Grabblin’ life by the horns …

Beautiful Southern women splashing about in their mud-covered bikinis, tangled up, dripping wet because they’ve been wrestling 50-pound catfish … Confused? Get your mind out of the gutter; it’s just a Girls Gone Grabblin’ fishing trip. Grabblin’ is the Southern sport of catching catfish using your bare hands. Sometimes called noodling, participants stick their hands under large rocks where they wiggle their fingers and wait for a fish to bite down so they can wrestle them to the surface.

Despite the title, there’s nothing sexual about this collection created by Marty Jenkins. Girls Gone Grabblin’ 2 focuses on Marty’s wife, Fostana, helping rookies wrangle their first catfish. The whole thing feels like an extended episode of America’s Funniest Home Videos (Country Fried Home Videos for Country Music Television fans) as Jenkins handles the camera and eggs on the participants—and therein lies the appeal of the DVD, the sport and the hell of the South itself. The whole thing has a down-home feel that focuses on good friends and good times without a hint of pretension. From the opening theme song, penned by the son of Jenkins’ high-school auto-mechanics teacher, it feels like you’re watching old home movies.

The biggest laughs are at the expense of guest stars that are completely unaccustomed to the sport. Seasoned grabblin’ girls mock Jackie Bushman, host of Buckmasters, as he panics at every nibble or threat of a nearby snake, but it is the eye-popping scream of world archery champion Joella Bates that’s worth numerous rewinds. Still, the real stars of the show are the fish. It’s amazing how powerful fish are as they drag girls underwater or toss them about as if they were rag dolls. After watching the excitement, the only question that remains is who will be the first brave soul to go grabblin’ in Lake Natoma?