guddle

guddle (GUHD-l) - v., to catch (fish) by groping with the hands, as under stones or along a riverbank.



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Originally Scottish but used enough in North America to not be marked as regional in most dictionaries. Guddling for catfish in the southeastern U.S. is sometimes called noodling, and guddling for trout in the U.K. is sometimes called trout tickling (including by Shakespeare). In origin it's Scots, as I said, but the etymology beyond that is obscure -- possibly onomatopoetic of splashing is one suggestion.

---L.