COLUMBIA, Mo. - Next summer, it will be legal to plunge into some Missouri rivers and grab catfish by hand — a type of fishing that is not for the faint of heart.
Known variously as noodling or hogging, handfishing has long been a misdemeanor punishable by fines, because state officials fear it depletes breeding-age catfish. It can also be dangerous: Noodlers hold their breath for long periods under water and sometimes come up with fistfuls of agitated snakes or snapping turtles instead of fish.
That does not discourage enthusiasts, who insist there is great sportsmanship in fishing with your bare hands.
So after years of urging by noodlers, and lopsided legislative support for easing up on handfishers, the Missouri Conservation Commission has approved an experimental handfishing season next summer. Forms of handfishing are already legal in 11 states, including neighboring Oklahoma, Arkansas and Illinois.
"It's a start," John Smith, deputy director of the Conservation Department, said Tuesday. "We are moving forward in good faith to answer the legitimate biological concerns that we have, and balance that with the requests for making this process legal."
Missouri's biological concerns are that handfishers, who go for the biggest fish they can wrestle from riverbanks or hollow logs, will take too many sexually mature fish from their underwater nests.
The commission agreed to a June 1-July 15 season, during which handfishers who have bought a $7 permit can use only their bare hands and feet to catch a daily total of five catfish. Fish under 22 inches long must be thrown back.
Handfishing will be legal only along specified stretches of the Fabius, St. Francis and Mississippi rivers.
So secretive are handfishers that they have formed a club called Noodlers Anonymous. A University of Missouri-Columbia professor who got the group's cooperation in surveying its members found that most are men, average age about 40, living in rural areas.
Howard Ramsey of Paris, Mo., president of Noodlers Anonymous, said the season is a "very positive step."
"I hope this is the first step toward a statewide noodling season," Ramsey said. "Noodling is great fun and very satisfying and any lover of fishing should try it."
I once knew a guy that noodled catfish. After listening to his "HowTo", I decided that it wasn't for me!
I have seen these guys doing it and i am faint of heart so
let them have there fun. It seem that when they set laws
not to do some thing it is a bigger problem so may be it
woun't be a big thing in a couple of years
Sawwood
This is terrible news. Hot July night and we would be on the Grand river while the game warden would be on the closet bridge over the river and listening.
What are we gonna do for sport now? :D
Larry, I wood betcha they do it in ARK-IN-SAW, also. ;) ;)
That's the way we used to catch suckers! it's the only way to fish but sometimes the bears don't like the competition.
I think it is still illegal to noodle for Muskelunge here in Minnesota, so if you want to keep in the sport of baiting game wardens, come on up. By the way, I hear the fun goes out of it once you lose your other hand. :o :o
Chain-mail Glove. ;D ;D
Around here they call it 'grabbling' for catfish. I never heard of it being illegial. I've seen some big ones come out of the Tallahatchie River on occasion. I've run trot lines up and down it before but I ain't never had the nerve to stick my hand up in one of them holes in the bank! I done seen too many water moccasins up and down that there river before!
CK, Don't worry bout the snakes....muskrats, beavers, and worst of all is a 50 pound flathead.
I served in the U.S. Army in France with a fellow from Louisiana who definitely danced to a different tune than most folks. I asked him once what he did for a living before entering the Army. He said he wrestled alligators. Knowing him as I did, I have not doubt he was telling the truth.
Doesn't seem too far removed from hand fishing for those big catfish. ::) ::)
I believe there's some of that gator wrestling that goes on in Florida, isn't there FDH?
I like my fingers better than I do fish, the fish can stay in the logs and holes.
Woodcarver, the Native Americans put on shows, wrestling Alligators. Mostly, ther take a Gator, feed him REAL well, then put him in a showarena, and grab him by the tail and drag hin around. Then, they climb on top and grab the shout while it is closed. Gators have NO power in the jaws with the mouth closed. Sometimes, they pry the jaws open and insert their head between the jaws. If ya lose yer grip, the Gator's GOTCHA. We don't have any problems with wild Gators. They's like Puppy Dog's. ;D ;D ;D
I know a bunch of people that do this in Missouri--they got more mmm...intestinal fortitude than I do. Some of those Howard Co, MO boys got really BIG fortitudes and go down in the Mississipi and wrestle those 80 pounders from the bottom to 20' to the surface. Nope. Not me. Not on a bet. Gar, cotton mouths, and 100 year old snapping turtles tend to make me nervous.
Like Mark, we used to use hands to fish suckers and chub. They'd be hiding under the bank of the brook, sometimes it was just a spring hole and not really a brook that we found them in.