Catfish Noodling - With Gator

I said I like Internet Superstar and now there's Lil' Interet Superstar, which I'm guessing is a more daily dose or something. Gator hosted one alone on one of my all-time favorite topics... catfish noodling! Basically, noodling is when you wiggle your fingers in a muddy hole so they look like a worm and entice a catfish to swallow them. Then you stick your hand in it's throat and haul it out. So, the catfish bites your hand... and that's the objective! This first-finger account is the one that hooked me about a year ago. I gotta confess that Gator's clips are tight, but here's a decent look at some guys flexing their skills...



These catfish they're hauling out of the water can be up to 50 or 60 pounds. Imagine jamming your hand down a first-grader's throat and trying to haul him away from the telivision. Now imagine that kid is a badass swimmer and you're battling underwater. That's a rough wrassle. But imagine if you picked the wrong hole and got a truly giant catfish. How big could that be?

A pretty big man could be two hundred pounds. A big fatty lineman could be 300. Now double that and you've got the giant catfish. That's right, in the Mekong river, National Geographic reported that fishermen caught one that was nine feet long and 650 pound in May, 2005. If you tried to noodle that, you'd have to play Jonah and have a partner hold your ankles as that monster swallows you whole.