In the U.S. state of Louisiana, a new trend is gaining traction: noodling, an extreme method of catfish fishing where the bait is the angler themselves. This is reported by Outside.
Remmy Bearden, a 25-year-old fisherman, describes the process as follows: he lowers his leg into an underwater hole, and a male catfish guarding its eggs immediately attacks. “We’re not catching blue catfish; they’re catching us,” says Bearden. His knuckles are covered with scars from catfish teeth.
Another professional noodler, Vinnie Wozniak, says he organizes these fishing trips for those eager to try the new fad. He charges $400 (about 31,000 rubles) per person and receives over 400 messages a month. Many of his clients have never held a fishing rod before. For instance, one time his fishing event hosted a bachelorette party. The women involved lowered their limbs into the water and managed to catch a massive fish on their very first attempt.
According to Wozniak and Bearden, their cult figure remains 63-year-old Skipper Bivins. He started catching catfish with his bare hands when he was just four years old. In North America, Bivins once caught a catfish weighing 50 kilograms, and in Spain, he landed a 113-kilogram fish.
Biologists aren’t raising alarms yet: according to estimates from the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation, there are too few noodlers to seriously impact catfish populations. However, the risks for fishermen are very real: while searching for fish, they might encounter alligators and venomous cottonmouth snakes, which infest the local swamps.
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