Okie Noodlin." It's a documentary that will give a first hand look at hand-fishing and the people that do it...pretty cool stuff! There is actually a Noodlin' Tournament that occurs in the film in Paul's Valley...I'm not sure if they have carried on the tradition of having the tournament every year or not.

[karibear]

Originally Posted by soonerborn2008

Noodlin' is basically hand-fishing. Most Okies I know believe that it originated with the Native Americans. In some other parts of the South they call it "hoggin" or "grapplin." The idea is that you go looking for holes where the larger cats are and you reach your hand into the mouth of the fish...waiting for it to bite down on your arm. Oklahoma is the front-runner on hand-fishing as I think it is pretty much illegal in just about every other state in the Union (with the exception of TN and MS if my memory serves me correctly). You should check out the award winning film called "Okie Noodlin." It's a documentary that will give a first hand look at hand-fishing and the people that do it...pretty cool stuff! There is actually a Noodlin' Tournament that occurs in the film in Paul's Valley...I'm not sure if they have carried on the tradition of having the tournament every year or not.

Ah, it is similar, only with trout you get them to swim over your hand and try to flip them onto the bank. Mostly we went either to fast-moving small rivers that were clear as crystal and all rocky banks and riverbed, hence the snakes and turtles, or a really big lake - Wappapello, nearly on the Arkansas border. Wasn't much there is the way of shallow coves, at least not the parts where we went, plus there were some very big alligator gars. Mostly we got catfish in the 5-10 lb range, but the biggest one I ever saw was at Wappapello when I was 7 or so. With both the head and tail cut off, the body filled a chest freezer. No idea HOW much that sucker weighed. Or how they butchered it after turning it into a block of ice, for that matter.

[mkfarnam]

Where I'm from there's Brooks, creeks and rivers every where. we had a creek runnin' through the north pasture on our farm. It got bigger as it got closer to town. What we did was did was break off a limb from a small tree. sharpen one end and go spearing.

[Bass&Catfish2008]

Originally Posted by LadyRobyn

You guys can tell the stories... I just show pictures.

These are some great lookin' fish LadyRobyn!!! I've never caught a catfish as big as that first picture. The biggest I ever caught was about a 20 pounder. Okay........maybe 15 lbs