Okay, I have been stormed by PMs on how to's. Here is the place to get em answered. My wife and I have about 35 years of experience so I will do my best not to lead you wrong. We have won multiple noodling tournys and are currently the raining champs in the lonestar state, had to add that for all the red river rivalry guys since im from OK. If anyone wants to know how or has questions here is the chance, I will try to be on every night thru the week, but have tournys on weekends till august.

What lakes have you noodled in Texas are there any lakes that have better structure than others for what you are looking for? Lakes or rivers better?

I've noodled several. Also have caught fish out of all but Bridgeport. Fished there this weekend for 20 mins and sunk my boat. The lake you will want to fish will be shallow around the shoreline with alot of concrete or flat rock in the shallows. We have been catching anywhere from 6" of water to about 8'. As the water temp rises the fish will move to deeper structure to spawn as they need the correct water temp to incubate the eggs as well as good oxygen content. It is a common misconception that you have to noodle deep to catch big fish. we pulled a 58 out of 6" of water on Sat night. Pulled 24 fish that wieghed 903 lbs. Turned all loose that were females though. I would suggest this to you as well. They will find another partner and nest elsewhere. Also you will need to have loose or soft bottom under this structure that the fish can fan out a nest in.

I always thought this was a interesting video on noodling cats at Tawakoni.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gokZa7PJjVw


Who would have known a single dock could hold so many fish.


Reggie

Watched a couple of minutes and the guys on that video are using a net. Don't believe that is clasified as noodling. That would be illegal netting as I read TX law. These are the guys that get the sport taken from us. If your gonna do it, do it Hands only!

We have some concrete structures that can hold up to 8 to 10 fish though. We also don't noodle blues. We prefer flatheads.

logging off tonight will be back tomorrow night.

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.

Yeah I gotta try this sometime or atleast watch someone ! First thing I gotta do is learn how to go underwater without holding my nose LOL

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

In my experience, brush was extremely hard to noodle, unless you can find a big hollowed out log. I like finding actual holes, that way you kind of know that its a fish and how big it is by how hard it bites your stick or foot. I tried noodling some brush in the river we were in and its extremely difficult. Lots of snakes and turtles too. You have to use your hands when noodling the brush, the pole will just spook them. That's my experience anyway, but I'm not an expert by any means.

Those guys are holding the fish in its den with a dipnet. Thats 100% illegal in Texas. If they are smart they will take down that vid before TPWD sees it.

Always idiots out there that ruin it for everyone else. I hope they get busted. That would definately take the fun out of it.

Sounds like you guys have it figured out to an extent. Nice job all the way around. A few things to remember. The bigger the entrance to the hole the bigger the fish(most of the time) the only exception to this is when fish fan so much they close up the hole they came in. Usually during spawn there will be 2 fish per hole. Don't give up after you pull one. You may be leaving the mate. We pulled 2 females and a male 2 different times this week, so maybe even 3 to a hole. Also, I think that the Gwardens we spoke with at the tournament were OK with A stick but will ticket for pvc. Alot of people use pvc to hook fish and it will give the sport a bad name if Guys continue to use it. Yes never trust the ring on any stringer. Also they will issue citations for pulling fish to you with your feet. And scuba booties with a reinforced toe work best for footwear.

Late season when water temps sour into the 80s and above in the shallow rivers, brushpiles are deadly for noodling. You will have to grow an extra pair though. That is when the sport will take you close to the other critters. Snake, aligators, beavers, and turtles. For a beginner I would suggest only to start with holes that have no chance of having air in them. That is the only reason someone should ever need a stick to noodle. TX law does not allow you to munipulate a fish with the stick either, they should be for checking for critters only. Concrete, pavement, bankholes, beaver dens, culverts, bridge endbutments, these will all hold fish. Just remember the 2nd ingredient is the bottom. Has to be soft and loose enough for the fish to fan a nest.