When I was a kid in *********, TX (early '60's), my dad would "noodle" (that's what he called it too) the catfish out of the river up close to the spillway from lake *********. While I've never seen one as big as your pics, I have seen him come walking out of the river holding one by the gills at just above belt height and still have a couple of feet of the tail dragging between hes feet. He always did it after dark and I have seen him bring three of them out in a night. He would keep a couple feet of the tail and then give the rest of the fish away to some of the black families around there who were worse off than we were, but not much worse off. At least not in those days, with five kids. In TX, "noodling" is very much against the law, although I have heard of some game wardens who would let you go if the fish was really big, since the size of the fish is a good insicator of how crazy you really are.