The Outlaw Tradition of Noodling for Catfish (Cameron Maynard, Jan. 20th, 2025, Texas Highways)
Tall fish tales follow every angling method and species of fish, but they may be a bit weightier with noodling since the practice didn’t see statewide legalization until 2011. For most of its modern history, it’s been practiced in the shadows, hidden from the watchful eyes of the law. Noodlers fished primarily at night, wading through dark waters, quietly coming up for air like Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now. Many homeowners were happy to turn them in. More than a few noodlers were arrested, ticketed, or socially scorned for their troubles.
One such instance is legendary within the East Texas noodling community. I kept hearing the story of the “East Texas Toe-Biter” from the 1980s, when a man at Lake Tyler got into some legal trouble for supposedly throwing a 122-pound flathead out of the water because it bit him in the foot. The kicker, though, was that the fish was still alive and well, just lounging around the aquarium at the Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center in Athens. The second part of the story is not only false but also caused a bit of confusion when I called the Fisheries Center to ask about it. Turns out the world-record blue catfish, caught on a rod and reel, was actually the fish held in their aquarium for a time. All that said, the 122-pound flathead did exist, as did the legal troubles that followed the man who caught it.
Because of all this, many modern-day noodlers are former outlaws of the waterways who have broad-shouldered themselves into polite fishing society. You won’t find these outdoorspeople donning waders and fishing fedoras, then fiddling with custom-made flies between picturesque back casts. You certainly won’t catch them bedding down at places called The Moose Elk Lodge, unwinding with a bottle of Chablis. Noodlers are more likely to sleep in their boats, rally with Red Bulls and honey buns, then barrel into the water to scavenge under boat docks. One of the biggest of these former outlaws is Jimmy Millsap, a longtime Lake Tawakoni noodler who is, according to some, “the Godfather of Texas Noodling.”
“I had paved the game warden’s driveway one day and got caught by him the next,” Millsap recalls. “I told him when he caught us, ‘I guess you’re tryin’ to get your driveway money back.’”