Fishing - Missouri Approves Fishing With Bare Hands

Missouri Approves Fishing With Bare Hands

By SCOTT CHARTON, Associated Press Writer

COLUMBIA, Mo. - Next summer, it will be legal to plunge into some
Missouri rivers and grab catfish by hand - a type of fishing that is
not for the faint of heart.

Known variously as noodling or hogging, handfishing has long been a
misdemeanor punishable by fines, because state officials fear it
depletes breeding-age catfish. It can also be dangerous: Noodlers hold
their breath for long periods under water and sometimes come up with
fistfuls of agitated snakes or snapping turtles instead of fish.

That does not discourage enthusiasts, who insist there is great
sportsmanship in fishing with your bare hands.

So after years of urging by noodlers, and lopsided legislative support
for easing up on handfishers, the Missouri Conservation Commission has
approved an experimental handfishing season next summer. Forms of
handfishing are already legal in 11 states, including neighboring
Oklahoma, Arkansas and Illinois.

"It's a start," John Smith, deputy director of the Conservation
Department, said Tuesday. "We are moving forward in good faith to
answer the legitimate biological concerns that we have, and balance
that with the requests for making this process legal."

Missouri's biological concerns are that handfishers, who go for the
biggest fish they can wrestle from riverbanks or hollow logs, will take
too many sexually mature fish from their underwater nests.

The commission agreed to a June 1-July 15 season, during which
handfishers who have bought a $7 permit can use only their bare hands
and feet to catch a daily total of five catfish. Fish under 22 inches
long must be thrown back.

Handfishing will be legal only along specified stretches of the Fabius,
St. Francis and Mississippi rivers.

So secretive are handfishers that they have formed a club called
Noodlers Anonymous. A University of Missouri-Columbia professor who got
the group's cooperation in surveying its members found that most are
men, average age about 40, living in rural areas.

Howard Ramsey of Paris, Mo., president of Noodlers Anonymous, said the
season is a "very positive step."

"I hope this is the first step toward a statewide noodling season,"
Ramsey said. "Noodling is great fun and very satisfying and any lover
of fishing should try it."

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On the Net:
Missouri Department of Conservation: http://www.mdc.mo.gov