It’s 100 degrees in East Texas, and the girls from The Bare Knuckle Babes are going fishing. No fishing poles. No lures. No equipment of any kind. These girls are “noodlers.” They catch catfish with their bare hands. “You don’t understand the rush,” explained Crystal Staggs. “It’s like… people think we’re crazy — and maybe we are — but it’s a lot of fun!”
Lucy Millsap, 19, is as good at this as anyone. In June, she won the 14th annual Okie Noodling Tournament, getting a record 72-pound fish (and her 15 minutes of fame).
“It’s more interesting, it’s more fun,” she said. “There’s nothing like sitting on a boat waiting for a fish; why not go to the fish?”
Jennifer Drake is the manager of The Bare Knuckle Babes.
“We went to Yahoo.com’s cover page, and there was Lucy’s picture, with the 72-pound catfish,” she said. “And just to think this 19-year-old cheerleader from Quinlan, Texas — who’s been doing this her whole life since she was five years old — pulls out this fish, and now she’s on the cover of this international, basically, World Wide Web page… it was shocking. It was shocking.” Read on and see the video interview of the Bare Knuckle Babes….