Noodlin' for catfish

Hey Chick and boomers
I don't know if it's on everywhere, but here the noodlin' for catfish documentary is on. It's crazy.
All the guys and me to a much smaller degree did it when I was growing up on the Arkansas River.

Chick, this is REAL fishing.

smile

Smile, the 6th Annual Okie Noodlin Tournament is June 25th in Pauls Valley, Oklahoma. I LOVE to fish as you know, but I am afraid of what could be in one of those holes besides catfish! Tell us about one of your experiences. It must be quite the adrenaline rush. Would you do it now? All this talk makes me want to try it...at least once.

chick

Hey chick, If those grizzly guys can do it, you can too. My noodlin was only when I was a kid and the ponds overflowed into the gullies and ditches. My cousins (one of whom noodles big fish now) and I would wade in the gullies and catch fish with out hands then take them to my grandpa's forge and roast them and eat them.

Best way is to telephone them though. Loved that.
smile

Smile,
Is telephoning stil legal in Oklahoma? Some states won't allow it. Are there any remnants or tools of your Grandpa's forge left? I can see you and I sitting on a riverbank soon, sharing Fish stories. I got a million!

Have you ever heard of the baking soda bomb?

chick

[ May 20, 2005, 02:08 AM: Message edited by: chickadee ]

What in the world are you gals talking about? Telephoning?

Hey Chick,
No I never heard of the baking soda bomb. Is that the same as dynamiting the pond?? We did some of that, but not much.
Telephoning is sooo much more fun. Very illegal, but when I was a kid, my family controlled access to the Arkansas river for several miles so we locked the game ranger out and telephoned and noodled our way to a huge fish fry every summer. Telephoning is like fishing rodeo. WILD!!
Dianne, you gotta' watch the fish noodling show on PBS. Actually I think it's on video at blockbuster too, but not sure. Anyway these crazy men go under water into these caves and wrestle 40 and 60 pound catfish to the surface. You gotta watch.
Telephoning is almost as crazy, but not quite as dangerous as long as you don't get beaned by a dipnet. You produce a slight shock in the water with an old telephone ringer and the fish come to the surface. They are kind of addled and they swim around like crazy in every direction. People in speeding boats with long dip nets catch them kind of like calf roping on water. There's all kinds of craziness going on and screaming and crashing and people being knocked into the water and it's a blast. Just like a huge fish rodeo.
FUN!! But if they catch you it's a $10,000 fine and a year in jail. Game rangers have no sense of humor!!
smile

P.S. The forge went up in smoke when the fort burned. Long story.
smile

I definitely have to chalk this conversation up to my "learned something new today" category. ha!

How do you do the baking soda bomb?

I just love this topic!!! Smile, I have seen the OKIE NOODLING documentary twice and I hope to purchase it when I find it in a video store. The movie also has a website, by the way, from which the documentary may be purchased.
ARI

Well, well, well talk about learning something new every day. I just called my brother in Canada to get the baking soda "recipe". He laughed and said "I told you it was baking soda because I didn't want you to know". It was LIME. You put lime in a mason jar,poke holes in the top, throw it in the water and get outta the way. It takes a minute or two before it explodes and stuns the fish.
Imagine all these years, thinking it was b soda. When my cousin and I tried it(soda), we couldn't figure out why it didn't work for us but always did for our brothers. I'm stunned

Dallas, Dianne Ari, u all like to fish?

chick

Dan says he's not heard of the lime deal, but he has seen folks (Not him of course--sure) use carbide for the bomb thing.
Bombs knock the fish unconscious and sometimes kills them so they're easy to catch, but the telephone only makes them nuts so they're harder to catch, but a lot more fun.
We're planning to visit my sister who has a boat on the Arkansas River on our way east. We would all love to telephone, but there's too many rangers nowadays and we're too impatient to fish with a pole.
Oh well, we'll just fload down the river and enjoy the serenity.
Onward.
smile

I love to fish - just have never done it quite the way you have!


Kayleigh got her first rod & reel last year as a house warming present and is very excited about heading to the lake this year to use it.

The problem we have up here in Dallas is that anything we would catch, I couldn't even think about eating b/c of the industrial pollution - hopefully when the kids and I go back to WV this summer to visit family and friends that I can get Kayleigh out on the New River or some other good little fishing spots in southern WV.

Dallas, catch and release would be the way to go. My children and I would say, Let'em go and Let'em grow.You and Kaleigh are in for a treat.

My kids Love to fish as much as I do. It is a great outdoor exercise that keeps a family close. Most of my children's stories are about me (Mom) taking them fishing. There wasn't a Dad around to do so.

Being a child tomboy sure came in handy after my divorce.

chick

I love this thread ya'll. I like to fish, too. (Only when they're biting, though )Drowning worms & wetting lines doesn't do it for me. When I lived in Florida, the Fish & Game guys would tell me about their 'telephone' adventures - the Fish & Game are the only ones allowed to do it. They count 'em & throw 'em back. I had a lot of fun working with them. My best fishin' days were on the St.Johns River, fishing for mullet. Yum, yum. When they're biting hard, it almost gets boring. You catch so many you could never eat them all. Since the St. Johns is both fresh & salt, you can catch all kinds of interesting things in it. I got to see some of the bass tournaments, too. Some of those boats cost more than my first two houses! I miss that place sometimes.....and Chick, you're right - being a tomboy does come in handy sometimes.

All this talk about fish made me hungry for some so I am baking a large catfish bought fresh this morning. It smells so good in here...

Yum, so far I have only had catfish once in my life and that was in a restaurant in Alabama.
Do you stuff catfish?

chick

Stuff em? Only in your mouth.

Here's the best way in the world to cook catfish.

You dredge them in cornmeal and fry them outdoors in in big iron wash kettles.

You make a ton of hushpuppies from cornmeal, onions, baking soda, sugar, salt and eggs and you fry the hushpuppies up then you make salad in wash tubs.
You make gallons of home made ice cream and whatever berries you can find.
You get some sawhorses and two by fours and set up some tables outside. Then you invite all your friends with musical instruments and you eat, drink moonshine, and dance outside til the sun comes up.
smile

OMG, Smile...you're makin' me hungry!!!

Did you guys see in the news today, the pic of the man with the 124 lb catfish? That thing was huge! He donated it to Cabela's (did I spell that right?) the Outdoors company. He caught it in Illinois and the Cabela's is in KC, Kansas.

You can stuff catfish if you're baking it. I am baking this one because I hae fresh lomes and lemons to and some frends gave me some freah homemade churned butter. I usually beer batter catfish however and deep fry it and eat till my pants want to split....

Oh I forgot to tell you this story, an male friend of mine that taught diving at the Hoover Dam said way way down deep the catfish would scare the beegeebies out of his students because they were the size of men, some were way over 100 pounds but it was illegal to kill them....I can't imagine that in my fryer cooker.

I caught a 20 lb blue when I was last fishing. It almost tore my arm off trying to land it. Can you ladies imagine coming face to face with something like a 120 pounder underwater?

Homemade churned butter,I miss that.

Has anyone been ice fishing? Now that's a treat.

The last time I saw a washtub, was Saturday night bathtime many years ago.

chick