Fishing with our bodies for bait

We visit a river in Oklahoma to try catch a big fish that lives in a murky hole, using our bodies for bait! Sounds like a bad idea right? But they say it’s a traditional method of fishing in America, so we must get educated.

Practising 'Noodle' finger movements
Meeting a champion Catfish Noodling master and our teacher
En route to the fish holes, walking through a field...
...Through some bushes
The dangers of Noodling arn't just a massive catfish, there may well be an alligator, snake, beaver or snapping turtle occupying these holes!
The Noodle hand
Trekking up a river
Trekking through a river
Trekking in a river
Our master has found us a hole
Hamish draws the short stray and goes first
Andy enjoys Hamish's tremors
This whole activity is massively counter-intuitive
The hand didn't work as bait, so Hamish sticks his legs in and as you can see on his face, theres something alive in there!
Got off with just a fine
Hamish didn't have a fishing license, so was taken away for interrogation by a fishing officer
The local newspaper wants a photo, although they may be laughing at us?
It was the smallest fish of the day but at least we excelled at something
We weight our catfish in
The Catfish Noodling competition attendees want a closer look at our fish, not sure if it's because it's so big or so small?
Our fish has water again, now off to the competition...
Then in to a tub of water in the back of a truck
Hand it over the fence
Take it across a massive field
We walk our fish back down the river
No fish in that hole
Andy backs his body in
Andy had a go too
Bootylicious
Hamish got a bite
Andy calms the fish down with his eyes
We pull out a catfish who was much bigger than we expected
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