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How Noodling Works · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
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Speaker 1: from house Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to
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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me is always as
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Speaker 1: Charles W. Chuck Bryant. You can call me Rusty. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: no doubt, Chuck. This is the first time in eight
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Speaker 1: or nine years since we've done this. Weeks. Everyone should
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Speaker 1: like years. This is the first one back from my
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Speaker 1: elementary school Christmas vacation. Yeah, it's been weeks. Yeah, it's
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Speaker 1: our first one in two the future. Yes. And I
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Speaker 1: told Josh I'm having re entry problems like I always do. Yes,
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Speaker 1: I like walk to my cube and everything looks strange,
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Speaker 1: and it was like being it's like the first day
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Speaker 1: on the job. He's constipated. Huh yeah, a little bit. Actually,
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Speaker 1: that's what happens when you stay away for too long
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Speaker 1: and you wake up, sit up like a stiff as
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Speaker 1: a board, and you're like, I have to work today
0:58
Speaker 1: and poop and how was your good good break? Yeah,
1:02
Speaker 1: it was great. I went to the Isle of Palms
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Speaker 1: and Charleston. It was very nice. It was super cold,
1:08
Speaker 1: but it was nice went to Drayton Hall. I don't
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Speaker 1: know what that is. It's the oldest intact preserved plantation
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Speaker 1: of its kind on on the Eastern Seaboard as far
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Speaker 1: as I know. You know the difference between a farm
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Speaker 1: and a plantation the plants. I'm gonna start two thousand
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Speaker 1: ten with the fact plantations only grow one crop. Is
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Speaker 1: that right? That's what I'm told. I would have thought
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Speaker 1: it had to do with the size or something. One crop,
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Speaker 1: farm many crops? Very nice? Is that is farm Latin
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Speaker 1: for many crops? I think. So there's a good fact
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Speaker 1: for Mr Charles W. Chuck. Quit while I'm ahead, and
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Speaker 1: we'll check out here. Yeah, we'll give you the email
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Speaker 1: address so you can say congrats, Chuck. We'll give it
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Speaker 1: to you at the end of this podcast, which happens
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Speaker 1: to be on a little something called noodling. Yes, you
1:54
Speaker 1: may also know it as hogging, dogging, stumping, hand fishing.
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Speaker 1: That's that's yeah, that's a popular one. Actually, that's when
2:01
Speaker 1: the city folk call it. And now, actually I was
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Speaker 1: on the YouTube's and they were all all those dudes
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Speaker 1: were calling hand fishing. Have you ever done this? No? No,
2:10
Speaker 1: nor have I, And um, it doesn't seem like a
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Speaker 1: sport that will ever become real popular because it's so
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Speaker 1: thoroughly terrifying. Yes, absolutely, I would never ever do this.
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Speaker 1: What we're talking about is, as Chuck said, hand fishing,
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Speaker 1: but it goes by all sorts of colloquialisms. We called
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Speaker 1: it noodling in this article on how stuff works dot com. Uh.
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Speaker 1: And basically what it is is you stick your hand
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Speaker 1: into a underwater catfish nest, which they tend to nest underwater,
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Speaker 1: and you're in the water. We should point out you're
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Speaker 1: not doing this from a boat, no, um. And you
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Speaker 1: get the fish to bite your hand and you pull
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Speaker 1: it out and there you've just fished. You've just noodled. Yeah, Yeah,
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Speaker 1: that's it. That's pretty much it. Of course, there's all
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Speaker 1: sorts of other interesting stuff that surrounds this, which we
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Speaker 1: will discuss at length starting now. Right it You know
3:00
Speaker 1: what it reminded me of was you saw the eighties
3:03
Speaker 1: Flash Gordon movie? Right of course? Oh, come on, tree,
3:07
Speaker 1: did I didn't You didn't see Flash Gordon. No with
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Speaker 1: the Queen soundtrack and all that. No, definitely not. Wow. Well,
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Speaker 1: Timothy Dalton in one scene they have this it's like
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Speaker 1: a test of courage where they reach into this these
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Speaker 1: different holes in this big like rock type thing, and
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Speaker 1: there's a creature in there that will bite you if
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Speaker 1: you stick your hand down the wrong hole. So they
3:29
Speaker 1: go down to the elbow and then of course one
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Speaker 1: of the guys got tagged on the wrist and like
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Speaker 1: green ooze, who's out his wrist? That's did he perish? Um?
3:39
Speaker 1: Noodling reminds me of that sand monster in Return of
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Speaker 1: the Jedi, Yes, except you know it's smaller, not much no, uh,
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Speaker 1: and actually noodling can be deadly. There's all sorts of
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Speaker 1: peril that the sport is fraught with. Let's talk about
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Speaker 1: the history of it. First Native American and its roots. Evidently, yeah,
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Speaker 1: apparently the first time it appears in Western literature is
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Speaker 1: in seventeen seventy five. This trader historian named James A.
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Speaker 1: Dare traveling the South and he said, uh, yeah, the
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Speaker 1: Native Americans have this weird thing where they get in
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Speaker 1: the water and they actually apparently used like red cloth
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Speaker 1: like you know, enticed to fish like toro toro to
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Speaker 1: the catfish. And then yeah, but then they'd use their
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Speaker 1: hands to pull them out. I imagine that the Native
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Speaker 1: Americans would use kind of whatever means they could to
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Speaker 1: get the fish out, and this is one of them.
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Speaker 1: And since catfish are so huge, this was you know,
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Speaker 1: a prized catch. Yeah, apparently they, like you said, there
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Speaker 1: was all sorts of other methods used to to fish
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Speaker 1: among the Native Americans, including clubbing them over the head,
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Speaker 1: using spears, bows and arrows, um, and I think scaring
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Speaker 1: them up with torches and then just grabbing them like
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Speaker 1: as they came to the surface. So yeah, no dynamiter
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Speaker 1: or right, that occurred in the night eighteenth century. And
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Speaker 1: they also actually in the article said that the Great
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Speaker 1: Depression clearly, probably in the South, it was a good
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Speaker 1: time to go noodling. Yeah, because it's totally completely free,
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Speaker 1: using nothing but your hands, your body, uh, and whatever
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Speaker 1: gas it took to get your pickup truck to the
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Speaker 1: noodling hole. And that's about it. So yeah, and then interesting,
5:19
Speaker 1: I mean like it, I guess it was still around, um,
5:22
Speaker 1: but then in the Great Depression, everybody's like, we need
5:24
Speaker 1: to start this up again, right, and then it's passed
5:27
Speaker 1: down from father to son. Although there are female noodlers, yeah,
5:32
Speaker 1: much braver women than I am. What's that one? Girl's name,
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Speaker 1: Mr McFarlane, I don't know, Champagne. Yeah, she she's pretty good.
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Speaker 1: Her father's like this well known noodler named Rusty McFarland,
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Speaker 1: who's a plumber slash noodling philosopher. Yeah, he was in
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Speaker 1: that documentary I watched. Yeah, I think he's a big one.
5:48
Speaker 1: He likened plumbing to noodling, actually, I'll bet. And he
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Speaker 1: even said the word turd, he did. I hate that word.
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Speaker 1: It's awful, So, chuck, Yes, this is uh as you
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Speaker 1: might have imagine, a fairly rural activity. Yeah, the rural south.
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Speaker 1: And then Oklahoma is a huge noodling state. Yes, so's
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Speaker 1: Missouri as well. And it's only legal in thirteen states
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Speaker 1: as far as we know right now, right, and that
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Speaker 1: is up from just eight years ago, only four states
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Speaker 1: allowed noodling. Two one. That's nine years ago, now, buddy,
6:19
Speaker 1: that's right. Welcome to the future, twentie century man. Uh. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: the thirteen states up from four, that's that's a big increase. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: it's it's definitely gaining popularity, thanks in part to that
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Speaker 1: documentary you vaguely referred to earlier. That's right. What's the
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Speaker 1: filmmaker's name. The filmmaker's name is Bradley Beasley, and he
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Speaker 1: I believe it's called okay noodling, right, And he really
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Speaker 1: put it on the map. Not not only did he
6:44
Speaker 1: put it on the map, he established the first noodling
6:47
Speaker 1: tournament for the documentary, right, so we could get better
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Speaker 1: shots or whatever, because, as as it says clearly in
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Speaker 1: the documentary, there ain't no noodling tournaments because no one's
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Speaker 1: taken the initiative. Nic that's one of the guys, well Liver.
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Speaker 1: So Brad said, hey, you know what a great way
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Speaker 1: to end this documentary. I'll start my own noodling tournament.
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Speaker 1: And that's exactly what he did, and it's taken off
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Speaker 1: from them, right, all right, So Chuck, we talked about, um,
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Speaker 1: just the generality, just your hand in a hole. Little history,
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Speaker 1: let's get a little more into it. Yeah, why would
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Speaker 1: a catfish bite onto your hand? Josh, what's the reason? Well,
7:21
Speaker 1: actually the reason is that they're What you're doing is
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Speaker 1: you're reaching your your hand into a catfish nest um
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Speaker 1: where there are thousands of eggs waiting to be hatched. Exactly. Um,
7:32
Speaker 1: what I find interesting is you're not catching the female.
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Speaker 1: The female comes and lays the eggs, and then the
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Speaker 1: male comes along, chases her off and takes over the
7:42
Speaker 1: duty of protecting the eggs. So that's what they're doing,
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Speaker 1: catching males. They're guarding when they come after your your
7:48
Speaker 1: hand and apparently how you noodle as you wiggle your
7:50
Speaker 1: fingers around to get their attention, which may be the
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Speaker 1: reason that it's called noodling, is your fingers look like
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Speaker 1: wet noodles, although no one is No one is quite sure,
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Speaker 1: no they're not. It remains a mystery. Um. But yeah,
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Speaker 1: So you stick your hand in, the catfish goes to
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Speaker 1: bite you, um, And sometimes it will nibble and you
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Speaker 1: can kind of get a grasp on it. Sometimes it'll
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Speaker 1: try to swallow your entire um arm. Ideally, it sounds
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Speaker 1: hard to say that, but I think that's what you're
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Speaker 1: looking for. Either way. Once your hand makes entry into
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Speaker 1: the catfish is mal you you wiggle it down as
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Speaker 1: far as you can to the gills and hook the
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Speaker 1: gills from the inside out. And then all of a sudden,
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Speaker 1: now you have a real firm grasp on that catfish. Plus,
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Speaker 1: when you have your hand in and something's gills, it
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Speaker 1: tends to really focus on that and freak out a
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Speaker 1: little bit, right, So then you pull it to the
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Speaker 1: surface and there you have it. You've got your catfish. Although,
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Speaker 1: as we said, this thing is kind of fraught with peril. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: the first thing you're gonna encounter is the teeth, right, Yeah,
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Speaker 1: there are. They're not super sharp, but there are lots
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Speaker 1: and lots of them. And they likened it to sandpaper
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Speaker 1: in the article. Actually, this is written by my good
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Speaker 1: friend Debbie Rnka, who's a freak girl. Yeah yeah, freak
9:02
Speaker 1: girl dot com. And she's about the least likely person
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Speaker 1: on earth that would ever write an article in Newdling.
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Speaker 1: She did a good job with it. Well, that's the
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Speaker 1: great part about our job. I'm writing about giving a
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Speaker 1: facial at home and uh, she's writing about noodling. We
9:15
Speaker 1: should switch articles occasionally, it seems like. But anyway, Debbie
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Speaker 1: wrote this and she did a great job. And she
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Speaker 1: says that it's like sand paper on your arm, which
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Speaker 1: doesn't sound too bad, but if it's really they said,
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Speaker 1: they start twisting and turning when it's on your arm,
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Speaker 1: and then it can, you know, cut you up a
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Speaker 1: little bit, right. I read a quote from a noodler
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Speaker 1: that said once they start twist spinning. Um, it can
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Speaker 1: rub your hide, It can plumb, rub your hide to
9:38
Speaker 1: the bone something like that. Right, Um yeah, that's good.
9:43
Speaker 1: So um yeah, that's your first problem is that this
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Speaker 1: catfish who's gills you have your hand in is is
9:50
Speaker 1: rubbing its sand paper teeth all over your wrist and
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Speaker 1: that can turn to hurt. Um. Also, some catfish can
9:56
Speaker 1: get pretty big. Yeah, I mean, um, forty six the
10:00
Speaker 1: eighty pounds, that's the flathead. I think the blue cats
10:03
Speaker 1: get even bigger, upwards of a hundred pounds, I believe, right. So,
10:07
Speaker 1: if you were in water that's say chin deep, it
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Speaker 1: can pull you under, hold you under, and you were
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Speaker 1: a drowned noodler. Yeah. And you know in the documentary
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Speaker 1: to that was, um this one one of the legendary
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Speaker 1: guys noodles. There were these I'm not sure how this works,
10:23
Speaker 1: but these highways where the lake and the river is
10:25
Speaker 1: now over the highway. So I guess it's just poor
10:29
Speaker 1: planning or something. But these old broken roads basically in
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Speaker 1: the water cool and they will go under the asphalt
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Speaker 1: to uh, these broken asphalt to get because that's where
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Speaker 1: the prime layer is and they will get trapped into
10:42
Speaker 1: there sometimes and yeah, um apparently it's also something of
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Speaker 1: a pastime. When you're searching a lake for a drowned person,
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Speaker 1: people will also noodle while they're looking for the dead person.
10:55
Speaker 1: That's called killing two birds, right exactly. And um uh.
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Speaker 1: Every once and while, somebody who's looking for a drown
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Speaker 1: person and noodling in the meantime will end up drowning
11:04
Speaker 1: themselves and getting found. They did this in rivers too.
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Speaker 1: I saw one guy drowned from the current sweeping him
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Speaker 1: under like a beaver den, which is why noodling is
11:15
Speaker 1: not a sport to ever be engaged in alone. Yes,
11:18
Speaker 1: they always want noodling buddies. You gotta have partners spotters,
11:22
Speaker 1: because once you bring the fish up, generally your spotter
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Speaker 1: will help remove the fish from your arm and get
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Speaker 1: it into the boat or on land. If you're by
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Speaker 1: the banks, or if the fish pulls you under, it's
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Speaker 1: good to have a two pound friend to pull you
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Speaker 1: back above water. Um. Also, they helped barricade the way
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Speaker 1: so that if the catfish tries to escape, it will
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Speaker 1: just bump into their legs or something like that. Right.
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Speaker 1: There's there's one funny part in the end documentary where
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Speaker 1: they're interviewing these two guys that are like chest deep
11:48
Speaker 1: and there's only two dudes in the scene, and they
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Speaker 1: talk about, you know, do you ever worry about your buddy,
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Speaker 1: you know, when he's under there for a long time.
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Speaker 1: And he says, well, you know, we worry about him
11:56
Speaker 1: sometimes when it's been a long time. That's usually when
11:58
Speaker 1: he pops right up. And as he said that, the
12:00
Speaker 1: guy like comes up from underwater, like you didn't even
12:02
Speaker 1: know now at it, and you didn't know there was
12:04
Speaker 1: a third person there, but he was noodling underfoot during
12:07
Speaker 1: the interview, right, So, because you can drown Chindi water
12:11
Speaker 1: is kind of dangerous, but you know, you have to
12:14
Speaker 1: go where the catfish are. Sometimes you dive down underwater
12:17
Speaker 1: completely and sometimes your head is above water. Another danger
12:22
Speaker 1: to noodling. And if you're picking up that this is
12:25
Speaker 1: kind of a dangerous sport, you're you're very sharp person. Uh,
12:28
Speaker 1: And we should probably take the time to say that
12:30
Speaker 1: how stuff works does not recommend you try noodling alone
12:34
Speaker 1: or as an inexperienced person with other inexperienced noodlers. I'll
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Speaker 1: just say at all, sure, go ahead, at all? Okay Um.
12:43
Speaker 1: You can also every once in a while, stick your
12:45
Speaker 1: hand into a catfish nest that turns out to be
12:47
Speaker 1: a beaver's dwelling. Yes, a underwater snake. Muskrats. Muskrat snapping
12:56
Speaker 1: turtles are real bad too. They'll take a finger off. Um,
12:59
Speaker 1: And if you encounter one of those guys, you want
13:01
Speaker 1: to take off. Yeah, as Ronka says, get out of
13:05
Speaker 1: there right. Well, unless you're Jerry Rider. That's kind of
13:08
Speaker 1: the legendary noodler that was on Dave Letterman. He um
13:11
Speaker 1: is a big snake guy too, So when he sees
13:14
Speaker 1: a snake, he sees that as a as an opportunity,
13:16
Speaker 1: not a bad thing. Oh yeah, oh yeah. So he
13:19
Speaker 1: grabs the snakes. He'll grab snakes, and he bait him
13:21
Speaker 1: a few times and he was like, see there, I'm
13:23
Speaker 1: bleeding from these three spots, and that's what it felt like.
13:26
Speaker 1: He was like, just kind of like a little hypodermic needle. Yeah,
13:28
Speaker 1: he said yeah, And he said I'll have him tame
13:31
Speaker 1: pretty soon. So he was so he catches him and
13:34
Speaker 1: tames him. Well, that's what he said. Well he's a
13:37
Speaker 1: snake guy. Wow, Jerry Riders snake circus. Yeah, he's the
13:40
Speaker 1: toughest guy I've ever seen. He sounds pretty tough. Actually, Um, normally,
13:45
Speaker 1: unless you're Jerry Rider. Uh, you don't want to put
13:48
Speaker 1: your hand in a snake hole now because most snakes
13:51
Speaker 1: that live underwater near the water are deadly poisonous. Um.
13:55
Speaker 1: But most noodlers will tell you that they can tell
13:58
Speaker 1: a catfish nest from any other kind of nest just
14:02
Speaker 1: by feeling the outside of the nest. Sure experience. Um.
14:06
Speaker 1: The reason for that is that the opening will be
14:09
Speaker 1: uh sandy, uh and clean, got you uh, and pretty
14:12
Speaker 1: compact because a once once the mail comes in and
14:16
Speaker 1: is guarding the uh, the the eggs. Um, he's just
14:20
Speaker 1: moving back and forth constantly keeping sand analgae off of
14:24
Speaker 1: the eggs and out of the nest. So the male
14:27
Speaker 1: catfish keep a pretty tidy nest. Apparently, you could not
14:31
Speaker 1: pay me any amount of wanting to do this. Man,
14:33
Speaker 1: I get a little weirded out, Like I go trout
14:35
Speaker 1: fishing in the North Georgia mountains and I'm up to
14:37
Speaker 1: my waist and beautiful clear mountain water where you can
14:41
Speaker 1: see what's going I can see what's going on, and
14:43
Speaker 1: I'm still my head is still on a pivot. When
14:45
Speaker 1: I'm near the bank because I just know I'm gonna
14:47
Speaker 1: look up and like a snake is gonna drop on
14:49
Speaker 1: my head. But these are like the muddy waters of
14:51
Speaker 1: these river banks. Muddy river banks, well, yeah, that's where
14:54
Speaker 1: catfish twell. And actually, the fact that noodling has become
14:58
Speaker 1: such a popular popular sport, noodlers are kind of um
15:01
Speaker 1: barometers of the health of a waterway, depending on how
15:05
Speaker 1: you look at it. The Army Corps of Engineers love
15:08
Speaker 1: to keep a tidy river way, right um. And so
15:12
Speaker 1: do most trout anglers because you can see what you're doing,
15:14
Speaker 1: and that's where you know, trout generally living in clean water,
15:18
Speaker 1: but catfish like a murky, shady, muddy um. And so
15:23
Speaker 1: you can. But that's that's how a waterway is naturally,
15:26
Speaker 1: they're not naturally clean or tidy, right um. So apparently
15:30
Speaker 1: the the Army Corps of Engineers kind of fell asleep
15:33
Speaker 1: at the switch for a couple of decades in the
15:36
Speaker 1: seventies and maybe eighties. Uh, and basically let the Mississippi
15:41
Speaker 1: Delta go to pot unless you're a catfish fisherman. And
15:45
Speaker 1: then you're like, the catfish population came back right right.
15:49
Speaker 1: So the fact that newdlers are finding catfish easily. Uh,
15:53
Speaker 1: is a an indicator of the health of the waterway. Right,
15:57
Speaker 1: But there's also a lot of contray diversity over noodling. Yeah,
16:01
Speaker 1: we have to mention this. Yeah, And apparently it's it's
16:03
Speaker 1: a cultural thing most neodlers, um, you know, like like
16:08
Speaker 1: Chuck said that they there legal in southern states. It's
16:13
Speaker 1: legal in southern states. In Midwestern states, very rural activity.
16:17
Speaker 1: Most city folks aren't going to go stick their hand
16:20
Speaker 1: in an underwater hole and hope a catfish bites their hands, right.
16:24
Speaker 1: You know why. One of the guys in the documentary
16:26
Speaker 1: addresses that, he said, because they're own golf courses. That's
16:30
Speaker 1: that's excellent points. Excellent point. Chuck and I are fairly cidified,
16:35
Speaker 1: and of course neither one of us would ever ever
16:37
Speaker 1: do this. Um. But so I think part of the
16:41
Speaker 1: part of the reason why noodlers are kind of looked
16:44
Speaker 1: down upon by regular anglers, um, is that it's a
16:48
Speaker 1: rural city. Yeah. Yeah, head collision, I guess you could say,
16:53
Speaker 1: because there's plenty of you know, city types that grab
16:57
Speaker 1: their their trout boots and go out on the weekends
16:59
Speaker 1: and go trout fishing, that kind of thing. But there's
17:01
Speaker 1: also a um an environmental concern which may or may
17:05
Speaker 1: not be true, right, because what you know, clearly what
17:08
Speaker 1: you're doing is you're pulling out a catfish that's guarding, uh,
17:12
Speaker 1: you know, a big stash of eggs. And many times
17:16
Speaker 1: you don't return that fish back to the water. You'll
17:18
Speaker 1: keep it and eat it for food, because catfish is
17:21
Speaker 1: good eaten. Uh. And even when they do return these
17:24
Speaker 1: fish to the water, which they sometimes do, they you know,
17:27
Speaker 1: just like catching release fishing, there's a proper way to
17:29
Speaker 1: do it. And they you know, they get beat all
17:31
Speaker 1: the heck on the on the shore, so they think
17:33
Speaker 1: they might not survive from just massive injury. Right. And
17:37
Speaker 1: like you're saying, you're removing this catfish from its role
17:41
Speaker 1: of protecting these eggs, which means that once that catfish
17:44
Speaker 1: has gone, all manner of petitors go, I'm gonna go
17:47
Speaker 1: eat meet thousands of catfish eggs. And how could that
17:51
Speaker 1: not logically have an impact a huge impact on the
17:54
Speaker 1: population of the catfish. Here's how. Because most people don't
18:02
Speaker 1: stick their hands in catfish nests in the hopes that
18:05
Speaker 1: it will bite them and they can pull it out
18:07
Speaker 1: and eat it. Yeah, it has gained in popularity, but
18:09
Speaker 1: it's still a fringe sport. We're talking like maybe a
18:12
Speaker 1: thousand people across the country that do this, maybe three thousand.
18:15
Speaker 1: That's why there's been no studies. They can't prove anything
18:17
Speaker 1: because no one wants to put any money into a
18:20
Speaker 1: noodling study. Right, Well, I think we should study it
18:22
Speaker 1: to see if it does have an impact. But in
18:24
Speaker 1: the meantime, most um fish and Game d n R
18:28
Speaker 1: departments in the various states where it is legal are
18:32
Speaker 1: hedging their bets and are keeping the number of catches
18:36
Speaker 1: a new ler can make from May to August, which
18:38
Speaker 1: is spawning season. Um it's three in Missouri. I think
18:42
Speaker 1: that's the average, and that's lower than if you're just
18:46
Speaker 1: a hook and line angler. You can get ten in
18:48
Speaker 1: that per day, three per day and tem per day,
18:51
Speaker 1: depending on if you're an angler. Noodlers, of course find
18:54
Speaker 1: this unfair, but again, there haven't been any studies, so
18:58
Speaker 1: I think three is an arbitrary number. Probably. I wonder
19:00
Speaker 1: if anyone's ever caught a noodler A dead noodler probably
19:05
Speaker 1: cooked a noodler underwater. Apparently there's this boy in the
19:08
Speaker 1: nineteenth century who went noodling and he got held under
19:11
Speaker 1: by the by the catfish he caught. But I guess
19:15
Speaker 1: his grip was so tight that like a day or
19:17
Speaker 1: so later they found the boy and the catfish dead
19:20
Speaker 1: side by side on a sandbar. Really yeah, hand in mouth.
19:24
Speaker 1: Still wow. And that's something that's the way to go
19:26
Speaker 1: if you're a noodler, that is the way you die. Well.
19:29
Speaker 1: And that's what Jerry Rider said. He said, I'll noodle
19:32
Speaker 1: till I die unless noodling kills me. And he shouldn't
19:35
Speaker 1: have said it unless he probably meant especially if noodling
19:39
Speaker 1: kills me. Should we talk about the tournament? Yeah, we
19:42
Speaker 1: mentioned it briefly. Uh. It is the biggest North American
19:46
Speaker 1: hand fishing tournament. I thought it was the only one,
19:49
Speaker 1: but apparently it's the one. It's the Oakey Noodling Tournament.
19:53
Speaker 1: That's what it's called, and straightforward. It's in July. It's
19:57
Speaker 1: at Bob's Pig Shop in Paul's Valley, Oklahoma, and there's
20:01
Speaker 1: prizes up to like two grand I think if you win.
20:04
Speaker 1: There's different categories like Fish of the Day and then
20:07
Speaker 1: total catch of total pounding of your three Yeah, stringer.
20:11
Speaker 1: There's also natural and scuba noodling, and scuba noodling is
20:15
Speaker 1: exactly what it sounds like. Yeah, imagine they're frowned upon.
20:17
Speaker 1: It didn't get any working. So so is gaffing, which
20:20
Speaker 1: is noodling with the hook, right, because basically you're a woose.
20:23
Speaker 1: Is that what that means? Pretty much? Yeah, because you're
20:26
Speaker 1: not sticking your hand in there, you're sticking a hook
20:28
Speaker 1: in there and their gills and pulling them out. Number one,
20:30
Speaker 1: you're immediately doing more damage to them, I imagine, but
20:33
Speaker 1: you're not using your hand. It's hand fishing, not hook fishing.
20:36
Speaker 1: But they they even frown upon gloves, dude, So this
20:39
Speaker 1: is how these guys are. Well, yeah, they frown upon
20:41
Speaker 1: gloves because you can't tell. You can't tell from touching
20:44
Speaker 1: whether it's a snapping turtle or a muskrat or a catfish.
20:47
Speaker 1: But also they can get snagged on things underwater and
20:50
Speaker 1: keep you under So yeah, these are tough fellas and women. Yes, Josh,
20:54
Speaker 1: there is a DVD series even called Girls Gone Grabbing. Yeah,
20:58
Speaker 1: I heard or grabbling grabb No, No, I don't think
21:04
Speaker 1: it's a typo. Maybe it's called then um and and
21:07
Speaker 1: the there's been some records. Apparently every year somebody sets
21:11
Speaker 1: a new record at the Okay Newling Contest. And what's
21:13
Speaker 1: cool is these people aren't like all in the same hole.
21:15
Speaker 1: They're all over the state. As long as the fish
21:18
Speaker 1: is caught within Oklahoma within a twenty four hour period
21:22
Speaker 1: from seven thirty pm on Friday to seven thirty pm
21:25
Speaker 1: when they're weighed on Saturday. UM, there's a gentleman's agreement
21:30
Speaker 1: to not go into the same noodling hole that some
21:33
Speaker 1: other people are already in. It's like a fishing spot.
21:36
Speaker 1: That's pretty much it. Oh, the fish has to be
21:38
Speaker 1: live when it's weighed, um. But other than that, that's
21:42
Speaker 1: that's pretty much it. And the most recent record was
21:44
Speaker 1: set this past July two thousand nine now future um
21:51
Speaker 1: sixty eight point six pounds by a guy named John Bridges.
21:54
Speaker 1: And he had a stringer, the three fish that you're
21:57
Speaker 1: allowed to catch in that twenty four He won that
22:00
Speaker 1: one too. I don't know if you if he won that.
22:03
Speaker 1: I don't see how he didn't because he had another
22:05
Speaker 1: fish they called it was almost the same weight as
22:07
Speaker 1: part of his stringer. So I imagine he won the
22:10
Speaker 1: stringer that year. Josh, do me a favor. Close your
22:13
Speaker 1: eyes and picture a sixty six pound catfish up to
22:18
Speaker 1: your elbow. Sixty eight point six. Sixty eight point six?
22:22
Speaker 1: Can you imagine that? Don't you think I've learned by
22:25
Speaker 1: now the hard way not to close my eyes when
22:27
Speaker 1: you tell me. To good point, that's a big old catfish. Yeah,
22:31
Speaker 1: you got to eat catfish. Yeah, I'll eat it. YEA sure,
22:34
Speaker 1: I'm not that cidified. Well, I was just you know,
22:38
Speaker 1: for the nice of four graw of course, block sauce
22:42
Speaker 1: and all right, thank you, chuck um and catfish always.
22:46
Speaker 1: You know that sixty eight point six that's huge. It's
22:48
Speaker 1: definitely not as big as they get. You know, every
22:51
Speaker 1: like uh rural area has a legend of a catfish
22:55
Speaker 1: that's like two fifty pounds. Did you ever see that
22:57
Speaker 1: King of the Hill where he I think he was
22:59
Speaker 1: trying to catch General Sherman. No, that was the Simpsons,
23:02
Speaker 1: was it? Yeah? I think it was. They called it
23:04
Speaker 1: like General Sherman or something like that. It was this
23:06
Speaker 1: huge catfish and here Homer and Marge around like a
23:11
Speaker 1: save our marriage retreat, and Homer sneaks out and catch
23:14
Speaker 1: the fish. And I think I did see that one.
23:16
Speaker 1: Hilarity ensues that stuff. Yeah, I think it's like seasoned
23:19
Speaker 1: fiber or something. It was. Yeah, but you hear you
23:21
Speaker 1: do here, definitely hear the rumors like Hogzilla. It's the
23:23
Speaker 1: same thing, isn't. Well you just artist about like several
23:27
Speaker 1: hundred pounds that like Arkansas. I think it's real though
23:31
Speaker 1: I don't know about hag Zilla, but that the huge
23:32
Speaker 1: catfish definitely are Chuck. Let's end this by mentioning that
23:37
Speaker 1: noodling is not necessarily exclusive to North America. No, it's not, Josh,
23:43
Speaker 1: since ur there's a tournament in Nigeria or a festival.
23:48
Speaker 1: I guess you're gonna take the should I the room? Goofish?
23:55
Speaker 1: That's how I take it. That's exactly right, our goo.
23:59
Speaker 1: That's a that's a different colt one that is that's
24:01
Speaker 1: why we live in Georgia. Well, this is a one
24:03
Speaker 1: hour long contest, which is yeah, kind of cool. But
24:05
Speaker 1: I think you can catch a fish anyway you can
24:08
Speaker 1: well you can, well it is hand fishing, but you
24:10
Speaker 1: can um use nets. I think you can't use like
24:13
Speaker 1: cooks and poles, so you can use nets and uh.
24:16
Speaker 1: In two thousand and eight, the winning fish you're right,
24:19
Speaker 1: Josh was one hundred and forty pounds, right, and um,
24:23
Speaker 1: they take their hand fishing very seriously in Nigeria because
24:26
Speaker 1: they found out that the winning fishermen in two thousand
24:29
Speaker 1: and eight, Uh, bellow ya Cube. They found out that
24:32
Speaker 1: he brought a dead fish from another river and said
24:35
Speaker 1: look what I caught and they arrested him. Yeah, he
24:38
Speaker 1: was arrested for fraud in a fishing contest. I want
24:41
Speaker 1: to know how you sneak a one hundred and forty
24:43
Speaker 1: pound fish into a river. That's probably how he got caught.
24:46
Speaker 1: I mean you can't. You can't do it very covertly.
24:50
Speaker 1: So somebody saw him and like hello, Yakube cheated and
24:54
Speaker 1: they went chink, chink and through the bookhead. Those were
24:58
Speaker 1: handcuffs by the way, just so people understand that sound
25:00
Speaker 1: effect was all about. Uh so yeah, that's noodling, right, h.
25:04
Speaker 1: I don't think there's anything else to add. So it
25:06
Speaker 1: wasn't too bad for our first one after eight years.
25:09
Speaker 1: That yeah, on Monday morning. So if you want to
25:12
Speaker 1: learn more about noodling, you can read Debbie Ronka's Riveting
25:16
Speaker 1: Tale in article form. By typing noodling into the handy
25:21
Speaker 1: search bart how stuff works dot Com, which of course
25:24
Speaker 1: leads us to listener mail. Listener mail. Josh, before we
25:32
Speaker 1: read listener mail, we're gonna send a special shout out
25:35
Speaker 1: to our friend Chance and his little sister who have
25:38
Speaker 1: had a really rough go of it over the holidays.
25:40
Speaker 1: We're not gonna get all into it, but Chance did
25:43
Speaker 1: say it would really make keen his little sister's day
25:45
Speaker 1: if we said hello, and so we're saying hi and
25:48
Speaker 1: hanging their guys and Happy New Year too, Yeah, Happy
25:51
Speaker 1: New Year. So having said that, Josh, I'm gonna call this.
25:55
Speaker 1: We are frauds and we've been found out. No, hey,
26:01
Speaker 1: Josh and Chuck. Allegedly, I am writing you a very
26:05
Speaker 1: distressed fifteen year old boy living in northern Illinois. The
26:08
Speaker 1: reason for my distress is that, after closely examining the
26:11
Speaker 1: last several podcast I can come to the conclusion that
26:15
Speaker 1: your podcast is a sham. Fifteen year old call. Yeah,
26:19
Speaker 1: he's just figuring this out. This is the evidence for
26:22
Speaker 1: this is that after listening to one of your podcasts
26:24
Speaker 1: on healthcare, I noticed that the voice quality seemed different,
26:27
Speaker 1: leading me to believe that you two never actually sit
26:29
Speaker 1: down and do the podcast together, But the podcast is
26:32
Speaker 1: merely a series of recordings and phrases cleverly put together
26:35
Speaker 1: through some sound editing equipment. It's really just a series
26:38
Speaker 1: of chucks and right right, and then Jerry just makes
26:42
Speaker 1: it all happen. Right After listening to that podcast, it
26:44
Speaker 1: made me wonder, and I went through other ones and
26:46
Speaker 1: notice that you two never skip over each other when
26:49
Speaker 1: you talk. Not true, we are talking over each other
26:51
Speaker 1: as uh. To further reinforce the suspicion, I recently view
26:56
Speaker 1: the webcast on December two, and Chuck was disappearing into
26:59
Speaker 1: the background out of the drape. You know how Sometimes
27:02
Speaker 1: a blue screen mess up and I'll disappear. That's what
27:05
Speaker 1: that is at UH. If this is just an honest
27:07
Speaker 1: technical mistake, or if this is a work of clever
27:10
Speaker 1: video and audio syncing gone wrong, please right back to
27:13
Speaker 1: confirm your existence. Until then, I have no choice but
27:15
Speaker 1: to assume there is no podcast but merely a series
27:18
Speaker 1: of recordings played with editing equipment from Zach Zack. I
27:22
Speaker 1: think you would very much appreciate one of our fellow
27:25
Speaker 1: podcasts here at how Stuff Works dot com called Stuff
27:27
Speaker 1: They Don't want you to know. It's about um conspiracy theories.
27:31
Speaker 1: I think you'd be right up your alley. Yeah, you
27:33
Speaker 1: can find that free on iTunes, right, chuck uh. And
27:37
Speaker 1: of course you can always find us for free on iTunes,
27:39
Speaker 1: which is probably where you found us, um to begin
27:42
Speaker 1: with them. Yeah, if you want to send us an
27:44
Speaker 1: email accusing us of fraud, we wouldn't be the least
27:48
Speaker 1: bit surprised. You can wrap that up and address it
27:52
Speaker 1: to stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com. For
28:01
Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how
28:04
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works, check
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28:10
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