Ok, so I had heard of this sport called noodling from my wife's uncle (he's from Oklahoma). I guess I believed that somebody might have done this once or twice, but as it turns out its pretty common, in some places :).

Basically, it boils down to a person finding a catfish hole and sticking their hand down in it until a catfish bites onto it... ?!!?

From Wikipedia:

Although the concept, catching fish with only the use of the arm in the water, is simple enough, the process of noodling is more complicated. The choice of catfish as the prey is not arbitrary, but comes from the circumstances of their habitat. Flathead catfish live in holes or under brush in rivers and lakes and thus are easy to capture due to the static nature of their dwelling. To begin, a noodler goes underwater to depths ranging from only a few feet to up to twenty feet, placing his hand inside a discovered catfish hole. If all goes as planned, 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. If the fish is particularly large, the noodler can hook the head around its gills.

And of course, this wonderful scene wouldn't be complete without "Girls Gone Grabblin". Notice there is plenty of banjo music to go around in this video.