Noodling....

[hobiecat]

I can tell ya'all this, I'm sure gonna try it! Wait til the chicks hear that I catch giant catfish with my bare hands. They'll think I'm such a manly man, I'll hafta beat'em off with a stick! Man this is gonna be great!!

[Outdoorsfool]

I hear ya PS! My dad has stories of his younger days when he and some of the crew from the St. Joe stockyards would load the boat up with coolers and hit the Missouri around St. Joe. They'd be ripped to shreds, frequently above the elbows, from reaching down the fish's throat as far as they could and then holding on for the ride. Releasing a catfish after this makes about as much sense as releasing a gut-hooked trout or bass that is under the legal limit.

[Wolfman]

Couple of points to ponder.
Hand fishing was made illegal in MO due to the impact on breeding sized cats. Started and primarily pushed for by hand fishermen themselves years ago.

The proposed limit of 5 fish and length limit of OVER 24 inchs dosent seem to make much sense if the breeding pop is what you want to protect.
Especialy with limits such as what we have below bagnel and truman dam. 4 fish limits and only one fish OVER 24 inchs.
Now they open a season to target the prime breeders during the breeding season. Can someone say Greased Palms and political favors???

Noodlers from the 3 states mentioned have pushed as hard or harder for MO to have a season then the missourians themselves have. You will see a LARGE influx of out of state hand fishermen during the limited season. Count on it!

Hand fishing is as hard on if not harder on the cats then rod and reel fishing. Expect to see some nice cats belly up along these rivers.

Basicly the MDC has chit in its hat on this one!

Hobiecat, go to a noodeling get together sometime. You can usualy tell the older experianced noodlers by the multitude of scars up and down their arms plus their usualy missing a finger or two.
There's a LOT more beavers now days then they used to be when noodling was popular. Ever have ahold of a pi$$ed of beaver? Id rather play with the mean junkyard dog!

We're just starting to see some real quality record size cats show up after years of commercial fishing and overfishing of the larger cats. Getting rod and reel fishermen to release those large breeding size cats that seem healthy and strong. Now the MDC decides to come along and blow about 10-20 years of work right out of the water.
Hell, who needs limits. Lets just keep em all big n small.

[fish]

By ODF

Therefore they know exactly how many fish can be taken without any effect on future breeding and are prepared to close the season as soon as that number of fish are taken. Is that what you're trying to tell me? Hmmm...I might owe fish an apology. If he knows all this, then he's a lot smarter than he looks.

I heard that ODF!!!

...an yes you can get pretty dang close the numbers of fish in a stretch of water by using various sampling methods(I don't feel like going into detail)...an yes there are scientific methods of predicting recruitment (survival) of young into the population(I don't feel like going into detail on this either)

Anywho, don't get your shorts in a wad over this. It will be monitored closely. Trust me on this !!!

- fish

[bullitt]

My shorts a in a constant state of waddedness. I think it will be very tough to monitor.
What really needs to be monitored is noodlers putting junk in the river to fish out of. Hot water heater tanks and drain pipe is often used to set up a milk run. I don't want a bunch of crap sunk in the river.
right now it doesn't affect us on this side of the state.

[Tigerhaze]

fish said:
Anywho, don't get your shorts in a wad over this. It will be monitored closely. Trust me on this !!!

- fish

I know you're "in the know" on these issues, but it strikes me that the most abuse of noodling is going to be on "closed" rivers nearby to the open rivers that are minimally monitored. For example, the Fabius is one of the test rivers. What is going to stop noodlers from going over to the Fox River, Wyakonda River, or Chariton River and then stating when stopped that they got these cats on the Fabius? What is going to keep them from strecthing the season length a little bit? Of course, noodling goes on now so in that respect there is not much difference in that thieves don't respect the law. I just think that MDC doesn't have enough enforcement "manpower" to adequately police the impacts from these reg changes.

[Rafe Hollister]

I'm guessing that, like (almost) everything else, there's a factor of safety built into the regs. In other words, they're accounting for some of that to happen and are choosing locations that it won't hurt that much if it does happen.

Just like they're figuring some poopoo-for-brains will take a shot at a flock of turkey with a 10 ga. in the fall and kill 2 birds. Now that they've seen it's not that big of a deal, they're gonna allow 2 birds in a day.

[fish]

Tigerhaze - Yeah its gonna happen on closed rivers. It is happening now(well, not right now) but the thought is if you want to noodle why take a chance on getting your busted on a closed river when you have an open one 20 miles away. Thems that do it in areas with no open river nearby, well, they will keep on taking their chances. An your right when you have 1,2 agents per county( an a bunch of MoCraigs living in it ) it is tough to keep on top of everything.

[bullitt]

I hope they have to carry a big, sticky, yellow noodler permit in addition to all the other big, sticky, yellow permits the dumas' from the MDC make us carry.

[Outdoorsfool]

But I'm still confused as to how you can "release" a fish that doesn't meet length limits. That makes zero sense to me. Does MDC not know how fish are generally "noodled". If the fish is dead or death is imminent after being noodled, what is the purpose of releasing it? It won't live to breed, why shouldn't it be kept and eaten.
Another thing, wasn't the major concern on breeding age fish? Since when did only fish less than 22 inches breed?