Hello and welcome to Kentucky Afield.

I'm your host, Chad Miles.

And tonight we're here for our annual question and answer show all about fall hunting.

Joining me on staff tonight I have wildlife program coordinator John Hast.

How are you doing?

Great.

Answering all of our small game questions.

We have wildlife program coordinator Cody Rhoden.

How are you doing today?

Doing well, thanks.

And then all of our questions regarding law enforcement will be answered by game warden Paul.

Saul, how are you doing?

Doing good.

You guys have all been on staff before.

What I love about this staff is you all spend a lot of time out in the woods hunting as well.

Been telling stories about being in the tree stand.

And are you all excited about the fall hunting season here in Kentucky?

Absolutely.

Well, we've got a ton of questions.

We've been collecting questions via Facebook, so we have a bunch of questions.

First off, I want to tell you we're coming to you from the Salato Wildlife Education Center.

If you've never been here, you got children, especially make sure you bring them out Tuesday through Saturday here in Frankfort, Kentucky.

There's some new exhibits, so if you have been here in the past, come check them out.

It's a great place to spend some time.

All right.

Here we go.

We're going to jump right into our questions.

Our very first question.

wouldn't you know, it's a deer question.

Our very first question.

What county do you think has the most deer?

This particular person.

I don't see who it is.

They, they have their guess.

They have their guess.

Yeah, they got their guess.

Yeah.

So I'm pulling from the model that we run on our deer.

And the winner is Pendleton County, both in total number of deer inside the county border.

But also it has our highest deer per square mile at 95 here per square mile on average.

95 deer per square mile?

95.

A lot of deer.

What's amazing about that is I think that it also holds the record for typical.

Yeah, yeah.

So big deer and quality and lots of deer.

Yeah.

Oh wow.

Okay, so there you go.

This person thought Boone County, may have been may have been the best, but Pendleton County.

So there you go.

Hey, there's great hunting, though, throughout the state of Kentucky.

Absolutely.

every zone one, two, three and four is the different than the number of deer.

But there's good quality deer in every county in state of Kentucky isn█t there.

Next question.

how can we find a good WMA nearby?

Any tips for first time public land hunters?

Now, this person doesn't mention if they're talking about deer or small game hunting, but, Cody, I know you work with a lot of our WMA█s.

What would you recommend for a first time hunter?

Yeah, that's a great question.

It can be tough, especially when you█re starting out to find somewhere to hunt.

But we're very fortunate in the state.

In fact, we have hundreds and thousands of acres in the state, whether it█s public access or areas that we actually manage in the wildlife division.

But the first stop you█d want to do is go to our website at fw.ky.gov and just search public lands, in the search bar.

And through that there's several mapping tools that we have that you can get, well, classifications that'll show where you're at with the mapping tool.

But with a lot of hunting, you know, your scouting stuff like that starts, you know, with the labs, on the internet, searching things.

You can do that all at fw.ky.gov, and especially, you know, the last few years, the wildlife division has introduced this tier system with the WMA█s.

So we have tiers one, two and three.

And essentially that's just an attempt to give our constituents more information about the activities that are happening on those public lands.

For example, a tier one WMA, if you see that tier one label, that's essentially we're doing a lot of management for tons of different wildlife species.

Sometimes it's more geared towards upland, wildlife like rabbits and quail, turkeys and stuff like that.

Sometimes it's geared more toward waterfowl management.

So things like migratory birds, ducks, stuff like that.

But those tier ones have our heaviest influence of management, the tier two has a little bit less management.

The tier threes, are more kind of access areas that we don't get to as often, as far as tan annual management schedule goes.

Yeah.

But yeah, fw.ky.gov search public lands, we█ve got a lot of really good tools out there to search for public lands near you.

I'll tell you, our wildlife management areas, they truly are a hidden resource.

A lot of people, I mean, they get some use, but, everybody wants to hunt them for the deer hunter, the quota hunts and some of them.

You got to check, do your research.

Some of them are quota hunts.

Only some of them are only open certain times.

Some of them are closed on certain days of the week.

So make sure you do your research.

But have you ever killed a deer in Kentucky on a on a wildlife management area?

Yeah.

Have you ever killed a deer on a wildlife management area?

My biggest deer i█ve ever killed, yeah.

Have you ever killed deer on one?

I have not.

You have not.

I have taken deer on both Buck's and, turkey hunt on wildlife management areas.

So it's a lot of great hunting and I small game hunt a lot on WMA█s.

As do I. so check it out, find something close to you, or if you're willing to drive they█re there, they're available.

next question.

are you allowed to shoot a bobcat while deer hunting if you have a problem on your farm?

I don't know what type of problem they're having, but, will you need to have a proper tag or permit?

So, first of all, yes, you do need a bobcat permit.

that's a new permit that the department introduced, I believe it was two years ago.

but it is a free permit.

So it doesn't cost anything.

you can go ahead and go online and get that permit, just like you would buying your license or your deer permit.

so that is required now, as long as it's within that bobcat hunting season, which this year comes in on November 16th.

you are good to shoot bobcat while deer hunting.

I'm not sure what problem they're referring to.

It's some type of nuisance problem.

They're there with more information needed to in order to take it out of season.

But, as long as it█s within that bobcat hunting season, yes.

You need a permit and they're free.

You go get those online.

And it sounds like you, it█s not open that first week of the modern farm season, so you're going to have to miss that first week.

Check your dates.

It comes in when our furbearer season comes in.

Okay.

All right.

There you go.

For all those that might be interested in, pursuing a bobcat.

All right.

next question.

What would you recommend for hunting whitetail?

A shotgun or a rifle for a beginner?

Also, what what rifle?

What caliber would you say is the best?

I have a 12 gauge, but I'm curious to look for a better option.

Who wants to, who's my firearms expert here?

Who wants to answer this question?

there's so many different firearms calibers.

Depending on who you talk to, but I think tried and true you can't go wrong with a 30-30.. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what I used for up until just a couple years ago.

And still do, depending on where I gun hunt.

Very little recoil, a small weapon, so.

Depending on what part of the state you hunt, you might not be taking a 100 shot.

The 30-30 is perfect.

Interesting that they mentioned the shotgun because they currently have a shotgun.

Have any of you guys ever shotgun hunted for deer?

Man I'll tell you, when I first got into, when I first got into deer hunting, it was extremely popular.

You█d buy a shotgun, you'd go get a slug barrel that had rifle type sights and, a rifle barrel on it.

You'd find out what slug shot best.

And that's what you hunted with.

They were really, really popular.

Still extremely effective today.

If you if he already has a 12 gauge shotgun, then he could obviously put that to use.

But man rifle adds a different level of accuracy.

And of course a 30-30 not gonna have a major range.

But I think if I was going to get into long term rifle hunting, I'd probably probably go with a rifle.

But, it can work with the shotgun if they're trying to pinch their dollars.

Right.

You could think about a shotgun to some.

I mean, some of those if you want to shoot deer that 60 yards in in you don't need a, a scope either.

They have, rifled sights on them.

If you buy a barrel goes on it.

They work pretty well.

next question.

What is, your favorite five day window to hunt deer?

Man, there's a lot of research has gone into this, and you can open up any magazine that comes out in the fall, and it's going to tell you your can't miss days in the deer stand.

And but if you're going to give a five day window.

When, when are you hunting them?

I'm probably going our five days before our modern gun season comes in.

yeah, yeah, if I can take it.

Very seldom is that five days, but I'll try to get to the farm archery hunt Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, something like that.

Yeah, yeah.

Before the people hit the woods and everything's kind of still calm.

And that's pretty much what I've seen is the big time rutting activity deer.

Yeah I agree with you.

I definitely agree with that, but i█ll back up a tiny bit and say the 5 days after halloween.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think just backing it up a little bit, you get a little bit more activity.

And again, anytime before that modern gun season I think is a really good time to go.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What do you think?

I█m going to agree with Cody.

It█s halloween and those immediate days after.

That's just usually when you start getting some good crisp mornings.

We really see, when we're out working, that's really when we see an uptick in activity and hunter participation.

Our WMA█s start filling up, and a lot more all day sits.

So, I think Halloween.

It's just a great time of the year, that very end of October, beginning of November, still usually in Kentucky, it's not real cold leaves are starting to fall off.

You're getting in, and man, when those leaves start falling off and the deer are making scrapes, if they're keeping those scrapes clean, they stand out because the leaves are all on the ground all of a sudden there█s a big patch with no leaves on it.

It just really is a beautiful time to be in the woods for a deer hunter.

why doesn█t Kentucky let hunters participating in the elk drawing each year and accumulate points, giving them a slight advantage to being drawn.

You've never heard this question before have you?

No, I never have.

And, I mean, the key to that is a slight advantage.

Yeah.

And when we're talking the draw odds it is a tiny fraction.

And that's because we draw so few of the people that apply every year.

So we had about 36,000 people apply, we drew 500.

So basically with any kind of preference bonus point system, 35,500 people will have that point next year.

Yeah.

So you're really not gaining anything from it.

from our standpoint, we're losing the ability for a new hunter or any of our, you know, a youth hunter that's finally old enough to put his name in the draw.

They'll never be drawn.

Yeah, because they've missed out on getting those points from day one.

So it's it's not it's a tiny, tiny advantage that also knocks a whole bunch of people out of ever getting an elk tag.

We█ll have a very old, age class of hunters out there won█t we?

Yeah.

Because everybody will have been putting in for X amount of year.

Now, you have done, for individuals who do put in every single year without missing.

You guys have added a bonus a couple of years ago.

Yeah.

So this will be the second year of the loyalty redraw.

We're still working through the about 65-67 people that have applied every year.

And probably next year we█ll dip in to that second pool.

Those folks that miss one.

Yeah.

Okay.

so and that's a great system.

We were awarded 25 permits this year.

So there are unsold permits go to those loyalty people.

Yeah.

and it's a good way to, to you know, move those folks that have applied every year many years into you know, getting to elk hunt.

It's not exactly a preference point system, but it's very similar in the fact that it increases your chances for individuals who have put in every single year.

And I was not aware until just now that you're going to go to how many you missed one year.

It's will it be any year out of the 20 something year that's?

It█s any year, it's cumulative years, so you can miss one out of anywhere.

so if you're curious on my profile on the elk draw results, we've actually got our IT folks to put together a really nice list of your number of years.

Okay.

you know, I get a lot of phone calls “hey i█ve applied very year” they look at that list, realize that in 06█ they missed a one year because they we're out of town or something.

So go and look at that and you'll kind of see where you stand.

Okay.

And yeah, we're going to move right down the line.

I'll tell you what, for any anybody that hunts and fish in the state of Kentucky, if they don't know how to go into their my profile and log in, you█d be surprised how much information is in there.

And it'll give you warnings about, you know, make sure you fill out your your hip survey and things like that.

So it's very helpful to log in there every now and then, check it out and see what's going on.

If you can't remember if you bought your license, if you need to reprint your license, if you want to go back and go, hey, when did I take that buck, last year and the year before and the year before.

And you█re kind of planning what week you're going to take off.

It's a good way to see when you've had success in the past too.

So all that information's on there.

So check it out.

My profile.

It's very easy to log in Next question.

Why do bucks tend to be smaller in eastern Kentucky than in western Kentucky?

It's a good question.

Absolutely good question.

So a lot of that is driven by the acorn crop.

So the the deer East Kentucky are more dependent on that crop year after year.

Whereas our central west Kentucky deer, if there's a acorn shortage or failure one year, they're going to have plenty of crops to get them through, mainly soybeans in the summer.

so a lot of the, now I will say that we've had a Boone and Crockett deer from almost every county.

I think we're lacking one county in the state of Kentucky, so it doesn't seem to be a big factor.

But yeah, body size kind of, you know, antlers year after year tend to be a little bit better in central and west Kentucky than the east.

But I'll tell you this down there, I know you spent a lifetime in eastern Kentucky chasing elk and studying elk.

Some of the biggest deer I've ever seen in my entire life have been on those wildlife management areas or those reclaimed coal mines in eastern Kentucky.

Yep.

Seen some giants down there.

I've seen some I've mistaken for elk.

Just when you glassing out there do you pull it up and go oh my gosh that's a whitetail.

It's a giant.

Yep.

So, don't think that you hunt in counties in eastern Kentucky, especially if you're in reclaimed coal area, that you don't have a chance at a Boone and Crockett.

They█re there aren't they?

Absolutely.

Yep.

Next question.

Will Knott County, go back to a zone three?

We're seeing a lot of does.

Hey, this is encouraging news from at least one individual calling from Knott county.

Yeah.

What are you hearing about Knott county?

It's a perfect example that we were just talking about of some old strip mine country.

There's a lot of different habitat types.

That's the county that I've seen some really great bucks in, in the old strip mine country up there.

I think that's certainly something that we're looking at redoing some of our deer zoning, especially in the zone four counties in the, in southeast.

I think Knott county would fall in that group.

So I know the deer guys are looking at it right now.

So I said Knott this is actually Knox County.

So yeah.

Yeah.

So Knox County is it currently is zone four?

Is that what we're looking at?

I think it is.

It says when are they going to go back to zone three.

They think that it's there's enough deer to support that.

It falls in that same category as Knott, we think a lot of those fours could probably go to a three.

So how often do you guys reassess the number of deer that are either there or harvested or how often do you change your numbers for zones?

Yeah.

So not that often.

It sort of comes.

I know we like to do them in groups.

It's not worth doing one county.

It's more, you know, a group of counties.

Our deer models are running year to year.

All the telecheck data, other data goes in there.

We kind of know that's where I knew that 95 deer per square mile in Pendleton County that comes out of our deer model.

And right now, it's indicating that we need to take a hard look at those zone four counties.

So overall deer numbers in the state, tend to be pretty strong.

In some of these counties, you're saying you're or do we have many counties that we're thinking about taking the other direction?

No, I don't think we've got any of that we're thinking about taking the other direction.

So overall we're strong.

East Kentucky is still coming out of that 2017, hemorrhagic disease outbreak.

We kind of left things alone just to let them rebuild a little bit.

All right, well, glad to hear that they're seeing more more does there in Knox County.

Who does a hunter contact to get a deer scored?

Man, we get this phone call.

We get this phone call when the deer season comes in too.

Yeah.

Who can help you out with getting one?

With getting one scored?

So the best way to do it is booneandcrockett.com, go on the Boone and Crockett website.

That's the official score.

Most Boone and Crockett scorers can also do Pope and Young other things like that.

We've got a list.

We've got a number of our staff that are, you know, certified to score.

But then there's some individuals as well.

I think you're you certified?

I█m certified.

They sent, I think it was 30 something, different employees.

There was a handful of officers and there were mostly, regional biologists.

And that to get certified, to score Boone and Crockett and Pope and Young.

Were as officers.

We're doing it for, cases.

Okay.

Yeah.

You know, in the event somebody poaches a deer and get convicted.

We can get a score on that deer and get that trophy value out of it.

but then there are biologists that can.

I█ve scored a few deer since then, people call, I know our biologist up in the 5th district has scored a few as well.

So it's interesting because, everybody wants to get a deer score when you get a, when you get a good, a good sized buck and I and I get that, but there is a drying period, so you gotta you gotta wait.

There's a green score, which is, you know, right out of the field, which is not eligible for your final score.

So you got a drying period.

How long is the drying period?

60 days.

60 days.

So, you know, you don't get people that often that want you to weigh their fish.

If we let people, like, weigh their fish to give us our deer score, we'd have a lot of 300 inch deer in the state of Kentucky wouldn█t we?

Just teasing.

Oh, man.

Next question.

How is CWD impacting deer populations so far and how does the state track that impact?

First time this this topic has come up tonight.

CWD.

Give us a quick overview on, what's going on.

And with CWD and, how we're tracking it.

Yeah.

So we've got one case in the state of Kentucky in Ballard county.

We detected that, from a deer taken deer modern gun season in 2023, 2024 now.

So that would have been last fall.

and how we're tracking that.

So with with as few cases as we have, it's not impacting the deer population at all.

and we want to keep it that way, moving into the future.

And really, we have been doing some of the best surveillance for CWD before people even knew what we were doing.

Since back in the early 2000s, we've sampled almost 40,000 deer at this point, really in most of my working career.

so it's one of those things that we're we definitely want it to be out in front of this.

We knew at some point we would find it, we've got, a whole bunch cases south of us in Tennessee.

We've got some cases close in Virginia.

So really, that surveillance that we're doing is what's how we're going to stay in front of it, how we're going to monitor where it's at, what it's doing.

And two things.

I'll put a plug in for our freezer program.

So to make it easy on us and, you know, the easiest way for us to do surveillance is to have hunter cooperation.

So bring us your deer heads.

You can go online.

You can look in the hunting guide.

We've got 46 freezers across the state.

Especially the folks killing does.

You don't have to worry about the antlers.

Go to the freezer, drop the doe head in there.

You can freeze it at your house for a month and bring it to us as long as it's frozen.

The freezer will have everything you need.

It'll have a tag.

If you are at all concerned about having your deer tested, that's the best way to get it done.

and so that's really our statewide surveillance.

We need deer heads in those freezers.

Makes it easy for us.

And you get test results.

It's interesting.

I was watching a college football game with some buddies this weekend, and he was like, hey, I got a question for you.

He, he owns property in hunts in Ballard County, and he was very concerned about consuming a deer prior to getting it tested.

What?

I was shocked when I went down and took a deer in that area and and went to the check station.

the results came back quicker than what they told me they were going to come back.

They came back pretty fast.

How long if you take a deer?

I'm not holding you to this date, but approximately how long can a person expect if they take a deer and they go to their check station, or they are they going to have to wait if they're concerned with consuming a deer, that could possibly be CWD?

Now remember we've had one.

Yep.

We've had one ever.

But if they want to hold off on consuming any of that what's the approximate time?

Yeah really we were we were knocking it out.

We've got a lot of great staff and we were churning those out.

We say four weeks.

It's probably more in that two and a half, three weeks when we're down there crunching it.

And a lot of that is, is, actually getting it to the lab.

So we've got an outside lab, that does the actual testing for us, depending on kind of their workflow, it's they can usually have it back in 3 to 4 weeks.

So maybe, by not too far after the time you get it back from the, to the processor, you very well may or may not hold you up at all.

Yeah.

What is the process if we if, if we end up with someone that brings a deer, goes through the check, gets the deer, pays for the processing, gets it back, what is the process at that point in time?

How do you dispose of that?

Yeah, if they've got a CWD positive.

So we'll be calling.

Yeah.

You know you don't have to worry about that.

We'll call you we'll want to talk, know exactly where the deer comes from.

We do some genetics just to make sure.

Yeah.

All the story lines up.

Everything's good.

And we will gladly dispose of that meat if you want to get rid of it.

Yeah, that's not a problem.

And we don't have it widespread enough that we've.

We've still had one, so I'm getting the cart in front of the horse here.

But these are questions that I was asked this weekend from, from a, a deer hunter who actually hunts in Ballard County.

So I wouldn't be too concerned with it at this point in time.

You know, getting them tested is a great thing to stay ahead and know exactly what's going on.

but if you do want to get it tested, then, you know, I know that I had enough venison in the freezer when I took one down in that area, I did.

I waited till I got the results back and it it seemed to me it was very fast two years ago when we were doing them down there.

I think I got it back in two weeks.

Yeah.

It was very fast.

We want to turn them around.

My recommendation process is like normal.

Make sure you mark it, put it in a separate place in the freezer, get your results back.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know go go from there.

You go at it then.

Can you still hunt small game with a dog?

Raccoons, squirrels and groundhogs?

Yes.

Yeah, sure can.

Yeah.

And, you know, using dogs in the aid of small game hunting definitely increases, you know, your ability to find a lot of those small game species, whether especially the upland birds so grouse, quail, woodcock, stuff like that.

squirrels too, so in that state of Kentucky, almost a quarter of our hunter cooperators, people we survey, ask them about their hunts in the state.

They use, squirrel dogs in their pursuit and I know you all had a squirrel dog episode on Kentucky Afield and you█ve gone several times.

Not only does it help you get more game, it's really a blast to interact, you know, with man█s oldest friend in the field, again whether it's raccoon, squirrel, waterfowl, there's several species that we can chase along with our furry friends.

I'll tell you what, that just adds a whole nother dimension.

Especially when you take kids.

But it adds a whole nother dimension to a hunt.

if it's a pointer dog, if it's a bagel, chasing rabbits, if it's a squirrel dog, it just adds, it definitely adds another dimension.

And kids, I know those kids that absolutely love raccoon hunting and going out with with grandpa or dad or mom or whoever and trekking through the woods chasing a dog.

It's, it's a lot of fun.

So somebody earlier asked question about being a new hunter.

They didn't say they were talking about deer hunting, but they were saying they wanted to get in a get into hunting.

Small game is probably the place to go if you want to hunt a WMA and you're a new hunter and you're not stuck on deer hunting right up off the bat, get with somebody who who takes dogs out and learn to hunt with them because you learned a whole lot through somebody that's got their dogs out there and is trying to locate game using, using man's best friend, as you call it.

Yeah, I definitely agree with that.

You know, many of, I█d say almost most of our WMA█s in the state have healthy populations of squirrels.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

And game species is one of the longest seasons we have in the state.

you can use a myriad of different, weapon sizes.

You can even use a slingshot.

And they are busy on the ground right now.

I looked out my front yard of the day, and there was five of them.

The nuts are starting to fall.

They're burying, they█re burying their caches for the later on in harder time.

So they're busy right now.

If you're a squirrel hunter, it's a good it's a great time to, and squirrel season is currently in too, right?

Yes.

That's correct.

It came in in August So there you go.

next question.

Are you able to hunt raccoons from a boat like squirrels?

Yes.

You can.

All fur-bearers you can.

The only difference is with raccoons, raccoons and possums, you cannot shine them from the boat.

So if you're hunting raccoons at night, you can█t shine them from the boat like you can the ground when your dogs have them treed.

So you're able to able to take a spotlight and then get off of the boat if you have permission and then do The Shining from there.

Is that how you have to do that?

Okay.

All right.

There you go.

That's a question I did not know that.

next question.

There are several questions here about bear chase season being close to archery.

bear season.

Have these season dates changed?

Being close?

Yeah.

It's a oh, close.

Yes.

Is it close?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So we actually start off we've got a five day.

We've got a five day bear dog season where they're chasing and can harvest.

Then we go into 3 or 5 day archery season, then we go back into dog chase.

Okay.

and that is really we spread that out mainly because we've got a fairly tight calendar in the fall, which is great.

There's something to do every weekend, and we've kind of got it, you know, the dog season tucked in behind early muzzleloader.

But then it's over before Deer Mountain Gun comes in.

Okay, so we kind of had a little bit of a puzzle to squeeze those number of days in there.

I gotcha.

So that was that was the reason for that.

we talked about a couple things.

We talked about using dogs.

There you go.

You know, people use them for bears.

I mean, they're they're dogs that are bred specifically to locate and tree bears.

So hey, you talked about the calendar being full.

Man, there really is something going on.

Yeah.

Almost every weekend.

Deer season, you know, the archery season has been in since the I guess it was the sixth, right?

This year of September 7th, September 7th and, crossbow season, came in shortly after that 21st.

Now we've got Youth Weekend coming up, October 12th and 13th.

Immediately after that, the Muzzleloader season is the next weekend, 19th, 20th modern gun season, November 9th through the 24th.

Then we have a late Muzzleloader season and a free youth weekend, which comes up in December.

Looks like, 28,29.

The calendar is packed and that's just for deer.

So there's there there's a whole lot of other activities going on.

So when you start talking about these dates and why they are the way they are, really, it's about spreading out people in the in the woods and on WMA█s and out there pursuing game, doing it where it's a good experience for the Hunter.

And it's a safe experience as well, right?

Yep.

Next question.

what is Fish and Wildlife doing with the wild hog population?

I have noticed that they have banned hunting them.

Are they trying to eradicate them or increase their populations?

Yeah, definitely eradicate it.

Yeah.

And this is very counterintuitive.

it is a lot of people who they they hate seeing a pig.

They don't want pigs.

They're up there and a wild pig comes by and they're with their with their rifles sitting in their deer stand.

Look, there's a wild pig.

It's a chip shot.

But the answer is what?

Call us.

Call you?

Call us and let us trap them all.

Yeah.

and that's something, like you said, it's counterintuitive.

you know, Kentucky is not Georgia or Texas or Alabama.

All of our pigs were essentially trailered to a spot and let go.

Yeah.

You know, they popped up in these little pods and in the last I mean, we've removed thousands.

We've we've proven that we can successfully get rid of a of a bunch of pigs.

and hunting was not helping, which is, you know, hunting is conservation.

Hunters have done everything, you know, in the, in the, in the modern times to bring wildlife back, to manage them.

And it just is not working for pigs.

So this, you know, it's really twofold.

Number one, we want to de-incentivize any pig hunting.

We really don't have a culture of pig hunting in Kentucky.

and number two is we get the professionals, we come in, we trap the whole group, get them out of there.

You know, the best, best guy sitting in a deer stand might get 2 or 3, and then you've just educated the other 20, and they're almost impossible to catch at that point.

A couple things you said that I found really interesting is, you know, every time you find a group of pigs, they were trailered in and let go.

So these are situations.

So if hunting them is illegal today, you're going to get cited If you if you're shooting pigs, the hope is that there are no more pigs being trailer in turned loose.

I mean, that's that's the.

It█s a big part of it.

The whole idea is that there's no incentive whatsoever for a hunter.

Yeah.

any anyone that may have a way to try to generate any interest on their property, financially or otherwise.

Yup.

If you drop a pig off there, no one's going to be allowed to come hunt that pig.

You want a phone call and to trap them.

But I will tell you when you said don't want to take 1 or 2, you want them all.

We went out and filmed a segment and we were on call.

It was multiple days.

They were like, well, we've got 70% of the pigs in the trap tonight.

They waited till they thought they had every single one, and I think that they had one.

That got loose.

We had one that was outside that we killed when we went, when we walked in, if I remember.

Right.

So you think about, you think about how effective you can be when you start feeding them running cameras and you're counting them for the first several days.

Yeah.

Trying to get all the pigs in the trap at one shot.

Yeah.

I don't know a human alive that can shoot that well, because pigs are smart.

You start pulling the trigger and they start going nocturnal and you don't see them any more.

Yeah.

But they're still breeding.

Yeah.

Smartest animal in the woods.

And we don't want them.

I mean, if you look at Boone and Crockett deer that come out of the state.

If you look at our great turkeys, quail.

We don't want pigs.

Pigs don't jive with what we've got here.

Yeah, I'll be the first to tell you pigs are fun to hunt, but I don't want to.

I don't want to do it here.

If I want to hunt pigs, go south where they've got more than they can handle.

Yeah, yeah.

All right, there you go.

One caveat to that was, with the change of it being illegal to hunt the pigs, a landowner still has the right to shoot a pig if it's causing damage to their property.

Yeah, yeah.

So if they█ve got a soybean field or corn field, and they do have pigs and they're out there in the act of depredation they can still shoot that pig.

Okay.

now to for someone to do that, do you need to call before you take it or can you?

You can call after.

Okay.

As long as you contact your local game warden.

Okay.

That sounds like a very, that sounds like a very, even kind of way to play it.

If you are a landowner and you're literally seeing something that's causing you financial damage, you're like, well, isn't this something?

It's on my own property.

Right.

And there's nothing I can do about this.

Then there you go.

There's your answer.

Yep.

Next questions about deer and CWD again.

This this person wants to know how many cases of CWD being transmitted to humans from consuming meat have been documented in the U.S.?

Zero.

zero?

Yeah.

And that█s zero, North America.

Yeah, that's zero North America.

So there's just a lot we don't know about it.

the CDC center for Disease Control recommendation is don't eat a CWD positive deer.

and that's easy to do nowadays.

Get your deer tested.

You'll be good to go.

And I'm not concerned about it.

But if I'm in this area that we've had some CWD I'm getting them tested.

Yeah.

I mean, that's that's kind of where I'm at with it because, so I you have no reason to really worry or fear because now we're talking about zero cases of transmission to humans and one case of one deer in the entire state.

But still, a lot of time, effort and energy are going into this because it could dramatically change the way we hunt deer instead of Kentucky.

yeah.

Untested, un-looked at unsupervised, I should say.

So.

Absolutely.

Spent a lot of time effort on CWD at the Department of Fish and Wildlife to try to stay ahead of this.

Right.

Yeah.

And you get in the test that helps everybody out.

I guess that's the best way to put it.

so get your deer tested.

We've got a number of ways to do it.

And then that also also helps us get our statewide surveillance numbers.

And, you know, you got a good deer to eat.

Okay, there you go.

There's some mandatory check stations.

Yeah.

That are going to be staffed during the 3 weekends of modern gun season.

So if you're hunting down in the area, the, you know, actually the Ballard, the marshal, those type of areas, make sure you check because on that opening weekend there could be some mandatory check stations where you're deer if you're taking in that county, have to be checked.

But by now, we're 3 or 4 years deep in this now.

so people that are hunting down in that area probably kind of know they need they need to go look and see what days the check stations are open.

Yep.

this next, individual wants to know what the favorite animal for each of us to hunt.

Paul will start on the end.

What's your favorite animal to hunt?

I honestly can't pick one.

I like, you know, Kentucky.

We have something, like we discussed, every weekend there█s something.

So I know I love beginning September is dove season.

Yeah.

There you shoot the birds and there's deer season.

You know you're out there with a bow.

and I just love how the fall progresses and go into duck and goose season and everything else.

I took up trapping last year.

So that's one other thing that i█ve added to my winter.

So I, I can't pick one.

Yeah.

You like them all Cody.

What's your favorite thing to hunt for?

Yeah I agree with that.

I think if I was forced to pick one I█d probably say grouse.

You know what I mean?

Not only from a, you know, I use a dog to hunt grouse with, and so interacting with my dog and doing that stuff and also from a, a physical exertion standpoint.

Yeah.

Again, like we just mentioned earlier, the habitat that you find these things in is not stuff that you█d be taking a hike and say, oh, I want to go over there, you know what I mean?

and usually it's just got a pretty good grade to it, stuff like that, especially in east Kentucky.

It's high action when you get a grouse flush.

you know, they█re called the Thunder Chicken, you know when they blow up out of the brush.

It's very loud, it█s very exciting, the dogs are going nuts.

it's just a high, high energy hunt, and I really enjoy it.

There you go.

Yeah.

If I could, if I could only hunt one thing this year, it would be ducks.

That's that's something I grew up doing in west Kentucky, and and, still get down there as often as I can to do it.

Just something different, being out on the water.

That's interesting.

And for me, man, I'm an archer, and I love the deer hunting.

But if someone said one, what's your favorite?

I can honestly tell you, I've been.

I've been in a tree stand where the weather wasn't great and the deer weren't cooperating, wishing I was running my dogs and and hunt and, and rabbit hunting.

And I can't think of any time I've been out running the dogs, wishing I was in the tree stand.

So for that reason, the camaraderie, the the work with the dogs, the, you know, you got your friends out there, you can be loud.

You can.

I'm probably going to say Rabbit hunting is probably my, probably my all time favorite.

Next question.

can you, can youth take their online class and then go hunt or do they still need to do a range day as well?

They do.

there there are still plenty of opportunities out there to attend a hunters education course.

Of course kids these days and sports schedules.

It gets very busy, but, to be fully certified in hunter ed you would have to do the online portion and then attend the range day.

I know, I know a lot of, the educator in my area is very accommodating when it comes to people just coming to the, to the range day portion, the range portion of a hunter ed class and get them through.

If you go online, to our website and check the schedule, there are some now that are scheduling just range days, throughout the winter.

Whether it█s going to be at an indoor gun range or somewhere.

So they're making it work out.

Okay.

There you go.

Online range day only.

You can do the coursework at home on your own time and then just do the range portion only somewhere.

So, Next question.

this individual says he owns two acres of rural land.

Do I need a license and a permit to hunt it?

No, he doesn█t.

Okay.

We did have that reg changed and then changed back.

It was if you owned less than five acres you would need a permanent.

But that was overturned after one year, so if he█s only hunting that 2 acres he█s license exempt.

So if you're hunting your own property, regardless of size, you█re license exempt.

Now, you still need to telecheck.

Correct.

License exempt doesn't mean you don't telecheck.

And you know, I get this question for people at times like, hey, I don't have to have a license.

or it's a youth under the age or the youth free day, which we have now.

Hey, they don't need a license.

How do we check these these deer?

We get that question a lot.

So, regardless if your hunting public land or somebody else's farm or your own property, that deer still has to be telechecked, you still have to have confirmation number for any deer that you hunt.

And in the event that it█s a youth, who█s license exempt, they still have to telecheck that deer under that youth█s Social Security number.

So if you take, if you're taking a youth hunting for the first time, thank you.

First off, glad glad you're doing it.

But a few things you're going to need.

You need their Social Security number if you're going to take that individual hunting you need an ink pin.

You need a harvest log.

You need their Social Security number because that's how you end up, going through that process.

So something to think about if you're taking a youth for the first time is plan on being successful.

And, and make sure you have that, that Social Security card.

And there's a prompt right off the bat that says that you're checking this deer, under a free youth or a youth tag that, is license exempt or something along those lines.

So that's the one you check.

You're not gonna have an officer come to your house saying, hey, you don't have a license, and you check the deer.

We understand that's what's going on because they're license exempt.

You still want to make sure you telecheck it.

The next question.

What is your guesstimate on the whitetail population in the state?

About a million.

About a million?

Just a shade under a million, I think was what it came out to last year.

And where is that?

How is that trend from like the last 20 or 30 years?

Yeah, it's absolutely gone, you know, pretty steadily up.

And then I think we're kind of on a nice plateau right now, probably still ticking upwards.

Okay.

So still going up.

We're about a million, All right.

There you go.

who do I contact with the question about bear hunting?

So this individual has a specific question that they're not going to get on today, apparently.

Yeah.

But they they have a question about bear hunting.

Who do they need reach out to?

Yeah.

Call the info center up here.

And most of the time.

So most of the time I'll handle the, you know, regs and whatnot will get to me.

if you're interested in hunting in Kentucky.

Want to learn, you know, about some places to go.

I usually send you to one of my bear biologists out the field.

That kind of.

They're tuned in more to the to, you know, where they're seeing them while they're out doing their work.

You got some great bear biologist.

They're out there working with them every single day.

So they know where bears are at and where the best places to go hunt them.

So yeah, that you live in Frankfort, right.

Or close to it?

Yeah.

Yeah.

We don't have a bear problem in Frankfort.

And I'm not I'm not in East Kentucky as much as I want.

Yeah, yeah.

Those guys.

Yeah.

Give us a call.

We're always happy to talk, bear hunting.

There you go.

Next question.

What is an example of a good cull deer for herd health or genetic reasons?

Man, it's a good question.

This is, yeah.

It's so hard.

This is this is a very, very, hard topic right here.

It is I'm going to preface, you know, this is my take on it.

I've looked at things.

I think the idea of a cull deer comes from probably a high fence ranch in Texas, where they've got the ability to do that.

There's a lot of research out there.

And really, what I.

You know, when I'm explaining this to somebody, 50% of every Boone and Crockett, most genetics came from his mom.

Yeah.

And there's no way to there's no way to look at that doe and know that she, you know, makes Boone and Crockett deer.

Yeah.

So there's just not a lot of, It's just really not worth doing.

You're better off just to, do some, you know, follow the QDMA guidelines and shoot over mature deer and you'll have them.

I mean, that little dinky spike could be a Boone and Crockett buck one day.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, they gotta start small at some point in time don█t they?

Yeah.

do, what type of trees attract squirrels the most?

Man, this is a seasonal, seasonal question here, Yeah.

Definitely question.

Yeah.

So, usually in normal years, early on, you know, the hickories are going to be dropping a little bit earlier.

And the white oaks the red oaks, even beech for that matter.

And as the season progresses, you know, switch off onto your oaks a little bit more.

If you have walnuts.

Those are a latter than hickory nuts.

And then red oaks will be probably the last thing that they're going to be hitting then on usually the last thing that that comes out of the ground as well.

Okay.

So that's the succession that I go with.

Hickory, white oak then red oak.

So as far as which one do you like to hunt the most.

Is it, hickories or what do you think?

I think personally I target hickories more.

That might just be my, My attitude is it's a geologist to be able to tell all the different trees from a distance apart.

But hickory trees are especially shagbark hickory.

Some of our other native hickory species are very easy to differentiate in the field.

Our red oak and white oak.

So there's two different groups of oak species in the state of Kentucky.

Red oaks which have a whole bunch of species in that group.

And then white oaks with a lot of species in that group.

They could be a little bit more difficult to determine, between the two.

Especially when leaf off happens.

So you█re just looking at the bark, and I just think there's some, you know, kind of, nostalgia about harvesting a big old fox squirrel out of a lot of a big Shaggy Bark Hickory on the edge of a field you know?

I'll tell you what, they, when they're cutting those two and they're pulling them down when they hit the ground, they they, it's like it█s raining.

a big old, big old hickory nut when it hits the ground.

It's like, okay, that, there's plenty of nuts up there.

There's one up there.

You can hear it, that's for sure.

Next question is mowing sunflowers considered baiting for doves?

Mowing sunflowers is not.

So with doves in particular.

You're allowed to manipulate your, your dove field.

So, if you got a field full of sunflowers.

You can knock them down.

You can mow them.

Whatever you just cannot add to them.

So, yeah, if you're going to mow your sunflowers, you can't go back.

And sow your winter wheat.

Anything that would be considered a normal agricultural practice would be legal.

So, you know, for instance, if you got a tobacco field and you, you go and cut all your tobacco and then you're going to sow other crop on that, that's a normal agricultural practice.

So that would be a perfectly good field to hunt doves on.

Once you█ve harvested the crop and then sown a cover crop.

Okay.

There you go.

This individual was wondering about the overall numbers of elk in the state of Kentucky.

So you just gave us an overall number for whitetail.

You think it's about a million.

What do you what's your best guess on overall numbers of elk?

Yeah, so we're right at about 10,000 right now.

We've been saying that number for years.

But we've got five really big years of research.

You know, using a different population model.

We still came back to that 10,000, which gives me a lot a lot of confidence in it.

And I'll be the first to tell you they've gotten smart and they don't like people.

So they're living they're living in places where they're hard to find.

Oh, man.

I'll tell you what.

Hunting elk in Kentucky over the last 20 years has changed dramatically.

But that doesn't necessarily mean that there are no elk down there.

You hear them bugling.

And yeah, you get out there in the right time and you look at the landscape, you see elk tracks, they█re, they're coming through there.

I can't tell you how many days I've hunted down there.

When the weather is hot, where I've spent a day to three days in hot weather, tracking through and not see an animal.

But the tracks are everywhere, yeah.

And their droppings.

Like there's something produced in these tracks and droppings.

But where are they going?

Absolutely.

And I'll tell you what, that that, that early elk season, when it's hot, it can you can get that a lot of times how lucky or how easy the hunts are going to be.

It's going to depend on Fahrenheit.

How hot is it?

Oh, absolutely.

Especially this, especially the first part of September and early October seasons.

It really comes down to that.

I mean, you think about, I'm hot and I'm sitting out there in the sun and look what they're wearing as a coat.

I mean, I got a 100 pound hide on them.

So, yeah, that, that change that changes the game when it gets hot, doesn't it?

Next question.

Who can we contact to get involved and volunteer?

They're not saying what they want to volunteer to do, but do you guys have any programs out there where individuals can be involved and volunteer?

And so this is I don't personally in my program, but this is something that we as a wildlife division have been taking a harder look at.

And I believe agency wide as well.

And historically, that was something that you wanted to do specifically and say it's a habitat project to go, going to help remove some invasive species on a WMA, or for an event or something like that.

We've had scout events, for like merit badges and stuff like that on different WMA█s.

The first stop would be to find the contact information for that WMA and then contact either the biologists over the WMA.

Or the regional biologists that█s in that area, and contact them because different WMA█s handled differently.

Some of our WMA█s have a lot more volunteer work on them.

Some have less.

So it kind of depends on what their schedule looks like for being able to handle those volunteers in the field.

So I'd say the first step would be, you know, go online, search the WMA that you█re thinking about doing some volunteering on.

Find the contact information for that specific WMA.

Oh yeah.

It's always close start.

It's always best to start close to home, right?

You want to volunteer, you want to be, local sportsmen's clubs too.

That█s a good one.

Is where I have a very active group.

Up in my area.

And, I mean, they do everything from different kids events, special olympic fishing derbies, things like that.

So looking at local sportsman's clubs Will give you plenty of opportunities.

Oh, yeah.

I've been to a couple of events up there in your neck of the woods.

Whistler's day or whatever is a big major event up in Northern Kentucky.

I'm sure they're, throughout the state, other areas too.

That█s all put on by one of our local sportsman█s clubs, Yeah, yeah.

Next question is, is it legal to carry a sidearm while bow hunting?

It is.

Yes.

You're allowed to carry.

It doesn't it doesn't specify that it has to be a side arm of rifle, you█re allowed to carry a firearm.

During archery season.

You just can't use it.

Yeah, yeah.

And, it█s like that question.

You know, that question comes up.

Very few handgun calibers are legal to deer hunt with.

So you're carrying something that's not legal to deer hunt, if it's rifle season or not.

Unless it's a what.

What is it.

It's like 45 caliber bigger.

It's a I mean it's it's done by ten millimeter and basically a 40 caliber and up.

Yeah.

So it's got to be, it's got to be a really good size handgun to be legal to, to hunt with anyway, What is the plan for bears as the range expands?

And are they going to move further into central Kentucky and in the bluegrass region?

Yeah, yeah, that's a great question for this summer.

I mean, we've got one, we've got one that spent a considerable amount of time in West Kentucky, going as far as, Fulton County this summer.

Fulton County?

That's as far as you can go.

Yeah, exactly.

It's one of those things.

Those are the younger males that are roaming.

That's not necessarily.

It doesn't necessarily indicate that we're having a population expansion.

We know we're filling up some of our mountain counties, but we've still got a lot of room to grow.

And right now, we're managing some of our core counties, like Harlan and Letcher.

We want 0% growth in there, and we're trying to kill enough there.

We get that growth to 0% because we've got plenty.

When you get up around Moorhead, there's there's plenty of counties up there that would support more.

So I think, you know, we're going to keep that 47 county bear zone right now.

I would be very surprised if there's more than a handful of bears outside that zone.

You know, right now we're into our fall hunting seasons.

I mean, there's always one offs here and there, and we'll get those pictures and and, you know, that it happens.

But, you're saying there's 47 counties that are kind of the bear hunting range?

Yeah, that they're open for hunting.

Okay.

All right.

Next question.

How does somebody who's never hunted before and doesn't know anybody who hunts gets into hunting?

It's an interesting question.

And there are some avenues out there for an individual who just says, hey, I've got nowhere to turn, that no family that has any interest, no aunts and uncles.

I'm interested.

How do I get involved?

Yeah, I think you start.

Give us a call.

We've got a, you know, our our R3 program.

We've got some field to fork stuff.

It's something that we as an agency are wanting to promote, and I've, I know a lot of people personally that were kind of what we call like, like they started hunting as adults.

And that's a great time.

Oh, yeah.

You know, you've got, a little bit extra money to get, get some equipment, be comfortable doing it.

But then you're also, you know, a little bit more supportive environment.

You know, it's great to have friends that that hunt or to have grown up doing it.

But it's not something that you should, you know, not do just because of that situation.

You know, and in other countries, hunting is for the extremely wealthy, the landowners, the individuals who can afford to go through the permitting process to get a firearm that you can hunt with.

And that's not what we want here in Kentucky.

We want wildlife management areas, hunting opportunities, and we want individuals that no matter where you're raised, what county, what city, on a thousand acre farm or you live in an apartment complex, if you have the interest in hunting, we want to try to help you out don█t we?

Yeah.

So there are avenues here in the state of Kentucky, and there's some individuals out there that, that we can put you in contact with.

And so if you have interest in learning about either getting your Hunter safety card or firearm safety hunting, all the rules and regulations, permits that are required.

And then just where do you start?

Go on the website and let's find you a mentor, find someone that can help you out and get you started on the process.

So, hey, it's a great time to be interested in hunting because, we talked about earlier, the hunting seasons, especially as it pertains to deer.

If I would want to encourage anyone out there to do a couple things this year, if you've never taken a youth hunter into the woods and you and you feel comfortable enough doing that, take out an individual and expose them to deer hunting, even if you don't really want to deer.

Because that brings up my next point.

If you want to go out and get a deer in the state of Kentucky, I promise you there is a food pantry food kitchen of some sort that could use that protein.

And, we're going to donate a deer to hunters for the hungry this year.

The hunters for the hungry have been blessed with some donations that they've got a significant amount of money.

It's available.

You want to put protein right in your neighborhood, your your, your, city, wherever you live, your municipality, the funding is there.

Go online, check out hunters for the hungry.

This year is a little different.

In past, they need more deer.

Usually they need funding.

This year they they really need deer.

And it's an easy process.

We've done it in the past.

Consider donating for hunters, for the hungry and the opportunities right around the corner.

Youth weekend is the 12th and 13th followed up the very, very next weekend is our Muzzleloader season.

And of course we all know the modern farm season comes in November right after that.

So give it a chance.

If you got somebody that's interested in hunting, please help provide them the resources to get out there and get in the woods.

Hey, I want to thank all you guys.

This was an interesting show.

I learned several things today and I appreciate you guys coming out.

Have a safe, happy hunting season to all of you guys.

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

Always ask permission and thank the landowner.

Until next time, I'm your host, Chad Miles, I hope.

See you in the woods or on the water.