Catfishing & Noodling Hats

Noodling is catfishing with no rod, no reel and no bait but your own arm. Field & Stream reports it is legal in about 16 or 17 states, and it goes by different names along the river: Oklahoma says noodling, Mississippi says handfishing or grabbing. The targets are flathead, channel and blue catfish, a noodled flathead averages about 30 pounds, and the season runs roughly June to August, once spawning starts at about 80 degree water. The teeth can rake the noodler's arm and hand, and PBS and ITVS made a whole documentary about it, Okie Noodling. The rest of the catfish crowd is no quieter. Outdoor Life warns that bear-hugging a thrashing catfish is a good way to lose your drawers. A Louisiana catfisher says bait has to smell to be good, and likes to go at night, when fewer thieves steal your jugs. Field & Stream quotes a wife telling her husband he is the idiot who reached in there and grabbed that catfish. These catfishing and noodling hats turn all of that into embroidery. Two badges, CATFISH ANGLER and NOODLER, carry the search terms. The sentence designs carry the stink bait that clears a room, the arm as the bait, the lost drawers, the fried catfish and hushpuppies, and the pun of catfishing on a river instead of the internet. Every design is custom embroidered on an unstructured dad hat, for the catfisher, the noodler, or whoever rides home with the bait cooler.