Noodled for the first time today...didn't stay too long. Had a fish in a hole under an old boat ramp but never got him out. He was mad, every time my hand went in I got bit, but all I could get was my whole arm in there. Every time I got bit he would grab my fingers to about the first knuckle or a smidge past, real fast. Finaly tried to get the stick in there to maybe reposition him and I didn't have my side of the hole covered well enough and he escaped out between my legs. I guess thats where I went wrong. Also might have made a mistake by puting the stick in there first... If you leave em alone after you've messed with em a bunch, will they repostition themselves closer to the entrance? Oh well, next time we'll get him... I had a blast though!!

Noodled for the first time today...didn't stay too long. Had a fish in a hole under an old boat ramp but never got him out. He was mad, every time my hand went in I got bit, but all I could get was my whole arm in there. Every time I got bit he would grab my fingers to about the first knuckle or a smidge past, real fast. Finaly tried to get the stick in there to maybe reposition him and I didn't have my side of the hole covered well enough and he escaped out between my legs. I guess thats where I went wrong. Also might have made a mistake by puting the stick in there first... If you leave em alone after you've messed with em a bunch, will they repostition themselves closer to the entrance? Oh well, next time we'll get him... I had a blast though!!

Holes that go far up into the bank are difficult. Most of the time, the male will set up and guard the front entrance of the hole. Many times, on shallow holes, you can acutally see the fish's head at the mouth of the hole if you approach quietly. The trick is to stick your hand in first, not a stick because most of the time a flattie will only give you one shot at biting something and then run to the back of a hole once he figures out what's going on. If there is an entrance and an exit, you can get your partner to stick his hand in the other hole and eventually the fish is going to try and escape out of one of the openings, at which point, either you or your buddy is going to get him. We've worked on fish for 30 minutes before we've gotten them into a good position. Some holes are just too far back and you're not going to get a fish out of there and you just have to move on. I try to look for holes that aren't as open and have an entrance or just an entrance and an exit. You can also dig the hole out wider and deeper to where you can fit in. I'm sure Jason has some tricks I haven't figured out yet and he'll post some of those up.

They're going to twist when you get your hand in their mouth, so be ready. If you can get your hand through their mouth and through their gillplate they can't twist much. Once you get them out of the hole, secure the rest of fish with your legs.

Hope that answers your questions. It's harder than they make it look on TV :-)

Im not going that far just yet lol. I'm going to have to see jason prove the pink glove thing first hand!

Went solo last night and ended up with one channel cat.