Back in college, my brother’s friend loaned us a documentary that we became enthralled with for a couple of weeks. We couldn’t get enough of Okie Noodling, a Bradley Beesley documentary about the peculiar practice – also called grabblin’ – of catching catfish with your bare hands, and also the culture that surrounds the method.

The method, for those who don’t know, is basically for the fisherman to stick his hand in a hole – be it a crevice between rocks on the bottom or a small cavern along the bank of a pond, lake or river. Catfish like to hole up here, and when you put your hand in, the catfish will latch on. Then it’s a fight to the surface.

I strongly recommend that movie to anyone curious about the sport or about how admitted rednecks behave. And it’s more about how hilarious rednecks can be in a good, innocent way rather than in any morally wrong way. (The plumber is my favorite of the noodlers. You’ll know him when you see him.)

Shot in Beesley’s home state of Oklahoma, the noodlers in his video not only embrace their rural reputation, they flaunt it.

Looking around YouTube now, you can find noodling videos of both men and women. A buddy sent me a link to “Girls gone grabblin” earlier, and that led me to do a video search for noodling. This sport is more popular than I ever imagined, but I just can’t believe women are partaking.

Inspired by Native Americans, this method of catfish fishing is extreme. Catfish are a big, powerful fish, and people have drowned by being held down while noodling.

I would still do it, though. I want to someday. Catching a big catfish with your bare hands has to be quite a rush. My question, though, is how does one come upon new holes for grabblin’? Trial and error wouldn’t work, just to go down a bank feeling along. At least it wouldn’t work for me. I don’t need to catch catfish with my hands bad enough to risk losing fingers or a hand because of a snapping turtle, or getting bit by a copperhead.

But if someone else had some holes that they knew of, or maybe if the water was clear enough to snorkel and see clearly, I’d give it a try.

The only problem, before you run out and jump into your ponds and lakes looking for crevices and holes, is that the only state I’m aware of which it is legal in is Oklahoma.

First of all, has anyone out there ever done this or have friends who have, and second of all, how did you find your spots?

Walks are always good on the mind and spirit, and there’s no better place in Lawrence, Kansas, to walk than around the campus of Kansas University. Recent strolls through the hills and valleys of KU have reminded me why I like going for walks so much in the evening, and why I never minded spending 10 hours at a time on campus.

Apart from the exercise, to me, walks are about clearing my mind and organizing, even focusing, my thoughts.

Here at the office, it helps, no doubt, to get up from my desk and take a stroll around the mile-long industrial park. I return to my work area feeling rejuvenated and focused on the tasks at hand.

But at the end of the day, it’s different. Ernest Hemingway once compared unwinding with an evening cocktail to smoothing the sheets before bed. When you work with your mind all day, you need that release to wash out all your thoughts and refocus them so you can set them aside for the night and pick them back up – hopefully in a fresh way– the following day. For me, walks work in the same way as a cocktail worked for Hemingway. I’ve enjoyed the evening cocktail too, but I find the walk organizes and focuses my thoughts, rather than just pushing them to the back of my mind.

For others, it may be doing the chores, knitting, cooking or reading.

I strive for the chance to live in a situation where chores are that release for me. However, I’m not in a position to live in the country yet, but I sure do like to wind down with a walk through KU’s campus.

We all need a release. What about you? How do you smooth the sheets?

Family is one of the most important things in my life. In fact, one thing particularly challenging for me is prioritizing God over family in everyday life. It could even be called selfishness, but I guess at least it’s a selfishness for those I love rather than for myself singularly. 

From an early age, a strong fellowship was forged within my family, probably one result of family life on a just-under-200-acre farm about 30 minutes from the largest town around – Fort Scott, which has a population of around 8,000. 

So, on my way out the door this morning, my Irish heritage and my grandmother’s birthday were really at the forefront of my mind. My Grandma Mary married an Irishman. Unfortunately, I never had the pleasure of meeting him – neither did my dad, for that matter – but from Grandma’s accounts he was a gregarious, fun-loving man, and he must have thought it quite a deal to be married to a woman whose birthday fell on Saint Patrick’s Day, a Catholic feast day and national holiday in Grandpa Daniel’s home country. 

That’s what I kept thinking about on the drive in this morning, about how it would have been for Grandma and Grandpa Regan 65 years ago; and that made me smile and feel blessed to be a descendent of the O’Regan family. 

Then, once I got to work, my brother Josh sent me this photograph showing me what he was up to while I was working Monday; catching largemouth bass. He’s a teacher, so his words were, “I love spring break.” 

I love my job and what I do, but I still equate it to those photographs you send to your friends from a beach in the dead of winter, the ones where you write, “Wish you were here,” in the sand. 

Yeah, I wish I was “here” too, Josh.

That’s my family, and I wouldn’t trade any of it.

Photo: Nikki Regan

Morel mushrooms, and the hunting of this genus, are two of my mother’s favorite things. It even makes spring that much better. From an early age, I remember heading out on horseback – or my mom heading out on horseback alone – and returning with IGA grocery bags full of the sponge-like, porous plant that was, and still is, a delicacy in our home.

There was nothing better than a mess of morels, floured and fried, to go along with a fresh mess of spring, cold-water fish.

Later on, after we’d left the farm, I lived with my mom for the summer before leaving for college, and it was during that summer that she showed me her secret to hunting morel mushrooms – dead elm trees. It had never been brought up when I was a boy, since we had our spots on the farm and they seldom disappointed.

Her tactics during that summer still bring a smile to my face. Driving around, parking and walking to dead elms spotted from a distance, she’d mention the “Spirit World” as we approached. The Spirit World was her equivalent of being in a very attentive zone, scouring the forest floor. It was in this zone that we’d be as we thoroughly searched the timber floor. Once you found that first morel, more were sure to be in the vicinity.

The sunlight hitting the mushrooms makes them almost translucent. Also, the time of year – the foliage is usually a shade of brown before spring brings everything to bloom – makes them difficult to spot.

After we’d walk and come upon one, and then many, the joy and fury of the search only intensified.

Nowadays, hunting is more difficult than I remember it being back when I was a youngster on the farm, and Mom would agree. The popularity is such where I’m from that if people have mushrooms on their property, they don’t let you take them; they want them. So, although it may not be the most ethical practice, blurring of property lines inevitably enters the mix. That meant, during that summer, longer walks with my mom.

What about you? While there are all sorts of wild theories about hunting morels, where do you look?

Photo: iStockphoto.com/Jello5700