you should. . .watch Okie Noodling

I want to immerse myself in opaque neck-deep water wearing only a pair of cutoff denims, and to take a deep breath and go under, stick my hand into a murky hole until I’m shoulder deep and my whole fist is inside the mouth of a big fish catfish, and I want to grab onto that fish and wrassle it into my arms, into my boat, and onto my dinner plate. I want to be a noodler.
After watching Okie Noodling, I know that noodling is my destiny. Noodling, or “handfishing”, or “grabbling” is a venture that involves the barehanded catching of big catfish. According to one of the interviewees in this documentary, noodling is a rare pursuit because “Very few people want to go under water, stick their hand in a hole, and get bit. And that’s what noodling is.”
So, I think noodling is something we should all think about doing with more of our free time. We should do it because it’s badass, and because you get fish out of it. Plus, if you wanted to, I’m sure you could manufacture some stupid philosophical reason for it. As one character, a plumber, says after telling a story about using his hand to unclog a shitclogged pipe, “I guess you’re always noodling somehow.”