This week on Kentucky Afield... Modern firearm season is here and everyone has big bucks on their mind.

We're going to take a look how our 2023 buck hunt unfolded.

Next, reef balls are appearing in Kentucky's waterways.

We'll find out what they are, where they come from and what they do.

Then we're checking out one of the state's most ancient species.

It's all next on Kentucky Afield.

Hello and welcome to Kentucky Afield.

I'm your host, Chad Miles.

Join us as we journey the commonwealth in search of outdoor adventure.

As an archer, there are very few things as exciting as deer hunting the pre-rut and the rut.

But when you can rattle or grunt a buck in.

Well, that's about as good as it gets.

Well, officially, my favorite week of the year to hunt is here.

It's the last week of October.

It seems like the whole month of October and most of September we had warmer than normal temperatures, completely dry, wind coming out of the south, it was hot.

It kept me in one particular stand, which we saw a lot of deer out of but now the wind direction has completely changed opening up a stand that I've been wanting to hunt all year.

We have went from 70 degree temperatures to highs in the forties.

This is going to bring these bucks into rut and I can't wait to get in the stand.

It's going to be a great evening.

I tell you what, it's cool.

It's a north wind.

This is what it's all about.

Something just stepped out.

Looks like a buck standing right at the point on that side of the field.

I can see it, It█s 300 yards away and I can see its antlers.

I can't tell how big, but it looked like a pretty good deer.

Hopefully that deer will make its way down here, if its a big enough, dominant enough buck, and come down and check out that rattle.

But it█s exciting.

Already seen a buck and it just happened that fast.

Oh, it█s a buck It█s a buck 30 yards right here.

Oh my gosh.

It's still early.

I sat here and rattled and the next thing I know, I look in the woods and I see these antlers, I see a deer and I see its antlers and I was like, oh my gosh, that's a pretty mature deer, I thought I need to take the shot.

Oh, that deer I think was hit pretty good.

Didn't get a ton of penetration, but those broadheads I'm shooting, those Grim reapers, have a cut about that wide.

Blood was pouring out of it.

Pretty sure my deer is only about 60 yards away down right now.

Still going to give it a good 30 minutes.

See how this goes down.

But I'm so excited.

Can't believe I'm getting down this early in the afternoon.

You know, normally when I take a shot at a deer and I know I'm going to be processing, I get more aggressive and try to take a second one because, you know, when you█re going to process, you might as well have two, you know, gun season█s not here And I still want to fill the freezer with a couple more does but I got to go see if that buck is down.

It's been 35 minutes.

It's time.

Oh yeah, here█s blood right here This is the first bit of blood.

Literally, just walking.

Walking alongside it.

Oh, someone else's arrow Not the first one who's been hunting out here.

Obviously someone else's arrow looks like it's been broke off.

It's not mine.

All right, back to the blood trail.

Here we go.

Going to get a little more difficult to track.

Oh, there it lays, right there.

It barely barely made it out of the field.

You know, my instinct was that it was down and it was down real close.

But you never want to bump one.

But there lays it's definitely down.

See if I can't get down there and get it.

Well, here he is.

Very respectable buck.

As a bowhunter, you put your time in the stand.

I've only had one or two deer this size in range.

And the way it went down, where we just rattled, this deer shows up literally 10 minutes later and walks out and gives me a perfect 20 to 25 yard broadside shot that I was able to put it right where it needed to be is an opportunity I couldn't pass up.

It's been a great season and you know what?

I'm not done.

With gun season coming up.

I'm going to get out with the gun and my rifle and try to take a few more deer.

But right now couldn't be more excited about the opportunity to come out here and take a nice buck like this with my bow and arrow.

Getting those close encounters is what it's all about.

That was super exciting.

The US Army Corps of Engineers and the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife have different mission statements, but when they can come together and work on a project, all sportsmen and women benefit.

We're down here at Nolin Lake.

I'm here with Jeremy Shiflett.

Jeremy this is called a reef ball, right?

What is the benefits of a reef ball?

Well, reef balls got their start initially out in the marine environment, and they were using them to protect and enhance coral reefs.

And we kind of saw that the work that they were doing there and we saw it, its application in the freshwater system and thought that they would make some good fish habitat.

They're a very versatile structure.

And actually, the thing that stands out the most of us is that they're going to last forever.

Yeah.

You know, a lot of all of our reservoirs, the habitat is degrading as they age.

And so we're constantly out here refreshing everything.

So trying to be more efficient with our time and our effort and resources, looking for materials that are going to last a long time.

So you guys are actually building those yourself, these things in three different sizes, right?

Yes, sir.

generally it's a, it's a three piece fiberglass mold that then has tethers or bladders or, that are affixed to the inside of the mold so that once you pour concrete in it, it creates these voids once you pour that.

Okay.

And then we spray the inside of the mold with sugar water when we pull that mold off, it allows us rinse it off and get some of this aggregate coarse texture on there.

other wise It's going to stay smooth, just finish concrete.

But we do that to allow that texture for, for the for the para fight, the algae, the insects, all that stuff too, to adhere and stick.

So once we have all our bladders set at the right, pressure, then we bring the concrete truck in and just have them start dumping a pretty flowable mix because we got to get it down in, around all the bladder.

So once it starts flowing down in as the mold starts filling up, we're just tapping with a rubber mallet.

We're tapping around just to make sure the concrete settles fills all the voids, So what we have to do when we're done is we bring a forklift tela-skid or something to come in and just ease up, lift that up.

And because the the screw caps out of it, it pushes the air out as it eases it up.

wow, and then we can rinse them off, move them.

And then what we normally do is because we've got all that stuff out, we just set them back up and try to do multiple pores while we have everything out.

Okay.

The Corps of Engineers has been because they've been the main partner in all this.

they're, they've allowed us to use their maintenance facility up there to have all our materials to set up to pour.

because you do need.

So you can't just do it anywhere.

You do need power.

You need some electric, you need water.

You need air for the bladders.

So it's a process.

But by us having this mold system, we can pour them for about a quarter of the cost of buying them.

wow.

And you pour them close to the location where they're going.

You poured them right here at the Army Corps of Engineers site at Nolin.

So they don't have to be transported very far from that point.

Some of these are different depths in the water because this is a lake that's managed by the Army Corps of Engineers.

It comes up and down fluctuates.

So the fish also fluctuate on what depth they want to be at.

So you guys take that into account and you look for contour lines that allow you to space these out at different depths, right?

Yeah.

So instead of instead of putting everything at one one constant down, say, six or eight feet all the way across the reservoir, knowing that the water goes up and down and that water quality changes and thermocline changes throughout the year, we've kind of taken that approach to where we kind of stagger them perpendicular to shore at different depths to allow those fish to kind of stay on site and just move up and down in the water column and not have to completely vacate and go to find another structure somewhere else.

So the Army Corps of Engineers, obviously, They want good fish habitat, but they have a bigger concern with what these things can help out with.

Which is what?

Yeah.

Shoreline stabilization.

Shoreline erosion is a big problem.

These lakes, again, with the drawdown and then with the recreational and angling boat traffic, you know, the shoreline takes a beating.

And so we started a research project with them where we're using some of these the big ones and some of the next size down to put them near shore to help as a wave break, to help protect those shorelines, help them naturally heal.

But then also they're in a couple of feet of water.

So they're going to provide fish habitat as well.

So if you see these and you see them in an area and you're like, well, man, they didn't get them deep enough.

They're there for a purpose.

If you look above where you see them in the water, you usually see some spots where you see a lot of erosion and you're trying to limit that.

So the Army Corps of Engineers is trying to protect the shoreline, but also allowing us to put these in areas where it will definitely have a positive impact on fisheries.

Absolutely.

We've we've had people get on Facebook, you know, a day after putting them out, saying, I don't know what these are, but I just caught some fish here.

So they definitely work just about like anything we do, it definitely works, but they work quickly and they're going to be there for the to stand the test of time.

So it's a really, really cool project.

And I, I, I'm glad to see it right here.

Especially, you know, Nolin, is one of my home lakes.

so glad to see them going in here.

We're expanding statewide.

Yeah, there are some in rough, in Nolin, and in Cave Run.

Okay.

And we have plans to expand.

if you see one of these big alien looking things, it's a fish habitat and a shoreline stabilization tool.

And it's a project we're going to monitor for a little while and see what the benefits are.

And very thankful to have the Army Corps of Engineers on board.

Absolutely.

To help us out with this.

Well, thank you so much.

I appreciate that you gave it out.

Appreciate your time.

After several years of stocking, it's becoming common that Kentucky anglers are catching Lake sturgeon.

But knowing how to handle them and knowing how to release them is becoming extremely important in the survival of this species.

Well, the Cumberland River in the middle of the wintertime.

I'll tell you what, it doesn't get any more stunningly beautiful than this does it?

It is certainly beautiful down here.

It's a great place to be.

Today, we're doing something that I've never experienced before.

We're actually in search of what is going to be the state's largest fish.

You know, for a number of years now, we've been stocking lake sturgeon into the system and we've got fish that are up above 20 plus pounds and approaching 50 to 60 inches if we're able to get some of our older fish today.

Lake Sturgeon, we've been reintroducing them now back here in Kentucky now since what, 2007?

2007 is our first year class, the first stocking went in in 2008.

So we're committed to a 20 year restocking effort.

So we're getting close to the end of that stocking frame right now.

And so far we've seen pretty good survival.

20 years is a long study, but that's what it takes to learn a little bit about Lake Sturgeon.

And we're going to learn a little more about Lake Sturgeon today.

You're going to pull some data.

Hopefully we catch some and we're going to learn a little more about why we're reintroducing them here in Kentucky.

All right.

Let's get to this first line here and see what we got on there.

It's not like most fishing we wait until we have a fish to put water in a livewell.

With 400 hooks, we feel pretty confident we're going to have one huh?

Yeah these lines are set kind of with the current helps us avoid some tangles.

Also, lake sturgeon, tend to feed as they go up the river, so they'll eat benthic mackerel, invertebrates, things like that when they're younger.

They'll continue to eat that throughout their lifecycle, even even large, you know, 30 plus pound fish.

However, once they get big enough, the gape size in your mouth, how wide their mouth is will become large enough that they can start preying on smaller fish species as well.

So today you're using all night crawlers, right?

Today we█re using all night crawlers.

That helps keep things standardized in terms of the data.

I have to ask you, why this location?

Why here this time of year to try to catch them?

We are kind of looking at their migration patterns as part of the study.

So there are some telemetry studies going on right now.

Yeah, an earlier portion of the study was telemetry.

We've wrapped that up and we've moved on to a monitoring stage to see how these fish are surviving, growing just kind of how our stocking efforts are, whether they're being successful or not.

All right.

Well, good.

We'll see.

We have hey with Nightcrawlers who knows what you may have?

You never know.

About every fish I know will eat a nightcrawler, right?

Absolutely.

And a mud puppy, I already seen that joker.

Yeah, occasionally we do catch them.

Sometimes we have lines with several on them.

For the most part, they're eating nightcrawlers as well.

So we'll catch them and we'll take the hooks out of them or release them.

And most of the time they swim off just fine.

We've called them every year that we've been doing this.

You might catch 20 plus on a line.

Now people need to realize that there's a difference in a mud puppy and another big species of salamander we have here In Kentucky that we're actually trying to reintroduce.

And that's a hellbender.

These are not hellbender.

These are mud puppies.

Right?

Right.

Typically, they're going to inhabit different types of areas.

Hellbenders are going to be more in your Highland streams often These mud puppies are not getting anywhere near to the size that Hellbenders are at maturity either.

Yeah.

Look there, a Channel cat.

Channel cat Matt.

And typical for a channel cat that has been on a line.

He's got that thing twisted and curled as many times as he can.

So you can see they're pulling these hooks now.

They're going to rebate and put these back out to pull more samples tomorrow.

But you can see how they're managing these if you ever pulled trout lines you've probably seen this is a box that just has some cuts in it, and they'll pull each one of these individual hooks and they'll spin that box around and that helps them manage and keep the line from being tangled.

Now, when they go to put it out, they'll go in reverse.

They'll pull them up and bate them back up and pull the line right on out and put it back on the bottom.

Channel cat Matt.

Just popped off.

Quick release.

Actually getting a quick release is speeds up the process today.

So that's a good thing.

Yes, it does.

We got two red spotted newts here that we also got that actually weren't even on the hook.

They had just wrapped around the dropper.

Oh, we got a lake sturgeon.

Im going to need to reach back and get that net.

Here we go.

He█s wrapped up in there.

There you go.

well, there's our first lake sturgeon.

Now this is it's a little bit younger fish.

What do you think best guess?

What do you think this is a two year old fish?

That's probably a three year old fish right there.

Okay.

So you guys are going to check this thing to figure out how do you think it is, Get some measurements, What other data will we be getting today?

Right.

So we're going to take total lengths, uh, fork length, which is essentially to the fork of the tail.

They've got what they call a hetero circle tail.

So the top half of the tail can be a little bit longer.

So sometimes fork length is a little more indicative of growth.

We'll also be weighing these fish and putting a tag in them so that if we recapture them, we can kind of follow them as far as when we caught them, how large they were at that point in time.

We got that long pulled in.

We're going to head on down to our next one and see what we've got on that one.

We got a sturgeon about to surface.

Sturgeon about to surface.

Awesome.

Oh, that's a good one.

All right.

So we're just checking for a pit tag here.

And this one does not appear to be tagged.

Looks like a right seven eight on the scoot removal, fork Length 21 zero.

Total length 24 one total weight two 14.

So we're gonna be putting this pit tag into this fish now that will allow us to track it.

If we recapture it and just make sure that it's in and we've got it in that fish successfully.

So this is a nice example of Lake Sturgeon.

You know, you've got the three rows of bony plates, the dermal plates that cover the skin, and these plates are large and really sharp with sharp keels.

When the fish is young, they tend to get smaller.

As the fish grows and the keels become more blunt.

The interesting part of the sturgeon around the head and the snout or rostrum is they've got a lot of sensory cells, especially on the underside of the head.

These are called barbells, which are just fleshy tentacles hang from the snout and they are covered with taste buds and they use these they drag them along the bottom in search of food, and they'll actually suck in the sediment like silt and mud and screen out the insect larvae.

They extrude the mud and sediment out the gills.

So that's how they feed Their vision is not super poor, but they don't have highly developed vision.

They feed by taste and they rely heavily on their sense of smell.

It has a cartilage skeleton.

They are the most primitive or ancestral of the bony fishes and so essentially they're living fossils and haven't really changed much since prehistoric times.

The cool thing is about these fish is that they are very long live fish.

The bad thing is from a restoration side that this fish, if it's a male or female, may not be able to produce offspring.

For how long?

If it's a female, they don't reach sexual maturity until they're 20 to 25 years old.

So the males are a little bit sooner, 15 to 20 years.

This fish has several more years.

If it's a female, more than that, and before sexually mature, when they do reach maturity, they only spawn on average every four years.

So you've got a low reproductive potential, slow maturity.

All these things are what make them so vulnerable to overharvesting.

If you catch one, we ask that you return the fish back to the water.

But we would also like to have information on your capture date, a photograph of the fish, the location and any other information like the bait that was used, the depth where you caught the fish.

All of this helps us with our monitoring efforts.

We've got another one coming up.

Oh, a real good one.

So this project will go on for the rest of the month, trying to get a bunch of individuals and collect all that data to help you guys manage the species.

Yeah, we'll be continuing to set trott lines at a few different sites here and on the main stem of the Cumberland for years to come.

And it's very cool to get to see a fish that most of us people out here, that are outdoorsman, we don't get to see that.

So thanks for bringing us long today.

Yeah, no problem, Chad.

Very interesting work.

Now let's check in and see who else has been out having fun in this week's Ones that Didn't get away.

Check out seven year old Kimber Perret.

She took this nice buck in Shelby County with a crossbow.

It was her first deer.

Congratulations.

Here we have Hurley Comb Senior with a nice Kentucky black bear that he took during the dog chase season.

Congratulations.

14 year old Austin Case took his first buck.

This deer was taken in Mercer County, a nice ten pointer during the youth Firearms season.

Nice job.

Rylan Jordan took a trip to Cedar Creek Lake and caught this nice bass on his very first cast.

Nice job.

Here we have Deborah Stacey with very first buck ever that she took in Morgan County with a compound bow.

Nice job.

Thomas Wilson caught this nice 20 pound blue catfish from the Ohio River near Carrollton.

This fish was photographed and released.

Here we have Joshua Chambers Junior with a nice eight point buck that was taken in Anderson County during the youth season.

Congratulations.

Check out this giant buck that was taken by Mark Swainer in Pulaski County.

He was hunting with his son in a blind.

Nice job.

Many hunting seasons are now open here in Kentucky, including the modern firearm season for deer.

Good luck to everyone hitting the field.

And remember, hunting and fishing on private property is a privilege.

Always ask permission and thank the landowner.

Until next week, I'm your host, Chad Miles and I hope to see you in the woods or on the water.