Somerville Natives Featured in Animal Planet Catfishing Show

You're excused if you have no idea what Somerville natives Staci Gorgone and Shelly Rego are talking about when they start using words like "noodling" and "grabbling."

You're also excused if you think Gorgone and Rego have completely lost their minds.

Let's put it this way: If you're describing an activity with the phrase, "You're basically the bait," followed by, "You get bit," maybe its an activity you should avoid.

But those were exactly the words Gorgone used when explaining why she and her best friend, Rego, will be featured in a television show airing on Animal Planet Aug. 7.

Noodling—you're the bait
Which brings up another point: If "you're basically the bait" and "you get bit" are in any way associated with Animal Planet … run away.

Rego and Gorgone did not run away, however. Not that they could. As part of their participation in the upcoming show, "Hillbilly Handfishin'," they were waist deep in muck and mud, surrounded by venomous snakes, leeches, snapping turtles, beavers and other creatures in rural Oklahoma. It's hard to run when you're waist deep in mud.

These Somerville residents, who grew up together near , were after were catfish, which have course, sandpaper-like teeth, live in underwater mud caves and can grow up to 75 pounds. As a point of reference, Rego weighs 115 pounds.

If all of this sounds crazy, disturbing and confusing, you're right.

How to noodle
Gorgone, 37, and Rego, 36, were participating in a type of fishing most commonly known as "noodling."

The purpose of this fishing method is to catch catfish with your bare hands or feet, with no bait. Rather, you're the bait. Noodlers wade through "incredibly murky, disgusting, lakes [and] mudflats," Gorgone described. They're looking for a catfish hole, which is underwater and "almost like a tomb," according to Gorgone. Inside the hole is a family of catfish, protected by a male.

Once found, the noodler submerges under the water and waits for a catfish to bite his hands or feet.

Which hurts, said Rego, who described the pain as akin to falling and scraping yourself on blacktop. "It hurt really bad."

Then, once bit, you haul in the fish using rope. Done.

Out of their element
So how did two sensible women from Somerville—Gorgone works as a bartender and Rego is a former Miss Fitness USA Champion who recently opened her own Zoomba studio, SheBOOM, in Billerica—end up in Oklahoma, up to their torsos in mud, using their bare extremities as bait to catch monster catfish?

They were tapped by a casting-director friend to participate in the show, which follows the experience of city-folk from places like Somerville, Chicago and suburban California in their attempts to noodle.

It's your typical fish-out-of-water reality series. Pun intended, but scratch the word "typical."

The real stars of the show, which will run 12 episodes, are Skipper Bivins and Jackson, seasoned handfishers. "Skipper's like the Tom Brady of noodling," said Gorgone. 

For the two Somerville women, it was an opportunity to get out of the city and experience something completely new. They spent about a week in Temple, Okla., without cell phones.

And Rego said she'd do it again, despite the pain of being human catfish food. "We got to go to this really beautiful countryside," she said. Beyond that, Skipper, Jackson and their families "were awesome people" and "we got to learn a lot from each other."

The show airs Sunday, Aug. 7, at 10 p.m. on Animal Planet. Gorgone and Rego are in the premier episode.