Hello and welcome to Kentucky Afield.

I'm your host, Chad Miles.

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

This week we're headed from the mountains of eastern Kentucky, trapping bear, to far western Kentucky, small game hunting.

But first up, we're headed to one of my favorite fishing spots and that's on the Ohio River below McAlpin Dam.

Today we're out here on the Ohio River, and we just launched from the new Shawnee boat ramp.

It's only been here for about two years, and this provides great access to do something that I really like to do in late summer and in the fall.

And that is fish for white bass, hybrid bass, and you might get lucky and catch the occasional striper down here below the falls in the Ohio.

Now this lifejacket is on and it's going to remain on.

Respect that moving water.

But if you know what you're doing and you're cautious and you abide by all the rules and regulations, it also can provide a very unique, incredible fishing opportunity.

So today we've called and we got the report.

They█re running somewhere between 6 and 7ft of water out of three gates, which should create some areas where they're not releasing water that creates those eddies where the water is coming out of the gates that are open.

So that's what we're going to try to hit today.

Well, here we are at the lower end of the falls of the Ohio.

These are the hydros right here.

And you can see- you talk about intimidating.

Look at the amount of water coming out there.

Now that honestly that is not a lot.

They can run more than that.

But this provides an opportunity where that bait gets sucked through and those predator fish sit there and take advantage of fish just getting pulled through there.

And that's a great opportunity, a great way to catch these like I say, hybrids, whites or striper.

You also have over here you see the water coming through.

We're going to come over here and hit these first.

I can tell you this I'm really excited.

This is one of those unique spots.

Under utilized location in the state of Kentucky that takes some knowledge.

It takes some safety thinking.

It takes a little bit of planning, but if you put it all together, it could be one of the greatest fishing trips you'll ever make in your entire life.

Right here on the banks of Ohio in downtown Louisville.

Sometimes the best fishing is literally the last two hours of the evening.

So we got up here a little early.

We tried that.

Not a lot of luck.

We're going to get over here and stay over on the edge where it's a little calmer.

And I'm gonna start making some casts out in here and see if I can█t pick something up.

Here we go.

Oh, it's a big hybrid.

Big hybrid.

Oh, my gosh, that's a workout right there now.

Look at that big old hybrid.

You talking about an aggressive and strong fish.

That fish was hooked and I thought it was a white bass because it was swimming right at me.

And when it was swimming at me It didn't feel so big.

When it got out here and then got in the current and took off.

It got real big, real fast, man.

You█re talking about a lot of fun trying to net one of these in this current and reeling one in.

It's a blast to say the least.

What a nice fish.

We█re actually going to see what the fish weighs.

It's bouncing because of the.

It's going somewhere between six.

It's like it's about seven, five, seven right there.

It's right at 7 pounds.

What a good fish.

No way I can manage handling this boat and fighting the fish and trying to get a net all at the same time.

It's just not possible.

That's why you almost have to come with the buddy.

Take turns casting.

Because it's just you got to have a person managing the boat while you fight these fish, because you just turn the boat loose and let it go.

Who knows where you're going to end up.

It can get real dangerous, real fast.

Another good one to say as big as the other one, but it's a good one.

Oh.

Man, I can't even begin to describe how exciting that is to hook one of these things in that kind of turbulent, and try to get it to the boat and get it netted and get it in.

Oh my gosh.

We got about four, maybe a four and a half five pounder right there.

Now we're not keeping any of these fish.

If you did come down here and keep them and I will tell you they are pretty good to eat.

But the rules on this is you're allowed to have four white bass, hybrid, striper species combined over 15 inches.

Man, this has already been well worth the trip.

Oh!

Oh my!

Oh my gosh.

Again, this is I mean, these are every one of these are 6 pound plus fish.

Oh my gosh, this one might be bigger.

Coming at me again.

Swimming right at me.

Swimming right at me.

And now he sees the boat and he's gone.

This is an extra, extra heavy rod.

And this fish is just working it over.

Look at that.

What a beautiful fish.

I'll tell you what.

I'm not one to go to the gym that often, but after a day of this, you don't need to.

My arms got a workout, my legs got a workout.

My back is screaming.

I feel like I'm on a, tuna boat saying no more, no mas.

I've had all I can take.

That█s about what its like.

Look at that fish.

That might be the biggest one, man.

They're all close to the same size, what that tells me is they're probably all same year class, and you can tell they're getting plenty of food.

Look at that fish.

If I look like I'm having a good time and I'm really excited, that's because this is a pure adrenaline rush.

When you're out catching these kind of fish and you've got.

I mean, don't get me wrong, this is dangerous.

You have to know what you're doing.

Stay out of that main rip.

Pull up beside it.

Have a person jockeying the boat for you.

Make long casts.

Be willing to let that fish take you out.

Get out there in that deeper, slacker water to try to land them.

And man, what a fishing adventure right here.

literally, I can I can see the skyline of Louisville.

We are right here.

And this can be done throughout the year.

You have to alter your lure size and the weight of your hook based on how much flow you have.

Right now, I'm throwing somewhere close to a half ounce on a big 5 or 6 ought hook on a 4 to 5 inch little fluke.

And, man, they like it.

It's an absolute blast.

It's a fantastic resource, but I can't express enough.

I've got this life jacket on.

I've got a person controlling the boat.

Don't take any chances.

I mean, this gate right now is in that six and seven foot range on the lower.

I wouldn't fish any higher than that.

And you can't hardly get here when it's much lower.

So it's a it's a small window.

You got to get the right day.

But August and it's good in September.

It can happen in October.

A lot of opportunities.

Get the right weight.

Get up here and get after these things.

It█s been a blast.

If you follow Kentucky Afield.

You may have seen us holding baby bear cubs.

And wondered how did they find that bear den?

Well, that takes a little bit of work of trapping and collaring the mother.

We█re down in the big South Fork area of the Daniel Boone National Forest It█s late July and bears are breeding and are in search for food.

And it's a good time for us to try to catch some bears.

So what we do, typical trap line that we have is we try to deploy as many as possible.

It takes some time to put them together.

So, we're limited on how many we can put out.

So we try to do about 10 to 12 to maximize how many bears that we can catch in a day So we'll place these traps usually about a half mile apart, try to encompass different home ranges of the females we've got this designed in a manner.

That is.

Safe for the bears.

So our locking mechanism.

Has, just one clamp on it.

So the way we put it together tries to eliminate any kind of, like, sharp edges for the bear paw.

The sharp end of the locking mechanisms to the outside with our cable locker or cable clamp.

The bolts face out.

So when the paw is in and it stenches, there's a minimum amount of sharp edges that can touch it.

Kind of grind the edges of these make it smooth.

So when it gets around that bear paw, the harder they fight the tighter it█ll get.

Usually doesn't have any kind of consequences.

There's usually maybe just a small abrasion Get some Moss around the cable.

So the good thing about moss, there's a couple things that you can use for your spring and hiding your spring.

But I really like moss because it's lightweight.

It blends in well.

The Idea is we're directing the bear exactly where we want it to step.

So the bears that we're working on down here in McCreary County, we've been studying these bears is probably about 2010 when we first initiated our research down here.

And it's just a continuation of that.

We've seen that the population continues to grow.

And that's the entire purpose of this is so that we continue monitoring the population and what they're doing.

So as we enter into late summer or early fall, the food sources change as well.

And we've seen some of that sign as we travel long the forrest service roads here.

To set our snares.

So we see a lot of the sassafras trees that have been rolled over from the bears.

So So we're in the Big South.

National Forrest.

And this time of year, we get a lot of trees rolled over by the bears like this right here.

And so what they're after is they can smell these berries that develop at the top of this sassafras tree.

And there's dozens of them along the roadways.

But this is just a natural food that bears feed on this time of year, when these come in the season, we transition past the blackberries and we've moved into other crops, that█s coming in.

And this is one of the favorites at this time of year.

The traps that we're using is called an Aldridge snare.

It's not a selective trap.

We can't determine if we catch a male or female.

So during the process of our research trapping, we have just as equal of an opportunity to catch male bears as we do females, So today is our first day of deploying traps in the area.

So what our main goal now is to get as many out as possible, so that we'll check it, at least twice a day, morning and evening runs.

All bears that we catch are good information.

We collect data equally from whether it's a female or a male bear.

The same.

The only difference it will have is the collar.

Male bears grow fast.

So they'll put on a lot more weight in the winter than what females do, and they're more difficult to collar.

Plus, there's not much information that we're looking for.

We don't have any reason to track male bears specific, but it's very important for us to know the location of the den sights in the winter.

And that's the reason why we use collars on the females.

Sometimes going into these trap sights on these ridge lines.

You come across this, two main land mammals that'll eat ground nesting bees is bears and skunks.

Most times it█s bears that does it.

You see where they dig it out and it doesn't affect them.

They don't pay attention to these stings.

From the bees as they█re eating them.

They'll try to go after the lava.

That's mine.

But I guess where most of nutrition is with the lava.

But they'll eat the bees in the process as well.

So goal is hopefully with some of these traps that we've set out this morning with the bear activity we've seen, we've actually even seen a couple bear as we've been traveling down the roadways.

And hopefully that movement will translate into a captured bear today.

So we've got all our traps deployed this morning.

Now it's time for us to make our evening run.

So we'll go in, make sure that we still got bait, none of the traps were thrown, and see if we caught a bear.

So as we approach, we can tell that there's nothing in here, our cubby is still in place.

So the second thing we'll do is we'll check to see if there's any activity at the site.

See if any of our bites eaten on the ground or on the tree.

And obviously nothing's been here yet.

A lot of times we'll have a lot of other, small mammals that come in, whether it's possums or coons, and maybe rob the bait before bear gets to it.

But, it doesn't look like anything in here right now.

So probably a little over 200 pound bear.

Caught good around her wrist.

We'll go back, we█ll get us a dart worked up and some drug worked up, and we'll get it down so we can work em up.

So after we successfully dart him.

we'll retreat back here.

Kind of get out of sight, out of mind That way it can calm down and have it easy.

they'll go under Anastasia and everything It could be as little as a minute and a half, or it could be 15 minutes before it finally goes down.

There we go.

So it gives us a clean place to work.

Main thing, even though this is even capture.

And sun light is not an issue.

with them laying on the forest floor like this.

We want to protect their eyes, because we'll have to move around a little bit.

And everything.

So we might want to make sure that there's no sticks that█ll jab her eyes.

We have three means identifying bears, bit tags, ear tags, and tattoos.

Ear tags are easy to locate, but the longevity of them can be limited.

Tattoos are something that are long lasting and will last entire life of bear.

The reason we go after this tooth is it's easily accessible.

It's the tooth that the bear can live the same life with or without.

So it doesn't affect the animal by losing that tooth.

And it's generally easier to extract that tooth and not do any harm.

Oh, she's got some tooth wear.

Pretty heavy.

Look them upper molars back there.

They're almost flat, she's old.

Look at them upper incisors.

I mean, she's probably at least 14, 16 year old.

Well, just from what I've seen in the past, she's probably at least that.

So what we're doing is we're putting a leather spacer on this collar.

So with this design, it allows this collar to eventually drop off the bear.

So if the bear puts on the large amount of weight in the fall.

Then the collars simply drop off.

Okay.

She█s good.

Time will vary on how fast they will react.

Sometimes it's as little as 30s.

Sometimes it may take 18 or 20 minutes.

This evening we went out, done our evening check.

Come down to the last two traps that we had that we'd set this morning.

We was able to catch two females, which is, our goal you know, we was after the female bears so that we can put collars out by putting these collars out is to continue to collect the data so we can put it into our population models.

So, ultimately we can do the den surveys in the winter and count cubs and see the sex ratios of those cubs.

Training and hunting with your favorite hunting dog is a hobby that can last a lifetime.

We're down here in Trigg County today.

We're getting ready to do something that I don't get to do as much as I like, but it's always a blast, and that is squirrel hunting with dogs.

So you guys brought us down here and you got a big piece of property here that's got a bunch of wildlife on it.

And you brought some dogs with you.

What type of dogs you guys bring?

They█re fiest.

Okay.

Fiest.

So fiest dogs, they're kind of bred to do separate things, but squirrel hunting is what people use them the most for isn█t it?

They█ll tree other game, but mainly squirrels.

What we use ours for.

Yeah.

So this a piece of property that you own.

And you told me you've been squirrel in for a long time.

What makes hunting with the dog so much more exciting?

You never know what's going to happen.

Sometimes it's chicken, sometimes it's feathers.

So how many dogs we got today?

Got three.

Okay, three dogs.

And they're all mountain fiests.

How many dogs you bring?

I've got one dog and he█s got two.

Okay, let's go meet your dogs and put them on the ground.

All right.

You know, this is a little different style of hunting.

This this hillside, this kind of rolling and the terrain is rolling.

So what they like to do is to let the dogs out one at a time, let the dogs hunt out in front of them and they follow behind in the ATV.

So makes for a pretty casual day of squirrel hunting.

Rosie has got one treed.

We got two squirrels right here.

You're going to take the bottom one?

Whenever you're ready.

There you go.

Great shot.

Oh, there they go.

Lets walk over and see what you got.

Bring it here.

Thank you, darling.

Well, that was a good shot.

Rosie ran over here and grabbed one of these squirrels.

I don't know if she got the first one or the second one, but I found some blood.

Yeah.

There you go.

That's how it's done right there.

I was born in a tent in a saw mill in 1938, and I started squirrel hunting when I was five.

And we weren't sport hunting.

We were hunting to eat.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

So we killed one whenever our parents.

wanted to cook for a meal, so that's the way I started squirrel hunting.

Wow.

I've been doing it ever since.

Can you imagine turning a five year old loose with a 22 now to kill?

It was just a different time and place, wasn█t it?

I mean, you did it out in necessity, too.

Yeah.

Yeah.

This tree won't hold still for me to shoot.

Good job.

Bring it here.

There you go.

Nice shot.

That dog did a great job.

Well, I'll tell you what.

I appreciate you guys giving me a little bit of history about squirrel hunting today.

We've talked about squirrel hunting from the time you was five years old.

Unfortunately, the weather didn't cooperate for us did it?

It's got a mind of its own.

You know, we know there's a ton of squirrels where we hunted and the dogs did really good considering the situation.

But we start dealing with these wind gusts of 20, 25, 30 mile an hour.

They decided to hole up on us, I think.

But I tell you what I really like, I like watching how you guys have used some of the modern day technologies of the GPS and the ATV.

It kept you out here chasing the squirrels up and down these hillsides.

So you don't see any end in this game, do you?

You're going to keep going aren█t you?

Thats right.

As long as I can.

And I really appreciate you coming out here and and bringing your dogs and and taking us on this hunt.

You're very welcome.

We appreciate you coming too.

It's been a lot of fun.

Hopefully the next time Mother Nature will cooperate and we'll have a better hunt.

Okay.

Thank you, guys.

Thank you.

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 this impressive buck that was taken by Isaiah Green on the opening day of archery season.

Nice deer.

Here we have ten year old Jared bowling with his first doves he's ever taken.

These doves were taken in Hardin County.

They won't be his last.

Congratulations.

Abby Leslie went squirrel hunting with their dad and had some success in Nelson County.

Congratulations.

Nicholas Williamson tagged his buck tag on the opening morning of the 2024 archery season.

I wouldn't pass this one up either.

Nice job.

Willard McGlone found out that sometimes a nice little catch can be a lot of fun.

He caught this nice channel catfish while crappie fishing at Cave Run Lake.

17 year old Quinn Hartman took this nice small mouth while fishing with her dad on Barren River.

Nice job.

Our annual fall hunting question and answer show is right around the corner.

Make sure you mark your calendars for September the 30th at 7:00 on YouTube, Facebook or fw.ky.gov 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.