A bill to make it legal to go “noodling” for catfish in Iowa lakes, streams and rivers is under consideration in the Iowa House.
Rep. Ray “Bubba” Sorensen, R-Greenfield, sponsored the bill to have the state start issuing noodling licenses after hearing from Iowans who want to try to catch catfish with their bare hands.
“I’ve had constituents bring it to me before,” he said, “but this was an entire family.”
Sorensen said the teenage girl in that family went “noodling” in another state, “and that’s where she kind of fell in love with it.”
It is legal to go “noodling” for catfish in at least 17 other states, including Wisconsin and Illinois.
However, the fishing technique has opponents, including Jim Obradovich, a lobbyist for the Iowa Conservation Alliance, who spoke during a House subcommittee hearing on the bill.
“How noodling works is a person reaches in with their hand and the biology of the catfish kind of creates a kind of a handle or a hook for a person. Once you get past your wrist and you grab on and the catfish grabs on and the way it ends is one of the two will give up.”
Beyond the potential of injury to the human hand, Obradovich said noodling isn’t good for the fish.
“Noodlers generally don’t then take that catfish and then filet it or eat it. They just send it back. This causes damage to the fish. The larger fish which they go for in this activity are the gene pool that we want to keep around and keep healthy for catfish procreation.”
The bill has cleared the House Natural Resources Committee and was reviewed Tuesday by another subcommittee.