Bare Knuckle Babes

[Bob Of Burleson]

Sisters in noodling

By Barry Shlachter
barry@star-telegram.com

Some women skydive, some rock climb. Then there are the 14 women who meet up every so often in North Texas to compare skills at overpowering brutishly ugly, 60-pound catfish by blindly sticking a hand in their big mouths.

Meet the Bare Knuckle Babes.

The all-female group of noodlers was the brainchild of an enterprising Rockwall real estate agent named Jennifer Drake. Three years ago, she organized 13 young, down-home women to pose for a calendar project with mud-dwelling catfish they hadn’t nabbed themselves. (The next month, Texas officially allowed hand fishing, dropping a $500 fine.)

It was clearly a money-making lark for Drake. But four of the models got, um, hooked, and since then every “babe,” from Miss January through Miss December and the calendar’s “cover girl,” has been a noodler. Drake herself had been noodling for years. (She even converted her very reluctant husband, who had called the sport “ludicrous” and not for someone like him wth “all my teeth in my head.” Today Eddie Drake holds a tournament noodling record.)

What the businesswoman/hand fisher is tapping is the sport’s new-found fame, which is due in no small part to the insatiable American appetite for reality TV shows such as Animal Planet’s Hillbilly Handfishin and The History Channel’s Mudcats, which covers catfish noodlers in Oklahoma.

In September 2011, Texas legalized what’s also called hogging, stumping, catfisting, cat-daddling, grabbling, graveling, dogging, gurgling and tickling, depending on the particular body of water or region. No one seems to know the origin of the most popular term, noodling. Drake believes the sport dates back to Native Americans.

The original babes got paid for posing in bikinis for the first calendar, but not for subsequent editions, although they get appearance fees at special events. The $20 calendar has a press run of about 1,000.

“It started as a hobby and now there’s a huge following,” said Drake, who also sells $25 Bare Knuckle Babe T-shirts, $3 koozies and $2 rubbery bracelets on her website. And her noodlers raise money for charity (a recent guided noodling expedition netted $25,000), she said. Such outings with two women hand fishers start at $1,500. Dallas’ Trinity River Audubon Society is a favorite non-profit of her group.

Drake’s bare knucklers appear to do it more for the sport and accompanying camaraderie, than for any monetary gain.

“We’re definitely a team. I don’t want to call it a sorority. It’s more like a sisterhood,” explains Fort Worth resident Shereen Lewis, 25, who clerks at a downtown FedEx outlet on weekdays. “We learn so much from each other. I love it.”

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