04-30-2004, 04:02 AM
Memorial Day signals the beginning of summer. Time to vacate, recreate, and go fishing, or grappling, as the case may be. Grappling (pronounced "grabbling"), noodling, tickling, and marling are terms for hand fishing. Armed with only a stick for "tickling" the fish out of his den, grapplers will search swamps, rivers, and streams for the delicious, ubiquitous Ictaluridae: the catfish. To the uninitiated the practice seems bizarre if not downright foolhardy. But to those who have been baptized with the bite of a blue cat and still manage to land it, grappling is sheer enjoyment.
Hurtsboro resident Mickey Easley grew up in Calhoun County, Mississippi where grappling is still a way of life. He's been at it over thirty years starting as a boy in Mississippi and, since living in Alabama, along the Tombigbee, Cahaba, and Black Warrior rivers. Easley speculates that hand fishing has native American origins. Commercial fishermen used other methods, but farmers adopted it as a means of subsistence fishing. People continue to hand fish for recreation and because, as Easley said, "I've been doing it so long, I can't imagine not doing it."
Starting in late spring and into summer, as the water temperature rises at different strata of lakes and rivers, catfish will spawn. The male chooses a den and cleans it out, even wearing off skin and fins in the process. When the bed is prepared, he will allow the female in to lay her eggs, and he fertilizes them. He then runs her out and remains alone guarding the eggs until they hatch a week or so later. Grapplers search these dens during the bedding period for yellow cats, blue cats, channel cats, and any other worthy and tasty opponent.
Hollow logs, bank dens, and Tupelo Gum and Cypress tree stumps made hollow from heart rot are natural cavities for beds. Easley also constructs several types of artificial dens (which are legal in Alabama but not in Mississippi). Metal milk jugs, wooden boxes, water heaters, and metal pipes are some of the materials used. He puts a wooden front and interior in the metal pipes, because the fish don't seem to like the metal. Some people mistake these for traps, but, said Easley, the fish always have a way out "until we stick a hand in there to catch them." He sets out the artificial dens in April in a flood plain area where the water level is static and the dens will stay submerged all year. Natural dens are more problematic. "You stop up all the exits with a hand or foot or sack, then you 'tickle' the fish with a stick to see if he's in there." once the eggs are laid, the male protects them ferociously and will bite anything or anyone who comes near them. "When the fish bites, you've got to hold on instead of jerk back." That's not easy considering these fish will bite through gloves and break the skin. A friend of his, a novice at grappling, dry-docked a fish when it bit him. "He pulled back so fast and slung that fish about 8 feet to shore... Sometimes they grab hold like a bulldog and shake you, then turn loose hoping you'll go away. You do that repeatedly until he drives you off or you carry him home with you." These days Easley and other grapplers wear gloves to protect their hands and wet suits to keep them warm and buoyant in the water.
Summoning the courage to engage in such a sport is none too easy. Alcohol has made many fainthearted brave, but Easley discourages this. Peer pressure, cajoling, and rivalry are more effective. Men and women and young boys and girls just learning the craft will shame one another into reaching into the den below the murky water. Easley recalls, as a young boy, he and his Sunday school classmates comparing the bites and scratches on their hands, from the previous day's adventure. Such battle scars were worn with pride, and the child with the most earned bragging rights for the week.
Mark Twain wrote that Huck Finn and Tom pulled a catfish the size of a man out of the Mississippi River. That may be an exaggeration, but only slightly. It is not unusual to catch a fish in the 50 to 60 lb. range and even over 100 lbs. for a blue cat, said Easley. Novices often fear getting finned while grappling, but Easley said that's rare because the fish wear down their fins when preparing a bed. He has never come across a snake or a turtle, although he did find a beaver in a hollow log "...and when you find something that feels like it has hair, you give it a lot of room."
Those unfamiliar with the practice, including fishery biologists, often criticize it, said Easley, but it's safe and poses no significant threat to the fish population. As the practice gains popularity in Alabama, Easley foresees a regulated season and bag limit. Some commercial catfish farms have adopted the practice, but grappling began and continues as a family and community activity. "It takes experience to remember year after year where the hollow logs are under the water and which stumps are good dens. Each person who learns this cultures it in some way and passes it along to the next generation.[#990000]
![[Image: Grappling.jpg]](http://www.tnwildside.org/Images/Stories/Grappling.jpg)
[/#990000] Folks, we’ve been around long enough to know that some people will do all kinds of things for a little excitement. Whether it’s skydiving, bungee jumping, scaling mountains, or anything else with an element of risk, some of us humans seem to thrive on the joy of living life to the extreme.
We can understand the thrill of the rushing air once you jump out of that plane, or the sense of accomplishment when you reach the highest peak, but when it comes to grappling, we stop and ask ourselves: How would we feel sticking our hand underwater, through a submerged log or under a rock, not knowing what we will touch or how it will react?
Call them specialists, call them crazy, or call them fishermen of a different breed, but grapplers definitely have a special relationship with their intended catch: catfish. We’ve heard stories of people catching hundreds of pounds of the whiskered whoppers by submerging, feeling around, and surfacing with their supper in their arms. Definitely not for the faint of heart.
It's not a sport for the faint of heart.
Nothing gets the old ticker pumping like reaching under submerged rocks and into holes in the river bank hoping to feel something -- like a big fish -- snap shut on your hand.
"When they rotate to bite you, they will shake the whole bank," Wilson Countian Jim York said enthusiastically. "You stick your hand in there, and they'll mark you up."
York has the marks to prove it after his last "grappling" outing found a 63-pound flathead catfish in the Cumberland River.
Grappling -- in some places the practice is called "noodling" -- dates back to prehistoric times, when man lacked fancy fishing equipment to land a meal. Early anglers used their fingers as bait, reaching under objects in the water to simply grab fish, turtles or anything else that could be cooked.
Catfish hole up to spawn in late May through early July. Hidden away, a catfish protects its fishy nest with the good humor of a pit bull with pups.
Many modern grapplers use gloves and, if necessary, large hooks to snag fish and pull them out. But it still involves blindly sticking a hand in a dark hole hoping to touch something big enough to swallow an arm.
Of course, the first grapplers had an excuse -- hunger. York and his partner, Crockett Carr of Lebanon, said grappling satisfies another kind of hunger for them.
"I think there is satisfaction in knowing you can do that," York said. "We can go out and we can create a meal."
York's flathead will produce more than a few meals when cleaned and dressed. York estimates that in 15 years of grappling he has landed -- the hard way -- 15,000 pounds of fish.
Grappling can be exciting but also dangerous. Occasionally, an unlucky grappler finds the wrong end of a snapping turtle and goes home one finger short. There have also been rare cases when grapplers drowned after going underwater to get at a large fish that wouldn't come out.
Carr will slip his hand into dark places with the best of them, but he is more likely to defer to York, who is always ready to go in head first if necessary to dislodge a big fish.
"I can't say I'd do it if he wasn't along," Carr admitted. "He's always been crazier than me. I'm his assistant. I hand him things."
It took the both of them to get this big flathead out, but it was touch and go. At one point, York suggested to Carr that he let go.
"I told him I couldn't," Carr recalled. "I said I don't have him. He has me."
Before the struggle was over, Carr had one less glove. The fish swallowed it.
Grappling might be considered a young man's sport, but there may not be many young men taking it up. Carr is 59 and York is 60.
York said his two sons have tried it but find other less dangerous ways to get their hearts racing.
"They've caught 'em, but they don't have the passion."
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