3rdgensooner
5/17/2011, 11:38 AM
Long Arm of the Law Penalizes Texans Who Nab Catfish by Hand (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703864204576321940917861336.html#p rintMode)
State Noodles With Decriminalizing Fish-Grabbing; Watch Out for the Tail
DALLAS—Brady Knowlton believes it's his inalienable right as a Texan to shove his bare hand into the mouth of a 60-pound catfish and yank it out of a river.
http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/P1-BA707_NOODLE_DV_20110515173419.jpg
Brady Knowlton with friends—at an undisclosed
location—with a 60-pound catfish he caught by hand.
But wrestling a flapping, whiskered giant as it latches onto your arm with its jaws isn't among Texas's accepted methods of capturing fish. It is, rather, a class C misdemeanor, with fines of up to $500.
So Mr. Knowlton, a 30-year-old-private citizen, oilman and outdoor enthusiast here, is pushing a bill in the state Legislature to legalize hand fishing, also known as noodling, grabbing or hogging. Noodlers go into the water, then reach into holes, hollow tree trunks and other underwater nooks to find the fish.
Nothing beats "the heebie-jeebies you get underwater, in the dark, with this little sea monster biting you," he says. He recalls that his arm looked like "the first stage of a chili recipe" after his first noodling experience about 15 years ago. Catfish are equipped with bands of small but very abrasive teeth.
The bill swam easily through the state house, but now rod-and-reel anglers are speaking up against the proposed law, currently in the state Senate.
They say noodling is unfair to the fish, since they're grabbed in their burrows without a chance to swim away.
It's more sporting, antinoodlers argue, to dangle a hook and give the critters the option of biting or not. Snatching a catfish from its underwater nest also leaves thousands of eggs exposed to predators, they add.
Jesse Zuelly, a 50-year-old project manager for a telecommunications company and a lifelong catfish angler, is concerned the state won't have sufficient manpower to keep legal noodlers from taking too many fish out of smaller lakes and rivers.
He'll give hand-fishers some credit, though. "Those guys are brave to stick their hands in them holes, I'll give them that," says Mr. Zuelly, who fishes with a line in Lake Lavon, northeast of Dallas.
While noodling has a long history in the U.S., only 17 states permit hand fishing, including Louisiana, Georgia and Oklahoma, home of the Okie Noodling Tournament.
In Missouri, which prohibits fish-grabbing on grounds that it would deplete the fish population, a group called Noodlers Anonymous is supporting a bill similar to the one in Texas.
The origin of the term "noodling" is unclear. A columnist at The Oklahoman newspaper polled readers about it a few years ago and got several theories, including that catfish are as slippery as wet pasta and that a hand fisher's arm hangs like a noodle after battling a catfish.
Noodling can have some image issues, as suggested by the title of a reality show scheduled for this summer on Animal Planet: "Hillbilly Handfishin'."
Mr. Knowlton says noodling opponents "want to paint people who do this as lower than a snake's belly in a wagon rut." Many people are under the erroneous impression that "everyone who noodles is an uneducated, toothless hillbilly," he says, noting that he is a college graduate. He also has all his teeth.
Noodling is illegal in Texas because officials didn't consider it a "sporting way" of taking fish when they sat down to write the rules decades ago, says Ken Kurzawski, regulations director at Texas Parks and Wildlife, the agency that oversees fishing in the state.
State Noodles With Decriminalizing Fish-Grabbing; Watch Out for the Tail
DALLAS—Brady Knowlton believes it's his inalienable right as a Texan to shove his bare hand into the mouth of a 60-pound catfish and yank it out of a river.
http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/P1-BA707_NOODLE_DV_20110515173419.jpg
Brady Knowlton with friends—at an undisclosed
location—with a 60-pound catfish he caught by hand.
But wrestling a flapping, whiskered giant as it latches onto your arm with its jaws isn't among Texas's accepted methods of capturing fish. It is, rather, a class C misdemeanor, with fines of up to $500.
So Mr. Knowlton, a 30-year-old-private citizen, oilman and outdoor enthusiast here, is pushing a bill in the state Legislature to legalize hand fishing, also known as noodling, grabbing or hogging. Noodlers go into the water, then reach into holes, hollow tree trunks and other underwater nooks to find the fish.
Nothing beats "the heebie-jeebies you get underwater, in the dark, with this little sea monster biting you," he says. He recalls that his arm looked like "the first stage of a chili recipe" after his first noodling experience about 15 years ago. Catfish are equipped with bands of small but very abrasive teeth.
The bill swam easily through the state house, but now rod-and-reel anglers are speaking up against the proposed law, currently in the state Senate.
They say noodling is unfair to the fish, since they're grabbed in their burrows without a chance to swim away.
It's more sporting, antinoodlers argue, to dangle a hook and give the critters the option of biting or not. Snatching a catfish from its underwater nest also leaves thousands of eggs exposed to predators, they add.
Jesse Zuelly, a 50-year-old project manager for a telecommunications company and a lifelong catfish angler, is concerned the state won't have sufficient manpower to keep legal noodlers from taking too many fish out of smaller lakes and rivers.
He'll give hand-fishers some credit, though. "Those guys are brave to stick their hands in them holes, I'll give them that," says Mr. Zuelly, who fishes with a line in Lake Lavon, northeast of Dallas.
While noodling has a long history in the U.S., only 17 states permit hand fishing, including Louisiana, Georgia and Oklahoma, home of the Okie Noodling Tournament.
In Missouri, which prohibits fish-grabbing on grounds that it would deplete the fish population, a group called Noodlers Anonymous is supporting a bill similar to the one in Texas.
The origin of the term "noodling" is unclear. A columnist at The Oklahoman newspaper polled readers about it a few years ago and got several theories, including that catfish are as slippery as wet pasta and that a hand fisher's arm hangs like a noodle after battling a catfish.
Noodling can have some image issues, as suggested by the title of a reality show scheduled for this summer on Animal Planet: "Hillbilly Handfishin'."
Mr. Knowlton says noodling opponents "want to paint people who do this as lower than a snake's belly in a wagon rut." Many people are under the erroneous impression that "everyone who noodles is an uneducated, toothless hillbilly," he says, noting that he is a college graduate. He also has all his teeth.
Noodling is illegal in Texas because officials didn't consider it a "sporting way" of taking fish when they sat down to write the rules decades ago, says Ken Kurzawski, regulations director at Texas Parks and Wildlife, the agency that oversees fishing in the state.