Catfish noodling involves sticking your hands in places they weren’t meant to be stuck and wrestling big, raspy-toothed critters to the surface. (Photo by Keith Sutton)
It’s funny the things that go through your mind when your forearm is halfway down a catfish’s gullet. It was then that I recalled a common myth I heard often while growing up in western Kentucky.
As the story went, an unnamed fisherman whose johnboat got too close to a dam was swept under by the force of the current and drowned. His body had to be retrieved by a diver, and no matter if it was Kentucky Lake dam on the Tennessee River, Smithland dam on the Ohio River or Lake Barkley dam on the Cumberland, the diver always spotted a humongous catfish as he searched for the victim. Eventually, as the tale circulated among the morning crew at the local café, the...