Noodler’s, Noodlers, and Catfish

Noodler’s Forest Green Fountain Pen Ink

Today we feature a short post about ink…among other things.  The other night I rediscovered my old dip pens and I was doing some doodling (more about that later).  It reminded me of how wonderful dip pens, quills, and fountain pens really are.  I did some online research and I found a contemporary ink company called “Noodler’s Ink” which is an American company which specializes in fancy inks and pigments for specialty pens.  The reason this belongs on this blog is that they are obsessed with catfish—which feature heavily on their marketing and promotional material.  Here are some of the endearing and whimsical catfish drawings which Noodler’s puts on their bottles and boxes of ink.

Various boxes of Noodler’s Black Ink

Noodling is a sort of loose word which can be used to describe doodling, but it is also a traditional southern method of fishing for catfish where the angler uses his or her fingers as a lure.  The intrepid fisherperson reaches into promising holes and pits in the bottom of the waterway and wiggles his fingers provocatively in hopes that a catfish will mistake them for some sort of prey.  If the catfish bites the angler’s hand he then uses brute strength to wrestle the fish bodily from the water.  Below is a picture of a Lucy Millsap, a professional (?) noodler landing a monstrous flathead catfish.  It sounds like an interesting sport I guess, but I think I’ll stick to noodlin’ with paper and ink.

Lucy Millsap with a Flathead Catfish she captured by “noodling”