When Hillbilly Handfishin’ popped up during an unrelated DVR search, I assumed it was a pay per view movie on one of the naughty channels. To quench my insatiable appetitive for knowledge, I clicked on the title and found a listing for an episode called “Kansas Girls Do It Better.”

Oh, yeah, I had run across something kinky.

But I couldn’t understand why Hillbilly Handfishin’ aired on the Animal Planet.

As it turns out, the show has nothing to do with quirky canoodling. Instead, it’s all about noodling.

Although noodling sounds just as dirty as handfishing, both actually describe the method of catching fish with your hands or feet. On Hillbilly Handfishin’, Jackson and Skipper, two self-proclaimed Oklahoma hillbillies who show off their beer guts while wading into muddy lakes shirtless, guide folks on noodling adventures.

Since I’m a sucker for alliteration, I decided to watch an episode of the show. I chose “Kansas Girls Do It Better.” There was really no other option.

Mere moments into the episode, the fellows are scouting holes when one of them says, “I smell a beaver.”

Beavers – the rodents, mind you – present dangers to handfishers. No, folks just never know if the appendages they stick into beaver holes are going to come back looking the same as when they went in. Of course, catfish also bite, especially when somebody rams an arm down their throats.

In “Kansas Girls Do It Better,” Jackson and Skipper guide two moms from Kansas who want to get away from the demands of motherhood, two firefighters from Virginia who seek adventure that’s a little less predictable than fires, and two friends from Charleston, S.C., one of whom wants to prove his manhood.

Skipper’s not impressed with the guys from Charleston. He thinks those Kansas moms have the makings of fine handfishers, but for a reason he never comes right out and explains, he doesn’t think Andrew, a makeup artist, and Matt, a chef, are cut out for noodling.

Fireman John has no trouble expressing his feelings, “Andrew and Matt are going to be worse than the girls. I think they might be more worried about their makeup than the girls are.”

At that point, I wanted a beaver to bite John’s noodle.

By day’s end, Matt and Andrew have proven themselves to Jackson and Skipper by pulling in a 29-pound flathead – and by almost drowning in the process.

The next day, Jackson and Skipper take the gang brush fishing, which they describe as “about the toughest thing you can do.” Once they harass the fish out of the brush, they form a human fence and continue to annoy him until he attempts to make a swim for it.

When the folks see the fish, they dive on him like he’s the last laptop at a black Friday sale. Or, in Jackson’s words, “You would have thought there was a $1,000 bill tied to the fish and they was dead broke.”

Andrew comes up with the 59-pound blue cat, and even John the fireman gives him props, “Andrew tackled it like it was his job. Matt and Andrew really impressed me.”

Things get a little boring after that, but there is some trash talking between the firemen, who have trouble holding onto even the runt of the catfish litter, and the Kansas moms, who annoy the firemen with their “Kansas Girls Do It Better” T-shirts.

By the time the credits roll, everyone has caught a big-ass fish with their hands and/or feet, and is a better person for having done so.

Take Andrew for example. “That was freakin’ cool,” he says about tackling and hauling in the catfish. “That changed my life.”

Now that Kansas mom Lissa has blindly stuck her arms and feet into beaver holes, she says she will no longer fear anything.

It was a good thing she listened to Jackson and Skipper, who advised, “You got him caught when you get him between your legs.”

Hmm, I’m not convinced I didn’t run across something kinky after all.

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