(gentle music) ♪ Riding through the Bayou, heading for the sky blue ♪ ♪ Back out on the trail again and again ♪ ♪ Talking and hunting and fishing land ♪ ♪ Time is time well spent ♪ ♪ We'll take you through the delta ♪ ♪ Now through the great wide shore ♪ ♪ So must see and do Mississippi Outdoor ♪ ♪ Mississippi Outdoor ♪ ♪ The great outdoors ♪ - [Narrator] "Mississippi Outdoors" is brought to you in part by the Foundation for Wildlife, Fisheries, Parks and Marine.

(gentle music continues) - Welcome to "Mississippi Outdoors," I'm Amanda Mills.

- And I'm Kevin Meacham, thanks for joining us.

- In our first story, we're going deer hunting with some great kids.

- We're going on the Superhunt.

A deer hunt for kids with disabilities.

- Let's go.

(upbeat country music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) - Superhunt was created back in 2006 by the National Wild Turkey Federation.

This is now the 19th year of the Superhunt.

We've got kids all across the state of Mississippi and from outside the state of Mississippi that are participating in the hunt.

We've got landowners that are continually signing up every year, and then even new landowners.

This year we have 62 landowners and over 103 kids participating in the hunt from all walks of life and all across the Southeast.

Really, word of mouth is the best way to spread the word about the Superhunt.

We've got some social media and some marketing stuff that we get the information out, but most of it is by word of mouth.

The Superhunt starts where we get together at Turcotte and we get out there and we do fishing.

We do a safety check on all the firearms, make sure the kids are safe with the guns, make sure they can shoot.

And then we go, we let them do some activities out at Turcotte and let them just enjoy the outdoors.

And then they go from there, they go to the hunting camps.

They'll hunt Friday evening, they'll hunt Saturday morning, do some activities on Saturday afternoon and then hunt again Saturday evening.

And then we get together for a closing banquet.

Well, this year it's at the Clyde Muse Center in Pearl.

We'll do a closing ceremony banquet and a share time where the kids get to share about their weekend and their experiences.

- Well, it's my first time being involved in the Superhunt and I was invited to provide some land that I have in Yazoo County and have learned a lot about the organization.

It's an unbelievable experience.

Very well organized.

And I would like to continue to be a partner and a landowner and a participant because I think it really makes... It takes advantage of the rich natural resources we have with land and wildlife here in Mississippi.

And I think it just gives opportunities to kids that may not be able to have those opportunities in the future.

- We just got set up for an afternoon on Ranyazu County Sunflower Farms.

It's about 4:20 right now.

Just going to give it a little while and have some deer show up.

Having a big time so far.

Hopefully we can cap it off this afternoon.

- Yeah.

- Now you wait.

- [Kid] Okay, here I go.

Three, two, one.

(gun banging) (upbeat music) - Hey buddy, we got a shot off.

- Give me some of this.

- We've been sitting here a little while and probably 6:10.

- I sleep a little.

- Yeah, he took a little nap on us, but probably about 6:10.

Had two does come out and kind of weary, but I don't know, she was what, probably 100 yards or so?

She couldn't decide what she wanted to do.

She was back and forth in and out of the food plot, but she finally got comfortable and Mr.

Dawson here made a good shot on her.

So we're going to go find her.

- We were so fortunate to be able to host an 11-year-old young man from Flora, Mississippi.

And it's his first Superhunt, just like mine too.

And he is just a fantastic young man.

And I think he had a good time, he's been very excited.

We've still got some hunting left to finish today.

And I just think it's been a win-win for both of us.

- The Southern Outdoors Unlimited Superhunt has been going on, this is the 19th year of the Superhunt.

And I think we've got many more years to come.

Next year will be our 20th year.

We're hoping to have more kids.

We're hoping to grow maybe to more states.

We're hoping to be able to reach kids of all abilities and maybe even do a second hunt throughout the year for kids that have aged out of the Superhunt.

(gun bangs) - [Woman] Good job.

- This is about getting kids outdoors, getting them involved, getting them around a camp setting, kind of having them laugh and have a good time and just kind of lose themselves.

And we really make these hunts about the kids.

Kind of you center everything around them.

That way, it's a special event for them.

And by doing that, it's a special event for us as well.

So this afternoon, our hunter we'll have is Addie Ivy.

And this will be her third year to hunt with us.

So far she's been successful on her previous two hunts with us.

And we'll hunt this... We'll have a stand that's close to the camp here.

We'll hunt this afternoon and early, and in the morning also.

And then tomorrow afternoon, we'll go deeper into the property.

So if we bump deer, we won't mess up tomorrow's hunt by trying to hunt too deep in the property today.

- We're sitting in a ground blond here.

We got four of us grammed in this little bitty pop-up stand staring at a wheat field up in front of us.

Hopefully we get a pretty nice buck from Ms.

Addie here.

- Ton of deer on the property.

You know how it goes, you got pictures, you know they're there.

In the first afternoon, Addie doesn't see anything.

So we're empty-handed.

Now as a landowner, that's a lot of pressure because you know they're there.

Everything's prepared.

Everything's right, and it just doesn't happen.

This morning, we get up a little bit early, get out there, get settled, it's cold.

We get Addie in the stand, and about three minutes after legal shooting time, there he was.

- Slowly move it, put your finger online.

(birds chirping) - Right here?

- Hold on just a second.

(gun bangs) - We were able to close the deal and get a big buck down.

Downside of that was camera.

And the way things are with the lighting, we wasn't able to get the footage of that buck.

- Hey, I'll settle for this over a doe any day.

And when he turned around and I saw that.

(gentle music) - This is year four for me, and getting kids in outdoors has always been a strong passion of mine.

Something I look forward to every year.

So this just gives me a weekend that I can get out and do something for a kid that don't get to do this every day.

I think it's important for kids to get outdoors, to just see God's creation, you know, see another way of life.

Getting some of these kids out that don't get to do this type of thing every day.

I mean, they're not like most folks.

They can't just run, go do this, do that because their disabilities limit them to that.

And I think this weekend helps get a lot of kids that aren't used to doing things out and about and able to do things like this because this is a strong passion of mine and I hope to instill that in every kid I come in contact with.

You go back to any kid that's hunted for the first time in their life and killed a deer, just the excitement of these kids, just to see it.

It don't matter if you've killed a thousand deer, you can always go back to that first deer you ever killed in life.

And some of these kids, the only time they hunt is this weekend.

And it's an experience you'll never forget.

Like it's something that'll live with you for the rest of your life.

You remember yours, but you'll remember every kid you ever took hunting.

And you'll remember that for life.

Allie, what are we after today?

- A big buck.

- [Tyler] You going to kill a big buck?

You going to wait on a big buck?

- Maybe.

- [Tyler] Just depends.

- Yeah, probably.

- [Tyler] You excited?

- I am.

- All right, we're here in Scuba today.

We got Allie and Tyler and we're finna go down here and see if we can kill us a big old buck.

It's about 2:30.

They ought to start moving here in about 30 minutes, 45 minutes.

So let's go see if we can get something, okay?

(upbeat country music) Used to.

About 15 years ago, we would see probably 40 deer.

We ought to see 20, 25.

- [Tyler] Find him in the scope.

Squeeze the trigger.

Are you ready?

(gun shoots) - Oh, yes, sir.

- Good shot, girl.

- Good shot, baby.

- Girl, I got.

I got grown men that wouldn't shoot up on that far.

- Okay.

- Give us a thumbs up.

There you go.

Good job, and you look right on the shoulder, baby.

Give me five.

- Good job, girl.

- Thank you.

- [Tyler] Well, we had a good afternoon.

We saw about 15, 20 does.

And then this deer, he showed up.

We had to look at him for about an hour, but he finally come close enough.

I guess that's close enough.

About 300 yard shot.

And I'm glad I got to take you.

I truly enjoyed it.

- I wanted to kill a big buck today, and I kind of wanted to beat my brother at killing a deer, and I did.

I killed this big seven point, and it's probably my biggest deer that I've killed.

I think that was honestly probably the furthest I've shot.

Like, I think at home on our land, it's not nearly at half of that probably.

- We're hoping to continue to grow this and allow more hunts.

Right now, Southern Outdoors Unlimited offers five different other events other than the Superhunt.

We do an alligator hunt, a turkey hunt, a deer hunt a squirrel hunt, and a pig hunt.

And so we're hoping to be able to offer more opportunities and more, more outings for these kids.

(upbeat music) - In our next story, we're headed to the Mississippi Delta.

- We're taking a look at commercial fishing for Asian carp.

(gentle music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) - Asian carp have become a big problem in the lower Mississippi and even the northern parts of the Mississippi River.

But these fish, they were introduced somewhere around the 1960s, 1970s.

Often used for vegetation control and agricultural ponds, things of that nature.

And after a couple of flood events with the river, the fish escaped, you know, out into the main channel, and they've been there reproducing ever since.

(upbeat music) Little by little, states have been trying to get involved working with the federal government, US Fish and Wildlife to see what we can do to help control these species and minimize impact on a lot of our native sport fish.

- Well, most people don't understand.

Yeah, we got the silver carp, which is a jumping carp.

And that's scares everybody because, you know, you're on a tube or you're skiing or whatever, you own a pontoon boat.

They jump up, they hit you, you know, and some of them weigh 20, 25 pounds, and it can be quite damaging.

But what the people don't realize, you got the silver carp, and then you got a big head carp, and there's a black carp, which is a very fish they really don't want.

And then you got the actual grass carp, but all those are in the carp family that I'm talking about and from Asia.

What the scientists told us, they had a high water flood in the Mississippi River, and the water got over into Illinois and got into a lake over there and put the carp in the lake.

And what they found out by those carp filtering through that algae, they were eating all the phytoplankton and stuff in there that all the fry fish from the bass and the catfish and the brim and crappie eat, within four years, it killed the lake.

There were no fish left to fish.

Go to places like Kentucky Lake where they've been, been really hit with those carp up there.

You have people moving out of million dollar homes and leaving them.

I'm working right now with Delta Wildlife, with Parker Fruit, trying to find a way to find us a contractor to put some kind of barrier, electronic barrier in Yazoo pass.

And if we can keep them out, these carp fishermen can catch them out.

- The thing that really changed the whole Asian carp fishing is the bounty.

You know, everybody bringing bounties here and there.

You know, you double your money.

In some places you tripled it.

You can afford better nets, better boats, motors, better maintenance on your stuff so you can be on the water not sitting at home broke down.

So the more time you can spend on the water, you can't catch fish on the couch eating fruit loops.

(upbeat music) (motor whirring) (upbeat music continues) - Out.

(upbeat music continues) Net out.

Now going to the fun part.

- [Tim] What's that?

- Chasing the fish.

(Tim laughing) Put out a circle.

When we close the circle in, we got on the inside and choked him down with another net so we can get in and run him into the net.

You'll see them running and we just keep chasing them when we see them run right to the net as much as we can.

- [Tim] So y'all herd them up.

- Yeah, herd them up.

(motor whirring) - We're trying to get donations too to try to fight these fish because just a few cents on the top of the state's bounty can bring these fishermen down south from Illinois and Kentucky and Missouri and Oklahoma to fish.

And if they can make say a nickel or a dime more than they're paying somewhere else, they'll move because there's abundance of fish here and it's pleasant fishing and warmer weather.

So they love it down here.

(upbeat music) - The first day we got here, it was a short day, but we still had like 8,500 pounds.

And then we just went on a run.

We were catching 20,000, 25,000.

We ended up with 312,000 pounds for the month.

Best month they ever had.

You know, I gave them all a bonus and, you know, they worked hard.

They deserved it.

We love this lake.

A lot of guys here we've known a long time.

And they love this lake, they love it.

They want to protect it, preserve it for their kids, their grandkids.

And that's a big thing about commercial fishing, these fish is if we don't do it, our kids and grandkids, you know, there won't be no crappie or bass left or, you know, you don't want to go skiing on a lake.

You might get pegged and hit in the throat and die or knocked out or, you know, it's dangerous.

(motor whirring) - Everybody is really encouraged with the fish that they're taking out.

Moon Lake Improvement Club is making a donation per pound.

It's not a lot, but it's something and it helps.

Anything we can do to eliminate these carp will improve everything.

(upbeat music) - We're with the Impact Fisheries and we go all over from... This is one of our farthest locations to get loads of these Asian carp.

And I can carry about 10,000 pounds of them things on this one truck.

We got two trucks today, and hopefully we'll fill all 20 totes.

They hold about a thousand pounds of those fish each.

We do a lot in Kentucky from all the way up from St.

Louis down to here, down to Mississippi.

And we have commercial fishermen that we work with that these guys might've been out on the water since 4:00 this morning.

And we drove five hours today to get these fish.

And of course we got a five-hour drive back tonight back to Piedmont, Missouri.

It's where we're located.

We got ice in these totes that we keep them a certain temperature because we do food grade.

Our company, they do a lot of pet food, a lot of pet treats, but they do human grade food too.

They've got breakfast sausages, bratwurst.

It's kind of neat what all they can do with this invasive species.

And it's kind of like two birds with one stone where we can get rid of these fish out of here and then kind of have a good purpose with them.

They make high-end handbags out of some of the skins, the scales.

There's companies that are starting to get into that.

Just the Asian carp had this special collagen concentrate.

And pharmaceutical companies use that.

And they buy the bladders from our company.

There's very little waste.

- Well, to help get these Asian carp and these other species of carp out of here so people can be a little safer on the lake.

And from what I understand, I've seen videos of them where they've come out of the lake and knock you out of the boat or knock, hurt you.

And that's mainly what we're doing is getting them out of here.

We go wherever we're called to.

Wherever they call us, tell us to go, that's where we go.

We're going to take them back to the factory in Piedmont.

They'll take them up, unload them, they'll put them on, check the temps, make sure they're still cool enough.

And then they'll start processing first thing in the morning.

- So they have the fresh fish, you know, on the... And then we Asian community, they just are looking for, you know, because that fish, we love it.

Just like every household in China, I mean, in Asia, they love it.

Especially the head, the, you know, like fish head.

Oh, they sell good.

(upbeat music) We have the customer looking for that kind of fish, you know, like, when they come in here, they say, "Oh my goodness, you know, I've been looking for long times already."

So before they have to get the frozen.

But yeah, they love the silver carp fish, you know.

The special, fish head, you know?

So you can make a soup, you can steam them with the chili sauce.

It's the popular fish.

Every household, they love it.

- We do have some great opportunities to market the fish, specifically the silver carp, part of the Asian carp family.

The fish here in the Delta is a very good quality fish.

It's a big fish.

So there's a lot of potential to utilize the fish in different shapes and form.

But we've been involved with the Asian carp since 2013, working with commercial fishermen out of Tennessee initially.

Trying to find new ways because it's an invasive species in over 15 states or so.

The fish is also a very good fish to eat.

The name is a little bit wrong because people are relating the carp to the regular carp that we have here in the US for 100 years, which is a muddy, muddy taste.

But the silver carp is a very good white fish, a good, good, good meat.

I want to say similar to halibut, more or less.

We work with chefs in Chicago, in New York.

Depending of the ethnic community that you want to promote the fish, I'll give you an example, like in New York, you got a big West African diaspora.

So their main interest with the fish will be to smoke the fish and grill the fish.

We've done some tests as well, making empanadas.

Instead of using beef and pork, we use a minced meat Asian carp, and that was very lean, but good protein.

And it was perfect.

With the right sauce, it's the right product.

Knowing that the fact that the price of meat is very expensive, people are looking for alternative proteins and fish that we have by millions here can be a good alternative.

- Any resident or non-resident here in Mississippi can get involved with the removal or harvest of invasive carp.

So you can catch invasive carp by any means that you would like.

If you really want to catch large numbers of them, you need to get a commercial fishing license to run commercial gears.

Typically, our commercial fishermen run gill nets to catch these fish in large numbers.

And you know, there's still plenty of opportunity for resident fishermen in Mississippi to become involved.

(upbeat music) - Hey, that's all the time we have for this week.

Thanks for sharing your time with us as we continue to take part in this great sport of hunting and fishing right here in Mississippi.

- Join us again next time for more exciting adventures.

Until then, I'm Amanda Mills.

- And I'm Kevin Meacham.

See you outdoors.

- See you outdoors.

(gentle music) ♪ Riding through the Bayou, heading for the sky blue ♪ ♪ Back out on the trail again and again ♪ ♪ Talking and hunting and fishing land ♪ ♪ Time is time well spent ♪ ♪ We'll take you through the delta ♪ ♪ Now through the great wide shore ♪ ♪ So must see and do Mississippi Outdoor ♪ ♪ Mississippi Outdoor ♪ ♪ The great outdoors ♪ (gentle music continues)