Taylor Middleton of Greenville and his friend Hunter Shifferd recently pulled this 32-pound catfish in while noodling on the Alabama River.  Noodling is fishing for catfish using only bare hands. The noodler places his hand inside a discovered catfish hole. The catfish will swim forward and latch onto the fisherman’s hand, usually as a defensive maneuver, in order to try to escape the hole. This allows the noodler to pull the fish from the hole.