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Face-to-face with catfish ... Cabarrus County style
Photo by Robin L. Gardner
David Miles lays his catfish in the boat during a recent noodling trip on the Yadkin River.
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Published: June 15, 2009
Man vs. wild ... Cabarrus County style! Four men embark on a daring adventure on a spectacularly beautiful Sunday morning on the Yadkin Valley River system.
The sun is up, the water is glistening and the humidity is not so bad. These guys, packed with Cokes and junk food, are pumped to hit the water.
What they are planning to do may surprise you. These four men are not your typical fishermen.
They plan to go mano a mano against Mother Nature in the form of the comically oversized, mutant, evil catfish.
Catfish can grow up to 80 or 90 pounds, and are extremely angry when people grab them from their homes.
The men who pursue this sport are called "noodlers." It may sound a bit funny, but noodlers will hunt catfish that live in holes, or under brush in rivers and lakes.
To begin with, a noodler goes underwater to depths ranging from only a few feet to up to 20 feet.
Some free dive and some are scuba certified, so they can stay under longer and go deeper in the water.
Noodlers often use a long pole to rake across the hole to find the catfish and get a feel for the hole.
If all goes as well, the catfish will swim forward and latch onto the fisherman's hand, usually as a defensive maneuver to try to escape the hole.
Sometimes the battles require more than one noodler to pull the large fish from their homes.
Determined noodlers will battle until they've accomplished what they set out to do, drag these catfish on to the boat, weigh them and snap their picture as proof of the battle they've won.
David Miles, his father, Jim, his son, J.J., and their friend, Dale Hinson, are "catch-and-release" noodlers.
"We release 98 to 99 percent of what we catch," David said.
It's the thrill of the hunt they are looking for, the competition between fish and man, and the testerone-filled competition with other noodlers that interest them. They take care not to harm the catfish, except for the trauma of the fight, and have great respect for the fish.
David, a bricklayer who is 41, and his father Jim, retired at 65, keep a spreadsheet of the type of catfish, the date they were caught and the size.
At the end of the season fellow noodlers pull out their spreadsheets and compare totals.
The largest catfish they've caught was 69 pounds.
"The record for the state is 89 pounds," J.J. said.
"Two years ago, we caught 11,200 pounds of fish, and last year, we caught 9,850 pounds. So far this season were at 2,300," said Jim.
Jim explains that catfish have three seasons.
"The first is bust-out phase, where the fish cleans the hole for it's mate, then comes mating (where we will spare you the details)," Jim said. "The third is the guarding phase. This is where the male guards the eggs that the females have laid."
Jim is not scuba certfied. He noodles "old school" in shallow water. Jim is a free diver, and on this Sunday he drove the boat, and helped the others, because a catfish the day before had mangled his hand.
Red, swollen, bumpy, and scratched up, he felt he needed to give it a rest for the day. When asked if he had a doctor look at it, he laughed.
"What for, they can't do anything for it," Jim said.
David's wife is not a nature girl. He admits she doesn't fully understand the thrill of his hobby.
"In order to keep our wives happy we usually go out one day on the weekend," David said.
"Fish all day Saturday or Sunday, and then talk about it all week," Jim said.
They are all dressed in wet suits, except for Dale, who is a tree surgeon in Concord. Dale decided to just wear the jeans and shirt he arrived in.
Crowds seem to form wherever they stop. People are fascinated and some want the men to throw them the fish.
Jill Berkins watched Dale fight and capture one. She was ecstatic, and even went home with one of the day's catch.
"I'm gonna clean him and eat him," Berkins said.
But not everyone shares Berkins enthusiasm.
"The man who lives in the house up there came out on the porch and started screaming. 'What are doing? What are you doing? You are trespassing,'" Jim said. "I said 'sir, we are only hand-catching catfish.'
"It is legal as long as you stay in the water, and you don't go on his property. The next thing we know, he went inside his house and came back out onto the patio, and shot his pistol into the water."
Jim had his one-year-old granddaughter with him on the boat that day.
"We determined quickly it was time to call the law. So we called the police, and they straightened him out," Jim said. "Now, he just stands up there with a frown on his face."
This particular Sunday, the catfish were hard to find, but eventually, the men found their booty.
With five fish struggling to get back in the water, the boat became a bit crowded. The catfish stuggled and squirmed.
Their eyes were kind of human. They looked defeated, like wounded gladiators , and seemed desperate to get back into the water and swim away, upset at their loss to these four men.
J.J., 17, caught the biggest catfish, weighing in at 40 pounds, putting the grand total at nine for the day.
They complained that was a mere pittance, as per their usual bounty.
J.J., although he caught the largest, was lamenting the "one that got away."
"It was at least a 50-pounder! It broke my stringer and got away," J.J. said.
After a long day, the men had hauled more than 20 fish, including a 45-pounder.
Tired, they returned home, with enough tales to last until next week; and the catfish, well, you can bet
they had a few tales of their own to tell.
• Contact reporter Robin L. Gardner: 704-789-9140
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