Noodlers, how about a hand for the Texas Legislature?

Should agents of some future diabolical one-world government storm inside our homes and snatch away our fishing rods and reels — mine, when I get around to buying some more angling equipment again, will have to be snatched from my cold, dead hands — at least in Texas we may still catch plenty of those old catfish to keep us fat and happy. This is because the Texas Legislature passed a bill today that allows the practice of “noodling,” or hand-fishing.

Now granted, some Texans may have not known or cared that catching fish by hand in the state’s waters was illegal. But it is. The practice can land you a Class C misdemeanor offense featuring a $500 fine. And, I am uncertain as to this but if it is the same as other game violations in Texas, someone who commits such an act against wildlife also face a civil restitution fee. Now I don’t happen to know what the restitution value is for say a big ol’ blue cat, which can get big enough for you to call a wrecker to help pull it out, but the so-called “recovery value” for the animal can be found in the Texas Administrative Code:

” The recovery value of an individual fish shall be determined by adding the fish’s basic and recreational value for species which the Commission has designated as having recreational value for the purpose of civil restitution.”

Now on to the specifics:

“Recreational value for an individual fish is calculated by dividing the average value of an hour of fishing by the difference in total length between the state record fish and minimum hookable total length for that species and then multiplying that quotient by the total length in inches of the individual fish being valued, minus the minimum hookable total length for that species. This product is then adjusted for inflation by multiplying it by the quotient of the Consumer Price Index in the fiscal year the fish were killed, divided by the Consumer Price Index in the fiscal year the data were collected to determine the average value of an hour of fishing.”

That darned ol’ Consumer Price Index. It seems to just pop up everywhere.

Now let’s say that blue catfish that you and a buddy struggled with and which almost killed you both while pulling it out of an underwater stump weighed around 30 pounds. That’s pretty dad-burned big but hardly the record 121.5-pound monster that Cody Mullenix bagged in 2004 in Lake Texoma. Still, if you use the formula from the Texas Administrative Code then perhaps you better start pulling out that checkbook.

Even though the new law, if ultimately signed by our Goodhaired Gov. Rick, might save you some money one has to ask if the thrill of noodling is worth the loss of an arm?

Some old Cajun men once described to me the way they used to reach into underwater tree stumps and catch some enormous catfish. It sounded, to me, as a prime way to have one’s arm bit off, if not by a monstrous catfish, then perhaps by an alligator. Remember those daunting words from the brilliant songster Jerry Reed’s “Amos Moses,” a one-armed man who hunted alligators for a living?

“He could trap the biggest, the meanest alligator, and just use one hand/That’s all he’s got left ’cause an alligator bit him/Left arm gone clean up to the elbow.”

Good arms just do not grow on trees, you know?