CEBU, Philippines - This November, Animal Planet dives into murky Oklahoma waters, hoping to reel in the king of all catfish in HILLBILLY HANDFISHIN’, a 12-part series where bustling city dwellers and suburbanites travel to rural Oklahoma for some old-fashioned handfishing – the sport of catching catfish with your bare hands and feet. New episodes premiere every Tuesday at 10:00 pm starting November 15 with encores every Thursday at 6:00 pm, Friday at midnight 12:00 am and Sunday at 3:00 pm and 10:00 pm.
Self-proclaimed hillbillies Skipper Bivins and Trent Jackson are Oklahoma hand-fishermen with decades of experience and unlimited enthusiasm for a sport that’s foreign to many Americans. It’s a family affair with the entire Bivins clan running “Big Fish Adventures” and working nonstop to give groups of city slickers a taste of hillbilly livin’ by guiding them through the paces of noodling catfish without tackle or bait.
Also known as graveling, grabbling, hogging, dogging, gurgling, tickling and stumping, handfishing/noodling has been around for hundreds of years and is a way of life in some Southern cultures. The experience might be uncomfortable, completely odd and downright terrifying, but it promises to alter lives and send each newly crowned noodler home with great fish tales long after his or her catfish adventure ends.
The process of noodling actually is quite simple: Locate catfish in underground caverns, wait for them to bite your feet or hands, and then pull them out onto the surface with assistance from a spotter and rope. But it isn’t all fun and games; noodlers must always be on the lookout for snakes, beavers, muskrats and snapping turtles that take over abandoned catfish holes as homes of their own.
Each hour-long episode of Hillbilly Handfishin' features a new group of novice noodlers who are hungry for experiences that take them completely out of their comfort zones and give them the story of a lifetime.