Noodling, as recently made famous by the governor of Kentucky, is the practice of catching fish–specifically, flathead catfish–with your bare hands. It goes like this:

You stick your hand in a hole in the riverbank.

You let the catfish bite your hand.

You drag it out and hit it in the head.

Noodling is mildly illegal in many states, including (off-season) in Kentucky, because it’s stupid and dangerous. Sometimes it’s not a catfish in the hole–it’s a snapping turtle, or a water moccasin. Sometimes you lose a finger. Sometimes you drown.

Sometimes, one of us gets away.