Draw-dropping doesn't even begin to cover it.
A 19-year-old former Texas cheerleader has been named champion of
Oklahoma's 14th annual Okie Noodling
Festival after wrestling in a 72-pound catfish with her bare
hands.
Marching on stage in a pink tank-top and cowboy boots with a
massive catfish wriggling over her shoulder,
Lucy Millsap of Lake Tawakoni, Texas, turned more than a few heads
Saturday.
Slapping the fish on a scale, the fiery brunette revealed a catch
outweighing the day's other 200 competitors’, which earned her a
check for $1,500 and made her the first woman to win the
competition's Big Fish category.
"My dad asked me if I wanted to fish in the women's division, and I
said, 'Heck no.' I don't want to fish in the women's division. I
want to beat the men," Millsap, a self-described "daddy's girl,"
told NewsOk after her big win.
As the competition's rules go, each contestant was given 24 hours
to "noodle" a fish — no bait, hooks or nets allowed — and bring it
back to the Pauls Valley weighing station no later than 6pm.
It was Millsap's first competition, she said, though she's been
noodling since she was just 5 years old.
Today she's also a proud member of the Bare Knuckle Babes, a group
that showcases stunning women like herself in the sport.
"There's nothing like a catfish latching onto your hand and taking
it with him. You don't have to look for him; he finds you. That's
the best part," Millsap told NewsOK of the sport.
When Millsap pulled into the festival's parking lot Saturday
afternoon with her dusty pickup truck carrying a red tub sloshing
in its bed, she emitted an air of confidence. She had this.
Only hours earlier, around 3 that morning, Millsap said she
wrestled in her mighty catch, which is fittingly nicknamed
"dinner," from the waters of Lake Texoma.
It's those late-night excursions that especially thrill and get the
19-year-old going, she said, after first practicing the sport under
the cover of darkness when noodling was illegal in Texas.
Another competitor described the sport Saturday as a "romantic way"
to interact with nature.
It's more than a challenging sport, said Millsap, who has had trips
to the emergency room for injuries stemming from rusty nails in the
water.
"If she's not noodling, she's fishing for crappie, getting muddy on
a four wheeler, getting warm by a campfire and listening to Texas
Country,"
"'If you like your food burnt put me in the kitchen,'" she added to
the website.
