Give a Man a Fish, He'll Eat for a Day

June 10, 2020 3:23 AM

Give a man a snake.... [SLYT]
posted by chavenet (40 comments total)

Okay, so now I've seen everything.
I've seen Mentos and coke fishing, I've seen eggs and toothpaste, I've seen people cram various things down these holes and the catfish come leaping out like their fins are on fire.
It's my understanding that the majority, if not all, of these videos are faked or staged.

The exit of the hole is just off-camera, and someone is cramming fish through to the other end, where the camera awaits.
My assumption here is that a compatriot grabs the snake as it comes through, then pushes the fish, then the snake.
It seems a little suspect that you never see a wider angle shot to see the entire picture.
It's like there's just some random hole with water it in, and you add some ingredients and fish come leaping out.
Nice work if you can get it!
posted by Bill Watches Movies Podcast at 3:36 AM on June 10, 2020 [8 favorites]

It's my understanding [citation needed]
posted by bitslayer at 4:53 AM on June 10, 2020 [3 favorites]

What... where... I mean. What kind of hole is this? (is there a special tool?)... Do all holes have a bunch of weird catfish creatures in them? Can I do this in my back yard? Would I? (no)... Is he seriously adding insult to injury by carrying the snake in the same basket on the way back? (yes, what an asshole)... Would those fish not prefer dynamite? (I would)... Would this also work with a cat? (obviously)... Is there some kind of cooking method that will get rid of the snake venom? How did the snake turn around? (seriously, how?)... Is this some kind of super-smart trained snake? (God I bet it is, we're doomed)...
posted by kleinsteradikaleminderheit at 5:20 AM on June 10, 2020 [3 favorites]

I'm just gonna assume that every lawn is full of catfish, and there's only one thing they fear.
posted by moonmilk at 5:59 AM on June 10, 2020 [15 favorites]

Reading some of the responses here is almost as astonishing as the video itself. "Lawn"? "Back yard"? He's obviously out by a lake or river or some kind of wetlands, someplace with a lot of muddy water where you might expect to find, you know, catfish. (Catfish, not "weird catfish creatures.") Sheesh, people, get out once in a while.
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:14 AM on June 10, 2020 [7 favorites]

Halloween Jack does not yet realize how deep the catfish hole goes
posted by moonmilk at 6:28 AM on June 10, 2020 [10 favorites]

I'm just gonna assume that every lawn is full of catfish, and there's only one thing they fear.

Well, I call fake. It is well-known that the only thing catfish fear is Conrad Bain.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 6:32 AM on June 10, 2020 [2 favorites]

Entertaining the idea that it's real, imagine the emotional rollercoaster of being the first person to figure this out. You feel like some sort of river wizard, and then you need to explain it to somebody else.

"I'm going to catch a snake."
"...OK."
"And teach it."
"You're...."
"And then I'm going to shove it in a hole in near the river."
"..."
"And then fish are going to just start shooting out of that hole."
"...what"
"Like some sort of catfish spigot. Big ones, too."
"..."
"We're going eat like kings."
"... OK... uh listen man are things OK at home?"
posted by mhoye at 6:45 AM on June 10, 2020 [22 favorites]

Is this some kind of super-smart trained snake?

I'm guessing there's no training involved here. Just shove a pissed off snake down a hole to scare the shit out of the fish. I was about to use the term "flush them out", though the visuals presented kind of reverse that concept.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 6:50 AM on June 10, 2020 [3 favorites]

Halloween Jack does not yet realize how deep the catfish hole goes.

Unfortunately, no one can be told how deep the catfish hole goes. You have to see it for yourself.
posted by Naberius at 6:59 AM on June 10, 2020 [10 favorites]

Get outta my lawn!
posted by kinnakeet at 7:01 AM on June 10, 2020 [10 favorites]

I admit I do not know much about catfish, whom I have always seen/imagined hanging out sedately at the bottom of a river/aquarium. The briskness with which they headed up onto land initially made me think these were mudskippers or something similar.

Perhaps that’s how our distant progenitors got out of the water and onto land: noping our because a snake fell in the drink.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:16 AM on June 10, 2020 [8 favorites]

I've got to assume he caught the snake by sending a spider down a snake hole.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 7:23 AM on June 10, 2020 [21 favorites]

So, I am insanely curious about this. I googled 'catfish den' and that just led me to some questionably-named seafood restaurants. So, against my better judgement, I googled 'catfish hole', and found some promising pictures, like this one from 2018, supposedly in the Peruvian amazon. I found this video of someone pulling up chunks of dried up riverbed to reveal catfish waiting in the mud. Here's a blog that says that catfish dig holes to lay eggs, to sleep in, or to hide and ambush prey.
posted by FirstMateKate at 7:24 AM on June 10, 2020 [5 favorites]

It's my understanding [citation needed]

Here's The Truth About That Bizarre Catfish-Egg-Coke-Mentos Video

The most telling, though, comes from a video similar to the viral post, also uploaded this month. It claims the videos are planned, scripted, and made for fun, as well as disclaimer that the fish in this instance, "come out by pushing behind the video at the left side."

The snake video seems to be from a different source than the Technique Tools channel, but fool me once, etc.
posted by zamboni at 7:45 AM on June 10, 2020 [2 favorites]

It seems that very little has been written about these practices, but some rural populations in Asia and tropical Africa have various fishing practices consisting in catching fish by hand during the dry season. Those fish have taken refuge in small ponds (some of them created for this purpose) or buried themselves in the mud. The villagers then scoop out water, catch the fish directly, or channel them to areas where then can be caught more easily, or dug them out from the mud. It seems pretty common in fact.
Here is a paper about these practices in the Congolese cuvette in this paper from 2016 and another describing indigenous techniques for catching the mud eel Monopterus cuchia in Assam, India, where you can see the fish in its mud hole. In this particular case, the fish is caught by stupefying it with ichthyotoxic plants. The whole soda/toothpaste/snake thing seems a modern variation of that.
posted by elgilito at 7:49 AM on June 10, 2020 [2 favorites]

When I saw "give a man a snake", my thought was "one of those big pythons weigh about 200 pounds".

Second thought: give him enough snakes, and he can be a bounty hunter in Florida.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 8:15 AM on June 10, 2020 [1 favorite]

Do all holes have a bunch of weird catfish creatures in them?

It's my understanding that the majority of them do.
posted by flabdablet at 8:46 AM on June 10, 2020 [12 favorites]

Beats the hell out of the stories my dad told abt hogging* catfish in small-town IL in the 1940s.

*I believe that more genteel people call this "noodling".
posted by she's not there at 8:55 AM on June 10, 2020 [4 favorites]

Halloween Jack does not yet realize how deep the catfish hole goes

Obviously I should have taken the snake pill.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:00 AM on June 10, 2020 [3 favorites]

one of those big pythons weigh about 200 pounds

Anacondas don’t need training to catch fish, but good luck getting them to give them back afterwards.
posted by zamboni at 9:23 AM on June 10, 2020 [6 favorites]

The whole soda/toothpaste/snake thing seems a modern variation of that.

Where what you’re catching is YouTube viewers?
posted by zamboni at 9:26 AM on June 10, 2020 [3 favorites]

The thing that got me was that he was grabbing those fish with his bare hands! Catfish will cut you, man. Especially the small ones. The spines on their fins are serious business.

(Maybe this was just a noob thing for me and an experienced noodles knows what to do, but I don’t think I’ve ever touched a catfish without coming away bleeding.)
posted by sjswitzer at 9:46 AM on June 10, 2020 [4 favorites]

What kind of hole is this? (is there a special tool?)

Things Your Fishing Buddy Could Take Out Of Context
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:01 AM on June 10, 2020 [6 favorites]

says that catfish dig holes to lay eggs, to sleep in, or to hide and ambush prey.

Interestingly, these are the same reasons I dig holes.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 10:34 AM on June 10, 2020 [9 favorites]

You get a snake and I'll get a pole , honey
You get a snake and I'll get a pole babe
You get a snake and I'll get a pole we'll go down
To the catfish hole honey, sugar baby mine

(Sorry, Doc)
posted by Floydd at 10:38 AM on June 10, 2020 [2 favorites]

Watching Hannah Barron catching catfish is much more interesting.
posted by leaper at 10:38 AM on June 10, 2020 [1 favorite]

Beats the hell out of the stories my dad told abt hogging* catfish in small-town IL in the 1940s.

*I believe that more genteel people call this "noodling".

no self respecting noodler would be happy with the catfish that snake stirred up.

Call me when that snake meets this
in that hole and comes out the winner
posted by domino at 10:45 AM on June 10, 2020 [3 favorites]

The idea that I would reach my hand into a muddy hole from which creatures just emerged is so unthinkable, I had to take breaks from the video.
posted by gladly at 10:51 AM on June 10, 2020 [5 favorites]

> I googled 'catfish hole', and found some promising pictures

No doubt, no doubt
posted by kleinsteradikaleminderheit at 11:02 AM on June 10, 2020 [7 favorites]

@sjswitzer: The thing that got me was that he was grabbing those fish with his bare hands! Catfish will cut you, man. Especially the small ones. The spines on their fins are serious business.

As a small kid in rural Georgia, I was told that catfish whiskers would STING YOU.
Now, being much older and not living in rural Georgia anymore, I know that's a myth, but will still give catfish (unless breaded and fried) a wide berth.
posted by Bill Watches Movies Podcast at 11:18 AM on June 10, 2020 [1 favorite]

Yeah, it’s not the whiskers; it’s the spines on their fins. They’re no joke on the small ones but I read they get dull as they get older. I wouldn’t know since I only ever caught the small ones.
posted by sjswitzer at 11:29 AM on June 10, 2020 [1 favorite]

You could make a lot of Cambodian catfish amok with that. When’s dinner?
posted by sjswitzer at 11:36 AM on June 10, 2020 [1 favorite]

I think logic dictates it's fake. Albeit wildly entertaining. If the fish were able to manufacture a hole in a field, how'd they ever get there in the first place? Why would a fish use dry land as an escape route, being that even fish, who are known to be dumb realize they don't have legs or lungs. If this were real the fish would escape out of the submerged entrance that they must have. Somewhere. It's not like that hole floods as you can see grass around it. And grass grows poorly underwater.
posted by Keith Talent at 1:23 PM on June 10, 2020 [1 favorite]

Eh, watching again maybe I'm wrong. It might be a dry area in a recently flooded zone. Regardless, that's enough thinking about the logistics of snake fishing for one day.
posted by Keith Talent at 1:26 PM on June 10, 2020 [1 favorite]

I wanna believe! I am going to believe in this! It seems a simple construct, a side tunnel to a swampy body of water, a lure to coax catfish, (not the rocket scientists of fish,) up and out. I like the jack fruit and pepsi challenge, the sound effects were great! Google the boys fishing up mud crabs in the swamps of Australia, same feeling, like winning the lottery. The cold butter and lemons grow on trees there, I guess, and they always have just the right cooking pan, a tricky trap, and they don't die from food poisoning...maybe.
posted by Oyéah at 8:28 PM on June 10, 2020 [1 favorite]

1. That is a long-ass snake.

2. In high school, in Texas, a good friend's family had a small catfish business. The dad would buy a truckload of little baby catfish from somewhere and bring them to his farm and put them in a concrete holding tank. The spring water in the tank was crazy cold and even on a 100-degree August afternoon it would take us several minutes to ease our bodies into the water for refreshing soak with thousand of squirming baby catfishes.
posted by neuron at 9:27 PM on June 10, 2020 [2 favorites]

Most of the fish were oddly non-wiggly. Whenever I've caught fish (albeit not with a snake) they were always extremely wiggly when you pulled them out of the water. These fish seem almost to be being pushed out of the hole and then just laying about exhausted.
posted by WalkerWestridge at 10:09 PM on June 10, 2020 [1 favorite]

My husband recently spend a couple-hundred dollars on fishing gear. He's gonna be really annoyed when I tell him we could've just got a snake instead.

...I suppose we'll keep the gear; you have to feed snakes when it's not fishing season.

Not serious. But I will show him the video and tell him he was robbed.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 10:07 AM on June 11, 2020 [1 favorite]

jesus christ i was not prepared for the first big fish. i’ll never go near a hole again.

i did enjoy the last few seconds of the snake waving goodbye though
posted by inire at 4:09 PM on June 13, 2020 [1 favorite]