To noodle

You noodle the catfish. Carry the neater snakes home in a minnow bucket.

Noodling...it's a harmless pastime. My okie nephews were great noodlers. Since the time I was about five years old until I was 12 or so, we visited the relatives around Holdenville possibly every-other year. Every time I went back to okiehomie to visit I went noodling with my sister's kids, in the swamp near their house. Two nephews and a niece were just my age.

Summer in Oklahoma. Kids out running around, even at night. Informal. We wore cut-off denims, no shoes or shirts. It's a small town, and it gets rural right at the last stop sign. We'd go to the swamp, where the boys had built a board skiff. It was water tight, and carried three, or two with one guy pushing. That sort of thing. We caught water snakes, turtles, and catfish.

An alligator snapper can easily weigh 50 pounds, have a head as wide as my foot. You can keep them in a burlap sack in the boat, and they'll lie quietly. But when you carry them home, you have to hold the tail, because they have very long necks, and if you try to hold them anywhere on their shell, they'll snap you good. They can take off a finger. You hold them by the tail, and they stick their necks up along the shell, mouth agape, looking around for you, and your companions stay well out of range of that head, because it strikes like a snake. You let the snapper get hold of your pants if you're wearing long pants. They'll hang on for a long time, keep the mouth busy, won't bite anything else. You have to pay attention, because if they let go the pant leg, they might get interested in your bare toes. When we go home we realize we smell like fish and swamp water. We put all the critters, except the catfish, into a pit in the back yard. Most of them are gone in the morning. The catfish went for dinner.

Most times we are accompanied by the blond cocker, Dusty. Dusty was a companion, not much of a pet. He'd play fetch with you if you insisted, but you had to put up with his condescending looks when he brought back the ball. I figured he liked to go with us mostly because, at the swamp, the boys let him ride in the boat. Also was Friday, the duck. He was Dusty's companion, and where ever Dusty went, so did Friday. He mostly walked, although he was a good flier. Every now and then he'd perch on Dusty's butt, and Dusty would let him ride. Sometimes Dusty and Friday slept in a pile. Friday was sociable. He liked for you to scratch him behind his eyes. Sometimes he would put his head in our laps, close his eyes, hold real still, waiting for his scratches. Friday loved the swamp.

Lots of fun. Drove my sister nuts, though, with all the critters. Lots of those snakes went under the house, possibly at least one cottonmouth.