For my books I’ve done my fair share of research into things off the beaten path. The porn film industry for BUCKED. Clit piercings for FLANKED. Aphrodisiac sealife native to the Channel Islands for GILLIAN’S ISLAND. But nothing, NOTHING compares to today’s research for sheer WTF and OMG value. Today I researched hand fishing for Catfish. It’s called Hillybilly Handfishin’ on the Animal Planet TV show. Or noodling by the Oklahoma Wildlife Department. But the Bivins family, who have been perfecting this sport/skill for generations, just calls it grabbling. In fact, they start their kids off catching catfish by hand at 4 years old. The New York suburbonite in me, the one who is afraid of putting my hand in a pocket or my foot in a shoe without checking for spiders first, calls it insane! I guess I’m just a sissy that way, but if the concept of sticking my hand into an underwater hole in a riverbed so a catfish could bite it hadn’t already scared me off, this warning from the Big Fish Adventures website would have… “You definitely don’t want to go alone because it can be dangerous… You have to also watch out for the […]