Noodling!

[thechief]

hey guys theres gotta be some other people out there that have noodled also i love noodling been doing it every year i go back to bama for the past like 4 years i wanna hear your noodling stories my personal biggest was a 27 pound cat i dont have pictures of it but i know my uncle does in alabama so ill try and get them so i can post them up here haha heres a smaller one i caught last trip out there not much but only picture i can find right now haha

i caught this turtle about 15 mins before i went out noodling this sucker was MEAN!

well im gunna try and get ahold of my other pictures in the meantime post you stories/ pictures!

 

[tjfish]

Its all fun and games til you reach up in one of those holes for a cat and theres one of those turtles waitin for you...ya think they're mean on the end of a fishin line, try the end of your finger lmao.
Actually i used to go noodlin when i went down to OK with my buddys family but i dont do it anymore.

 

[thechief]

haha yeah i know the reality of that! a buddy of mine on that lake is missing two fingers hes about 60 something and still noodles all the time! he lost them on two separate occasions too! yeah seeing the death rate per year is kinda nerve racking but i think its worth it been doing it all these years and nothings happened yet haha the guys i go out with have caught several 60 pound monsters a week before i came out they caught a 40 pounder out of our boat ramp! i was pissed i wasn't there to catch it haha there's always next time do you have any pictures of your noodling days? i know for me its difficult to get pictures because you have to be able to get them back to the house with out it jumping out of the boat haha (has happened to me with a few 20 pound fish)

 

[tjfish]

No unfortunately I dont have any of those pics. I lost alot of my pictures from those days when i left my ex.
Ill see if my buddy can find any pics from those trips, If so ill post em up here for ya.

 

[thechief]

haha okay sweet i would love to see them anyone else got any noodling tales?! haha also if anyone knows why its illegal in most all the states besides the south i would love to know! i wish i could do it out here in cali im sure it would be as good as in alabama but still haha

 

[tjfish]

I have been told here in missouri that it is illegal here in MO because the times when they are "holed up" in the tunnels and holes in the banks where noodling is generally done is when they are spawning and protecting their eggs.
They outlawed it here because the cats were being caught while guarding their eggs which when done on a large scale could damage the population because when you take the guarding parent the eggs are left vulnerable to predation.
I cant guarentee this is correct, but its what i was told by a couple of MO conservation agents.

 

[jworth]

thats exactly right, its pulls catfish off of their nests. Its all fun and games until there are no fish left to spawn.

 

[tjfish]

However if ha catch a big cat up in some shallow water in a stream or somethin and they're not guarding a nest its fun as hell to wrestle them in by hand rather than pole and line. I've done that a few times as well.

 

[thechief]

Ohh okay I see that makes alot of sense that's for the enlightenment maybe I should start practicing catch and release noodling haha and that sounds awesome! Anyone else been noodling??

Sent from my Nexus S 4G using MonsterAquariaNetwork App

 

[tjfish]

If ya really want a challenge, try catchin trout by hand