The other day I watched a TV show about "Noodling," which is essentially sticking your hand into a big catfish's mouth and wrestling him out of the water. It brought back the memory of a hot summer day on the Verde River in Cottonwood, Arizona.
Carol was sitting on a half submerged lawn chair in the middle of the river, drinking pop and lazily fishing, while Rick, our youngest son and I were swimming and goofing off downstream. We splashed our way around a bend in the river, when Rick yelled, "Hey dad! A big catfish just swam under the bank over here!"
I dog paddled over, but even though the water was fairly clear I couldn't see anything.
"He's right under there!" Rick said.
We had heard about noodling from some of the old-timers, but I never thought that I'd want to try it.
"See if you can catch him, dad!"
I summoned up some courage and carefully reached down under the bank. My fingers brushed up against the slippery side of a big fish and I immediately yanked them back .
"Yep, he's there all right!" I said shakily.
"I heard that if you tickle their belly, it hypnotizes them, then you can stick your hand in their mouth and just pull them out!"
Rick was trying to make it sound easy, but I didn't see him sticking his hand down any giant fish's mouth. In fact he had backed a safe distance away. I reached down again and tentatively slid my hand under the fish's belly. I was just barely able to keep my mouth above the water while I attempted to do my best fish belly tickle.
"Boy, he is big!" I gurgled.
"Is he hypnotized yet, dad?"
"It's kind of hard to tell, Rick. He sure seems to enjoy being tickled, though."
Tiring of all the foreplay, I took a deep breath, slid my fingers up to his gaping mouth and grabbed his lower lip. The fight was on!
"I don't think I hypnotized him enough!" I yelled, as the big fish started thrashing back and forth. I thought he was going to yank my arm off, and I gladly would have let go, but he had clamped his mouth shut on my hand and it was a toss up as to who was catching who.
"Don't let go of him, dad!" Rick yelled from the bank, where he had found a safer place to watch the fight.
My arm felt like it was about a foot longer than it used to be, and I was sure my hand was missing some fingers. Gathering what was left of my strength, I made a mighty heave and flopped the struggling catfish up onto the bank beside a wide eyed Rick, who quickly jumped back into the river.
If you've ever caught a catfish, you know that they are hard to kill, and this one was no exception. I picked up a rock with my left hand and smashed it down on top of his head, which resulted in squashing my fingers, still in his mouth, even more. Finally he opened his mouth to gasp for water and I yanked my hand free. I laid beside the still flopping fish, rubbing my throbbing arm and counting my fingers.
“Are you OK, dad?”
“Oh yeah, that was easy!” I said, trying to keep the quaver out of my voice, “Let's go show mom!”
As we rounded the bend in the river, I held the big fish behind my back, hiding it from Carol's view. When she saw us she grinned and held up a stringer with several ten inch catfish to show us. When we got closer I showed her the big fish, and Rick proudly yelled, “ Look what dad and I caught!”
Carol retired from driving the ambulance last month.
