1919 Smith's Weekly (Sydney) 21 June 17 Should he see nothing, nor feel anything with his pick, he is apt to bring the dirt down in lumps—which accounts for the number of stones found on his dump by ‘noodlers’.

1940 I. L. Idriess Lightning Ridge (1948) xvi. 96 All stones thus missed were regarded as the legitimate prey of the noodlers.

1967 S. Lloyd Lightning Ridge Bk. 38 A champion noodler. First to use shear blade to cut opal dirt on dumps.

1996 J. T. Hospital Oyster (1997) 396 A fine white dust covers all the noodlers like a shroud.

1937 N.Y. Times 21 Mar. xi. 4/4 She made her London début as a Mississippi levee swing noodler.

1983 J. W. Landon Behold Mighty Wurlitzer iv. 101 Though he admits to being only a noodler himself, Simonton never lacks for live music.

1995 Rolling Stone 24 Aug. 99 Benny Goodman was an expert noodler. So was Louis Armstrong.

2001 Los Angeles Times (Electronic ed.) 18 June He sounded like a committed student of classic rock guitar moves, more Duane Allman than aimless noodler.

1955 N.Y. Times 3 Jan. 95 (advt.) This is known..as ‘Noodling’, or, to put it more succinctly, as trying to guess what is going to happen in the future. We do not presume to be ‘Noodlers’.

1995 Writer's Digest July 50/1 If the Internet keeps growing at its current rate, some number-noodlers have calculated that sometime early next century everyone on the planet will have an e-mail address.

2000 Time (Electronic ed.) 4 Dec. In the early 17th century,..French noodler Rene Descartes saved the day with a trick for thinking things through without screwing up.

1981 Jrnl. Amer. Folklore 94 348 Even some of his articles on fishing and shooting show his bent for research. The one on ‘Jumpers, Giggers and Noodlers’, reprinted as a chapter in The Ozarks, describes some unorthodox ways of catching fish.

1988 Los Angeles Times (Electronic ed.) 28 July Slithering through the mud of the Deep Fork doesn't appeal to many people, including other noodlers, but Rider has been doing it since he was a boy.

2002 Sports Illustr. (Electronic ed.) 15–22 July Standing neck-deep in the lake, a noodler feels around under rocks or logs until he, or she, finds a fish. Then the noodler shoves an arm down its throat, past rows of nasty teeth, grabs it through the gills and hoists it out of the water.