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 going to take a look back at a few of our favorite segments of 2025, including a turkey hunt and a float down the picturesque Cumberland River.

But first, we're getting the beagles together, and we're hitting the field for a rabbit hunt.

We aint even got our guns loaded and we already got a rabbit going here.

Come on, come on, come on, come on.

Come here Josie.

Come here Checkers.

Come on.

Well, today we're in Henry County for a real late season rabbit hunt.

You know, 2025 started out with a deep freeze.

Made it hard to get out and run rabbits.

But now we've got a couple days left in the season.

I'm out here with a couple of good buddies.

We're going to get these dogs going.

And this is a piece of property we█ve hunted quite a bit.

It always produces rabbits.

Right here.

Oh, that was kind of on... Coming your way!

That was a little bit too easy, and on the jump.

So, I elected to not shoot that rabbit, you know.

We just got out and got started and, wanted to get the dogs a little bit excited.

Does not get any better than that.

I could have opened my pocket and put that one in without even taking a shot I believe.

He was going towards the pond dam and cut down here by this little ditch, and then ran straight up there towards that barn.

Probably right to the sinkhole.

Probably right to the sinkhole.

Oh, may be going to Curtis.

All right.

Perfect.

Nice cottontail.

Come on.

Hunt in here.

Hunt in here.

Let's go.

Hunt them up.

Hunt them up.

That's a deer bed, is what that is.

A deer has bedded right there and that's what melted that snow.

There's deer droppings all over in here.

They're back on it.

Well, that's the rabbit that they, jumped up there and ran a while ago.

He got out in front of them, and he had slowed down, just stopped, and was kind of waiting for the dogs to catch up.

But he didn't realize that stopped right in front of me.

All right, well, got one down.

Hey, hey, look, look, look.

Come here Checkers.

Dead.

Dead.

Good.

Good girl, good girl Josie.

Good girl Josie.

Come here Checkers.

I have no idea where this rabbit is at.

Kept acting like they wanted to go down here.

You get it?

Yeah.

Hey, I know you've got some... This is your family property.

You got some experience hunting here.

There's a sinkhole right there.

The first one got their on us.

Yep, yep.

This one was headed that way.

So you said, you know what fellas, we've seen this happen before.

Let's go over here and just guard this sinkhole.

Time to get to the sinkhole.

They push it in there and of course, this is frozen.

And they kind of lost track of it for a second.

A few seconds later, as I'm watching the dogs trying to pick the scent trail back up you got a shot.

So, nice.

They pushed him right out.

Appreciate it.

Nice job.

You got a vest?

I don't, no.

Well here's the good thing.

Yep.

There's the truck.

Matter of fact, I'll tell you what.

If you're headed that way why don't you do me a favor.

Take that one too.

Got two of them there.

No need to carry them that close to the truck.

They're in a different area of that thicket now.

They've been working this hill.

Now they're over there.

They may run one right to Paul.

Another rabbit down.

There we go.

A good spot right down here.

I hope they can round one up.

Man, that's a big rabbit.

He was going right back to that hole again.

Coming to the hole?

Yep.

We heard a shot I come around the corner and were you standing up on that big hill?

Yeah.

Close to it.

Yep.

And I saw you get another shot.

So that's a big one.

Yeah, that's the big momma jamma right there.

That's a meal for a man.

Heck yeah.

Come on.

Bring them back around here.

Right here.. Get it?

Yeah.

Amazing how many rabbits are over here.

Here he comes.

Well, dogs ran him across and was bringing him back.

Took two shots, but got him down.

Come on, come on, come on.

I can't tell you how much I enjoy small game hunting, especially with dogs and friends.

When you can put that whole combination together.

For me, deer hunting is fun, turkey hunting is fun.

But getting out here hunting with dogs, getting plenty of shots, being out with some buddies, it doesn█t get any better than this.

And rabbits are great to eat too.

Happened fast again.

Frankie barked on that rabbit.

But I never saw it until it was behind me.

And, it shot right down this fence line.

Luckily, that happened to be right where K.C.

was standing, so I think he got it.

Dead.

Dead.

Dead.

There you go.

There you go.

You get him?

Yeah.

Nice job.

There's definitely one more.

And I think they said two more coming to us.

Brought him right to me.

Great dogs.

Coming up.

This is a tough rabbit.

You get him?

It█s always the second shot.

Yeah.

Nice.

Good spot.

Oh, here he is right here.

He squirted through here, and I only had a split second to make a shot.

I'll tell you what.

It was a good time.

And you know what?

There's a whole lot of different ways we can prepare these.

Everybody's gonna get plenty of rabbits, stock the freezer full because it's going to be a long time before we can get fresh rabbits.

Exactly.

Thanks for coming out, guys.

I appreciate you having me.

And it was an absolute blast.

Yeah.

Had fun.

Good day.

It was.

There are very few hunting experiences that can match the excitement of having a gobbler come in in full strut.

Well, I'm out for day two of the 2025 Turkey season.

Season started out great.

Was able to take a bird on the opening morning.

so now it's Tuesday and I hunted this morning.

I don't have a bird.

I'm still hunting, but I did see a bunch of gobblers.

I had a bird right on top of me right at the decoy, not pressured.

We sat there and filmed the bird walking back and forth.

Gave me a 30 yard shot.

Absolutely steal on my shooting sticks.

When I pulled the trigger.

I didn't draw a feather.

Complete miss.

I opened up a brand new box of shells that happened to be the same kind of ammo, same gun, same choke tubes that I've been hunting for the last three years.

Never had an issue.

I patterned the gun multiple times.

It shoots great.

I cannot believe that.

But after that, miss, I felt like man, something's up, I can't, I can't continue hunting.

I need to go shoot this gun and see what's up.

So I take- I shot one of those shells I took took the other shells went out, set up a target at 30 yards.

Pull the trigger, miss.

Wait a minute.

Same ammo, same gun, same choke tube what the heck happened?

It just happened to be a new box of shells.

So luckily I happened to have another box of shells with me swapped out that ammo, put the new load in, put the target out there, smoked it so just re-patterned my shotgun.

New ammo.

I'm in Butler County.

Beautiful piece of property.

A lot of turkeys.

Let's go give it another try.

Yes.

Man, I havent been out here an hour.

Middle of the day.

Was planning on a long set.

And I was just calling about every 45 minutes.

And all of a sudden, when I called, they were right on top of me over this birm.

They must have been come in quietly.

Oh, let's go get this bird.

Wow, what an incredible hunt Man.

Get in.

Sat down.

Let about 20 30 minutes pass.

Make a couple calls.

Nothing.

Wait about 40 minutes.

Called a few more times.

Still had about 4 or 5 hours left in my hunt.

And all of a sudden, pick the call up, make a call, and birds gobbled and they sounded close and within 15 seconds I look and over the rise I see a gobblers head standing there.

He comes in, second one comes in, third one comes in, and then I noticed there stood two turkeys down by the pond.

They were hens and the gobblers were paying a little bit attention to my decoy, and a whole lot of attention to those hens.

The first two birds came out and walked and turned and started headed toward the hens.

The last two birds kind of followed them slowly, but they kept paying attention to my decoy and going into strut.

When the last two birds got to where they were behind this big tree in between me and them, I got my call back up, made another call that bird gobbled, went into full strut and turned and presented me an opportunity to make a shot.

Now this shot was a lot further than the one I missed this morning, but this turkey folded straight up, went straight down, and now I'm officially tagged out in Kentucky for 2025.

And I couldn't be more happy with this hunt.

One of the most beautiful locations in the state of Kentucky is the Cumberland River.

And it just so happens to be a great fishing destination as well.

Well, today I'm out doing one of my absolute all time favorite summertime activities, and that is floating the Cumberland River.

I'm out here with Micah Smith.

Micah, this is something you spend a lot of time doing, isn't it?

Yeah.

This is, this is actually my fourth day in a row out here.

I love being out here on this river, middle of summer.

You know, the temperatures are hot, but the water's cold.

And the fish bite all the time down here.

What type of species do you tend to catch?

You can catch it all down here.

I mean, you're talking four different species of trout.

Small mouth, large mouth, Kentucky bass, striper, white bass, walleye, saugeye, sauger, sturgeon, paddlefish.

You know, it just the list goes on and on.

There are endless possibilities down here.

You never know what you're going to get into.

Water conditions are ideal when?

Tell me the ideal water conditions.

I like to get down here and fish when the water's as low as it can be.

No generators or if possible, one generator is really good.

Today we're actually fishing with the sluice gate on.

That's actually really good.

The water stays cold, and the fish just stay active all the time down here.

Trout predominantly.

What we're going to be looking for today.

You can catch trout on fly rods, but you can also use spinning or any other type of tackle you'd like to use as well.

Or as far as rods.

Right.

Yeah.

You can catch trout a lot of different ways down here.

You can come down here and catch trout on nightcrawlers, power bait, rooster tails.

And then what we're doing today, which is these marabou jigs.

And I've really enjoyed using down here for them.

Trout are pretty hard fighting fish.

People who haven't trout fished don't realize that you get a 20 inch trout on a light or an ultra light rod wow you're in for it.

Oh yeah.

We'll head on down fish some little bit better stuff.

Oh.

There's one.

Looks like it's a rainbow.

It's a rainbow.

Hopefully we can find some big ones.

Well, you know what, though?

That was, a good start.

Yeah.

Good start.

Oh, you got one.

That's a little better fish.

Nice.

It's just a little guy, probably a ten inch rainbow.

And he█s off.

Here we go.

Oh, yeah.

Looky there.

What a beautiful fish.

We got a brown trout here.

First one of those of the day.

Look how pretty.

And they want this bait right on the bottom.

And it just spiraled down there, and he popped it.

What percentage of browns to rainbows do you catch?

I would say if I catch 20 fish, I would say 15 of them are rainbows.

25%.

That's our first one today.

Nice one.

Oh, there's one.

Got him?

Yep.

There you go.

Pretty rainbow.

That might be the biggest rainbow of the day so far.

Who do you think you got there?

13 or 14?

Yeah.

13 or 14 inch fish probably.

How old do you think a fish like that is down here?

I'd say this fish was put in here... Ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Right now I'd say let's put it there right now.

Oh.

What do you think though?

2 or 3 year old fish?

Yeah.

Maybe.

I think I might go with something a darker color.

I don't know why I'm changing really.

I just caught a fish.

Here we go.

Hooked up.

I saw him eat it.

Oh, yeah.

There we go.

Nice one.

I saw him come up there and just inhale that bait.

But that time I waited till I felt him before I set the hook.

Yeah.

That's probably what you think?

16, 17 inches?

Yep.

That's a nice fish right there.

Nice hard fighting fish.

We're putting it right back in the water.

Yeah catch and release.

He's going to go right away and he's gone.

There he is.

Oh, that█s a great fish.

Wow, that's a great fish let me get the net here.

That there would maybe snap that 4 pound line.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

That's such a great fish.

There you go.

Nice job, Micah.

He came up and chased after it.

I just let my jig fall back down, and I couldn't see the jig anymore.

And I, you know, gave it a twitch and he was there.

So that's a really nice fish.

There you go.

Sight fishing trout on the Cumberland River.

Sight fishing.

Looks like he's got a little battle mark there.

Maybe from a from a blue heron.

Yeah, probably so.

He's in good shape.

We'll let him go.

You know, Micah, earlier you made a comment that really rings true.

And that is every time I've been through here fly fishing, you're either pulling a fly, kind of dead drifting a fly, or you're streamer fishing.

And this is kind of similar to streamer fishing with a spinning rod.

Yeah, it's same kind of concept.

I mean, you're catching these fish, these active fish that want to come up and chase bait.

That's kind of what we're targeting.

It works pretty well.

This here is the kind of spot we've been catching fish.

Like these little areas where there's some dark spots.

They've been kind of hiding down in there.

They get behind these rocks and they hide.

There's definitely certain sections where it seems like they hold more fish.

You know, the shallower sections with the faster moving water seem to be pretty popular spots for them.

Oh, yeah.

I dont want to horse it too much.

There you go.

Yeah.

Good little.

Oh, yeah.

Aerial show there.

Nice one.

Got it.

Oh, there you go.

They like laying there in those trees.

Just like bass, don't they?

Yep.

They like the cover.

That fish came by and swiped and missed.

I picked it up.

He swiped and missed again.

Dropped it back down.

Lunchtime.

Got it.

Yeah.

Oh look at this.

We're doubled up.

Doubled up.

Sweet.

Oh, it doesn't get any better than this.

You want a net or you good?

I think I'm good.

I think I'm good.

Looky there.

Nice one.

Catching them two at a time.

Two different patterns too, to these fish.

That fish that you have, it doesn't seem like it has as many spots as mine has.

Oh, wow.

Two really fun fish to catch and two very healthy trout.

There they go.

It won't be long.

We'll be sitting in a deer stand.

Deer season be here in September.

Feels a mile away in 90 degree heat doesn█t it?

Yeah.

So there's a pretty historic site there on the Cumberland River.

Yeah, that's a really neat feature there.

The rock house.

A lot of people drive down here.

Just to check it out.

But it's pretty neat seeing it from the river.

Oh, yeah.

Oh.

There you go.

Nice one.

Oh, that's a great fish.

Nice one.

Wow, I do think that might be the biggest fish for the day so far.

Yeah, that's a good one.

He's going back in.

Here we go.

Oh nice one Chad.

Man I'll tell you what.

There's a million ways to catch a trout.

But today, with a spinning rod which almost every angler has a spinning rod and a little 3/32 ounce jig, this is a technique and a method that any bass fisherman, any panfish fisherman could come replicate and do this.

Absolutely.

And man, has it been a blast.

All right, buddy, I'm letting you go.

I'm letting you go.

Can you believe it?

2026 is here.

Make sure you're making plans to get outdoors this new year.

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

Always ask permission to 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.