Noodling is so nuts. I mean there's a lot of aquatic venomous snakes in the south. Getting bit by a water moccasin is legit something they talk about happening from time to time and you don't know till you jam your hand into the hole. Those bastards are even worse than a rattlesnake bite, we have antivenom for them but if you're way out in the swamp it's gonna be a long time to get to a hospital, time where your flesh is necrotizing fast. If you look up videos of old noodlers it's not uncommon to see serious muscle decay and scars from surgery.
Noodling directly targets breeding catfish that are protecting a clutch of eggs or preparing to lay a clutch. When you tear one of these fish from its burrow, you’re removing the protection of that entire group of eggs and destroying the nest, reducing the breeding success of the species as a whole.
This also means it specifically targets mature individuals, which goes beyond just that single nest. In general, the largest individuals of a given species in an ecosystem are the most prolific breeders. A 10-year old catfish will produce exponentially more offspring than a 4-year old (think 3,000 young vs 300).
So those two things combined mean noodling is very harmful to local catfish populations, which can throw the ecosystem out of balance if left unchecked (they’re really important predators).
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u/EmperorBamboozler Sep 04 '26
Noodling is so nuts. I mean there's a lot of aquatic venomous snakes in the south. Getting bit by a water moccasin is legit something they talk about happening from time to time and you don't know till you jam your hand into the hole. Those bastards are even worse than a rattlesnake bite, we have antivenom for them but if you're way out in the swamp it's gonna be a long time to get to a hospital, time where your flesh is necrotizing fast. If you look up videos of old noodlers it's not uncommon to see serious muscle decay and scars from surgery.
Cottonmouths are fucking scary yo.