Dad-to-be catches 28-pound catfish to reveal baby’s sex

— -- This Oklahoma couple learned the sex of their baby through a new twist on a Southern tradition -- catching a catfish by hand.

“It is definitely out of the box, to say the least,” mom-to-be Shelby Moore, of Mannford, told ABC News of their catfish-noodling reveal party.

Her husband, Colt Moore, caught a 28-pound catfish, to which a friend had attached a pink tag, for the parents to learn their baby's sex.

“I was really excited it was a girl! I’ve always wanted one!,” Colt Moore, 26, wrote to ABC News. “I’m looking forward to having her in my arms for the first time! And a few years after that she’ll be in the water noodlin’ with me!”

Shelby Moore said noodling is a hobby she and her husband enjoy doing together.

“It is hand-fishing catfishing. You catch catfish with your hands," she said. "You go to the lake or a river or wherever and you work the banks to find these catfish in the rocks.”

Her husband caught the catfish a week before the reveal and had a friend tag it without telling the couple whether it was pink or blue.

“My husband actually went and noodled this fish last Monday and our reveal was Sunday,” Shelby Moore, 25, said of the Father’s Day surprise. “They kept it in a live well in one of our friends’ house for the week. My appointment to find out what we’re having was Wednesday and they gave the envelope to our best friend who had kept the catfish alive all week. He went out on his boat and found a hole an hour before we came out. He tagged the fish blue or pink and stuck it in the hole and stayed at the hole for about an hour.”

Colt Moore was less nervous about what the baby’s sex would be than about “losing the fish in front of all my buddies,” he said with a laugh. “They wouldn’t have let me hear the end of it.”

The parents are over the moon to be having a baby girl, due on Dec. 2, whom they plan to name Collins Taylor Moore.

“We have always talked about kids and wanted a girl,” said Shelby Moore. “We have always felt like we’re supposed to be a girl parent. I had a gut feeling it was a boy but we all wanted a girl so bad. I had mentally prepared myself for a boy because obviously I’d never be disappointed. We just want a happy, healthy baby, but when it came up with a girl I was beyond excited. It just made my heart so happy that it was pink.”