Posted on Sunday 14 August 2005
So, the other day I was at a friend’s place and he started playing this DVD that he’d got from Blockbuster online. The DVD was Okie Noodling, a documentary about noodling in Oklahoma.
For those of you unfamiliar with noodling (a.k.a., grappling, hogging, hand fishing), it basically consists of the following. You walk into some muddy water where catfish live, use your hands to try to find a catfish hole, get it to open its mouth, reach in, and (if all goes well) pull the fish out. Some of the hazards include water moccasins, mistaking beavers or muskrats for catfish (you can’t see what you’re grabbing), and, in the worst case, getting your arm stuck and drowning.
For me the best part had to be the interviews with one of the legends of the sport, “Catfish” Rider. Rider tells us about how he goes noodling under some old pieces of a road that could collapse at any time and trap him. Why noodle here instead of some place safer…he never really goes into that. What really made me laugh was when Rider tells us about how he decided to get out of the national spotlight a few years ago (evidently, he was on Letterman), to get focus full-time on his love of noodling. And yes, “Catfish” Rider looks and talks exactly like you’d picture him.
I was shocked to learn that no Academy Award nominations were forthcoming for this excellent documentary! If you get a chance, I highly recommend watching it. I’m serious about this…it’s an hour or so of non-stop entertainment.
Tags: catfish, documentaries, Movies, noodling