My team noodled our first catfish this weekend. I'll log my experience on here as well. We were brand new to the sport and only knew what I'd researched on the internet and saw on youtube. Hands only! was right on with the type of stuff to look for. Once we figured that out, there were fish under almost every big rock.

The first day, we noodled up and down about 8 miles of river and didn't find a single fish. I didn't really know what I was looking for, but just never found a hole that was "right." I don't think our rivers are good for noodling, not enough clay.

The second day, my team and I went to a reservoir and started looking around some large flat rocks with a muddy/clay bottom. The first hole we found was very shallow and went into a small clay bluff bank. I stuck the pole in the hole to see if anything was in it and I felt something bump the pole. Still not sure if what was biting the pole was a beaver, turtle, or fish I was a little timid to stick my hand in there. About the time I got the stones to do it, the fish shot out of the hole and hit me right in the nuts! Okay I saw it was a channel catfish about 5 lbs, so I knew what I was looking for. After the guys I'd banded together for our "noodling team" finished laughing at me, we moved on.

The next hole we found was under a big slab rock, I stuck the pole in there and felt a fish bite it and bite it Hard! I called the team over and we surrounded the rock feeling for exit holes. Once we had all of them blocked I crammed my hand under the rock up to my shoulder. I could feel the fishes tail, but couldn't ever get it to turn around and bite my hand. The hole was too small to get my leg in there. It finally bolted out of an exit hole, knocking one of my team on their butts. Looked like a flathead about 30 lbs. We were fired up! Two holes with fish about 30 yards apart.

The next hole we found was similar to the hole described above, a big flat slab of rock. This hole under the rock was more like a cavern though, and once we got everyone surrounding the hole, I stuck 3/4 of my etire body under the rock and moved my feet around. Once I cornered the fish, he bit my foot and had about half of my tennis shoe in his mouth. I slowly began to pull him towards my hand, but he let go. He tried to bolt out of the hole just like the other one did, but this time he tried going out of the hole I had blocked with my body. He wedged himself between me and the bottom and I grabbed him and yanked him out. It was about a 20 lb flathead, and my team was whooping and hollering but when I pulled him out of that hole he went nuts. I lost my grip after I pulled him out of the water because he was twisting so much. We forgot the stringer along with gloves about 40 yards away in the boat. We were bummed that our first fish was a decent sized flathead and we lost him because we were unprepared. Oh well, quick release and on to the next one.

The next fish we found was a small channel cat of about 4 lbs under a shallow flat rock. We secured this fish, I grabbed him (with gloves this time) by the gills and pulled him out. First one we actually caught!!! Small, but still exciting and we had one on the board.

We looked for more holes for about two hours after that with no success. The last bank we stopped at had a HUGE flat slab of rock. My team and I worked it over pretty good checking for holes on all sides of the rock. We had just about got finished checking it when my buddy hollered out "He just bit my stick and its a good one!" We worked this fish for a good 10-15 minutes, he was biting everything you stuck back in that hole. He bit my foot, he bit two different sticks, and finally he bit my buddies hand. You could hear the fish bite him underwater and all these air bubbles came up. He was down underwater for awhile and finally pulled up this huge 20-25 lb bluecat. We all jumped on him, not wanting him to get away like the flathead did.

Sorry for the long post, but this was some of the most exciting fishing I have ever done. My team and I are hooked.

Some things I would suggest bringing.

Tennis shoes, gloves (don't kid yourself, they will tear you up!), long, heavy duty stringer (tie a loop in the stringer, don't trust the ring on the end), camera.

A team of about three to four people is what we had and it worked well. One guy managed the boat and we took turns having three people surround holes and the other guy handling the boat.

Im assuming brushpiles are 2nd choice when rocks arent present ?

I know you guys don't want an Okie to win again.

We're going to go check some new water this afternoon. I'm going to try and take my GoPro camera and get some video. Hopefully we find some holes. If its a good hole, i'll stick the camera in there and show you what one looks like underwater, if there's a fish in there it could get real interesting. We may not find any holes but we'll give it a shot. The creek we are going to has good visibility, and we've seen flats in there pushing 30 lbs.