This week on Kentucky Afield.

We're starting things off in the western part of the state.

First, catching catfish on the Cumberland River.

And next, targeting crappie with a real pro on Kentucky Lake Then we'll join biologists several hundred miles to the east and see what data they're collecting from Elk calves.

It's all next on Kentucky Afield Hello and welcome to Kentucky Afield.

I'm your host, Chad Miles.

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

June is a great month to go catfishing here in Kentucky on the rivers.

And when you go fishing with Captain Jim Doom, you never know what you'll be using for bait So, Jim, back down here on the Barkley Tail waters.

What are we fishing for today?

Catch an old catfish, i guess.

OK. We're running up toward the dam.

What are you looking for now?

Looking for an Asian carp.

I can get them in the cast net, but they tear my cast net all to pieces.

Now we can find some that's fresh dead, floating and come through the dam.

You were telling me that you're repurposing those fish and that they were excellent bait.

They are excellent bait.

They've made our catfish fat.

Well, there are fish floating here everywhere dead, So I can imagine if you're a catfish and you're hungry right now, that's your own problem.

There's plenty of bait, huh?

and you're just going to take bits and parts and pieces and use them for bait, right?

Guts.

Guts.

OK, man, those are some good sized ones too aren't they?

It's as easy as that, huh?

Does this stuff stay on the hook pretty good?

It does.

There you go.

It really is just fat.

So that ought to put a big old slick down there.

A catfish oughta be able to smell that from a mile away, huh?

I would think so.

Go ahead, fish.

Go ahead?

Don't wait on me.

All right, so we're going straight down to the bottom with this and then pick it up just a little bit is that the plan?

Yeah.

This new fancy trolling motor I've got here, we're anchored, so.

OK.

There you go.

Bent down there pretty good already.

Where's your net at?

Always somewhere else, you know.

Blue catfish.

And he's got a big belly, too.

There you go.

That's a pretty fish.

It is absolutely beautiful fish.

Hooked right there.

Right there in the corner of the mouth, just like those circle hooks are supposed to do.

And this is a really good size if you want to keep one to eat.

What do you think that fish is?

Probably 8 pounds?

Yeah, its what I figured, about 8 pound fish.

He's probably going to be supper tonight.

There you go.

Nice fish.

You get bit?

Yep.

All right.

I believe I got this one.

that is not a blue.

Oh, it's a channel.

Sure is, channel catfish.

You wanna keep that one?

No.

Let him grow.

I saw that.

He's got another.

If you're gonna take a couple home, these are the ones, not the 30, 40 pounders.

These are the ones right here.

To me, that's the perfect size.

Easy to clean and got a lot of meat on them.

Oh, yeah.

Good stuff right here.

This is what I was really wanting: Roe.

OK. Will that stay on the hook pretty good, too?

It will, enough.

Good enough.

If you want to bring yours up and I'll put you some roe on there.

OK.

Here we go.

This is a little better fish here.

If that's a channel cat, He's a big'n.

Yeah.

There you go.

That's a good fish right there, isn't it?

That's a nice one.

What do you think, is that one going in there?

No, you let him grow.

Let it grow?

I don't like cleaning them that big.

a little bigger than ideal eating size, huh?

Yeah.

Another bite.

That's another eater right there.

I got one trying to jump.

Look at that.

That's a nice fish.

Look at him out there rolling.

Hey, look, he's rolling like a like a small mouth.

There you go.

Thank you, my friend.

That's a nice fish.

That is a good fish right there.

Look at that.

Oh, my gosh.

He's barely skin hooked.

He won't even, he won't feel a thing.

Look at that.

That's a healthy fish.

That fish is as wide as he is long.

I'll tell you what, coming down here and catching these fish is so much fun.

I'll tell you what, It's a beautiful blue catfish.

It is.

I always have a good time.

You're a lot of fun to be with in the boat, and we always catch fish.

Recently, we were invited to share the boat with a true, professional crappie fisherman and find out how he located fish and what techniques he used to catch them.

This morning, we're out on beautiful Lake Barkley, and I'm here with Jenko professional fisherman, Tony Shepherd.

Tony, how are you doing?

Good.

How are you?

I'm doing good.

I feel really lucky today because you're actually prefishing for a tournament that starts tomorrow.

You're heavily involved in lure design and manufacturing in Jenko lures right?

Right.

Yeah, I've designed I think seven different styles of baits.

And I've got like, 30 colors, and they all have a purpose and there's all a day for everything.

So you've allowed us to get in the boat with you and kind of go out and try to locate some fish.

I want to talk about a little bit about tournament fishing, but more than anything, about lure selection, lure color.

I want to go through your process on how you do that, because where to start is pretty important.

Yeah, it is.

The faster you can start getting information on what those fish want, how deep those fish are at, how they're going to respond to a particular lure.

The quicker you get that, that's really the name of the game, whether you're tournament fishing or fun fishing, Right?

Right.

Right, exactly.

I mean, knowing where the fish are helps a guy catch them a whole lot quicker, you know.

Especially if you don't get to fish very much and like right now we're out here, the water temperature is seventy-six degrees, 1st of May, and, you know, we're in post-spawn blues.

You know, the fish have done spawned out, they're heading back out and, you know, what they do is normally pull out to about 8 or 12 foot of water and chill out for a little bit before they make their way back out to the river.

All right.

Well, fantastic.

Well, let's get at it.

I'm excited.

You told me not to bring any tackle.

I brought a rod and reel, so I'm going to let you set me up, too, with whatever you think I need to start with.

OK, we'll get you set up.

Thank you, sir.

So, Tony, if they had a tournament that said, hey, you get to pick one lure and you got to fish with that one lure the entire crappie season, what do you throw and what color?

What we got on.

This is a baby mermaid.

Just because it's such a natural finesse presentation?

Yeah I mean, it's natural.

It looks like a Minnow.

Day in, day out, that'll catch fish.

I mean, even if they're aggressive, they're going to bite it and if they're a little finicky, they're still going to bite it, so.

If you had one lure in your entire tackle box to crappie fish, it'd be this.

Yep.

Here you go.

Oh, wow.

That's a good one.

that's a good crappie right there.

There you go.

Look at that.

What a nice fish.

Now, is that one big enough to get you excited tomorrow?

I hope not.

I hope not.

That fish there will probably weigh around a pound and a quarter.

And I'm looking for more pound and a half fish.

Next year, he'll be a nice fish.

Next year, that fish there will be one that can win you some money.

Yep.

Here we go.

And he's a crappie.

Not a bad crappie, not a tournament crappie, but this would've been- if you're trying to put together a limit of fish to eat, that'd of been what you're looking for right here.

Be some mighty fine eating right there.

Yeah, that's just a absolute average size crappie that you catch out here.

Yeah, that's just your average.

Just the average run of the mill.

Thousands of them.

See how much them fish move around?

That's not a crappie.

A crappie's nature is not like that.

They some more set still and they kick their tail once or twice to coast.

So like if you see one moving its tail all the time, it's not a crappie.

it's amazing how that's just hours and hours.

Oh yeah.

It's time on the water.

Let's say like that fish there kind of looks and shaped like a crappie.

Yeah.

That would be like a pound and a quarter, pound and a half probably.

You think he's a good one?

I'm pretty sure.

Oh yeah.

That is a nice Kentucky Lake crappie right there.

More like what I'm after.

That fish is as thick as it's going to be and is probably 15 inches long?

I'd say it's 15 inches long.

He's got a big ole mouth on him.

Big ole mouth.

That's a really, really good crappie.

So this is, this is the spot you'll remember for tomorrow huh?

Yeah.

There's another one on there so we'll leave him and maybe tomorrow, we may catch him.

There you go.

Tell me a little bit about what makes a good crappie rod?

I mean, you want, you want something that's got enough backbone to get your fish out of the brush quick so you don't get tangled up.

You want something that's really sensitive, and you want something.

that will cast a light jig.

lookie here.

it's a pretty crappy right there.

That's probably what you think, 12 and a half inch crappie?

Yeah probably 12 and a half, 13 inches.

13 inches, maybe.

Pretty good fish.

You know, you can see the structure down there and you see the really big fish move around.

Now, those are like Asian carp.

This is a structure that we're fishing and there might be another one right in there possibly.

Mm hmm.

Got lucky, but that's exactly how it works right there.

You find your structure, you figure out how far you got to cast and then just swim this little little jig right there above them.

Nice fish.

I'll tell you what, if I was trying to put a mess together, it'd be a really good one.

For a crappy tournament angler that's a throwbacker.

well, Tony, I'll tell you what I know today is a super busy day for you.

You're out here trying to locate some really big fish.

Not this one, but we'll take this.

This is a nice, nice fish and I appreciate you coming out here and showing me exactly what it takes to use a live scope and to fish like this.

This is, for me, It's really a learning experience.

It's definitely time on the water.

But, you know, with enough time on the water with the unit, you can, you know, you can see it's rewarding.

Yeah.

It's fun.

Well, I'll tell you what, tomorrow you don't have to keep any this small.

I hope they're a lot bigger.

I hope they're a whole lot bigger.

But I tell you what, it's been a lot of fun.

I appreciate you.

We'll get this fish back in the water, but thank you so much.

You're welcome.

I had fun.

So here we are today with John MacGregor, and everyone knows you as our state herpetologist.

If a person sees a snake on the water, they immediately think it's Cottonmouth.

Cottonmouths in Kentucky are fairly rare.

They're only out in the western part of the state, and they are mostly in big forested swamps.

But there are some snakes that are really good at imitating venomous snakes.

It's a way to bluff your way out of trouble.

Give me some examples of snakes that are misidentified as cottonmouth.

Any kind of water snake.

Mm hmm.

Northern water snake or common water snake, diamondback water snake especially.

They get as big as your arm.

A Copperbelly water snake, ratsnakes because they rear up and they open their mouth.

Hog nosed snakes, because when you walk up on a hog nosed snake, it flattens out its neck and hisses and opens up its mouth.

This is a common water snake.

OK. And these are all across Kentucky.

Probably every pond in the state has them.

You just look at the overall color of this snake.

It's got the right color.

Musk.

It's got the right color to be misidentified as a copperhead.

Yeah, it's kind of copperhead looking, but you know when a copperhead, see these dark cross bands, on a copperhead they're wide on the side.

So if you're looking at a copperhead, it looks like it's got a row of Hershey's kisses.

Gotcha.

What is the best way to identify a cottonmouth from a common water snake.

in a normal way of swimming a cottonmouth will be floating on the surface.

He'll have his head up above the water, and all the water snakes will swim normally with their head flat on the surface.

And their body is mostly, mostly underwater.

If you if you go toward it and it goes in the water, it's probably harmless.

You know, a cottonmouth will pretty much stand its ground because cotton mouths are, they're slow and they're chunky and it's easier to throw that mouth open and try to bluff somebody.

Well, thanks again.

I appreciate you coming in and showing us and giving us education.

Sorry about the snake musk.

That's OK. We'll wipe that up.

The Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife collects tons of data on our Elk herd to help manage them properly.

And it all begins with the calves.

Elk have been in Kentucky now for 23 years.

So we're transitioned from the restoration phase to the management phase.

Kentucky Fish and Wildlife and the University of Kentucky are involved in a collaborative effort.

What we're working on today is a calf survival project to kind of help us update some survival estimates that we need to perform every few years to make sure we're on the right track with the elk herd.

As a University of Kentucky graduate student, It's been an amazing opportunity to be down here in southeastern Kentucky studying the state's elk herd.

We started this project back in January.

We identified 25 pregnant females out on various landscapes in the eastern area of the Elk Zone.

Each of those females was given a vaginal implant transmitter that tells us when a calf is born.

So today our crew is going in to locate these calves.

So what we're trying to do is hone towards the cow signal.

So her caller admits a VHF signal and we can hear it through these receivers so you can hear kind of the beeps.

Where they sound louder, that's closer to where she is.

So we're trying to get a good idea of how close she is to where the birth site is because we have a transmitter there, too.

So it sounds like they're a little bit in two different directions.

But this thing was born yesterday, so that's what I would expect.

We're just going to kind of track to her first to see if we can get eyes on her and maybe she has the calf behind her.

it sounds like she's that way.

The study is a nice follow up to previous calf studies.

The last one was done about a decade ago.

We have new technology now with these transmitter that allows us to get to the calf as soon as it's born.

A lot of things have changed over the last decade.

We have changes to the habitat.

Mining has decreased we have a lot of woody growth coming back in and we have changes in the way people use the landscape and we have changes in predator compositions.

So it's really important to try to update these estimates as we go through time.

So we're keeping up with the changes that we're seeing here.

So the cow took off because we were following her signal and I got louder and then all of a sudden it got really, really quiet.

So she probably took off over this hill.

So we'll track to the birth site and look around there and then search for the calf.

I think she's getting close to it now.

This is a typical birth site.

Here's the transmitter that we put into the pregnant gal.

So from the birth site here, it's on a nice bench and it's pretty steep on either side.

So more than likely she's moved the calf along here somewhere.

So we're going to kind of spread out in two directions and follow the trails and see if it's off of that.

Hey, right there.

Nice job dude.

See it right here?

see how well it's hidden?

We're only 15 yards from the birth site.

we'll put a blindfold on so that it calms down.

They can't see what's going on, so they're less likely to try to run away from us or struggle during the capture process.

We'll pick it up and move it a little bit away from where it was actually hiding to do our workup procedure.

We don't really want to influence or disturb exactly where it was hiding.

So that hiding behavior so ingrained in them that even with all these people in it and when I picked it up, it doesn't move, it doesn't make a sound, it's just trying to stay still.

So so we're going to see if it's a male or female.

It's a female.

So we're hoping to draw blood.

Kind of like when you take your dog to the vet they draw blood and gets us a standard white blood cell, red blood cell, nutritional aspect to it.

We're going to collect the hair and hopefully do some analysis on that.

So we're going to try to pull about 15 milliliters or more.

If we can get it, we'll put them in blood tubes this one has an anticoagulant in it, and next thing goes on as the collar.

It's the most important thing.

This is like its own radio station, so it has a different frequency that's specific just to this animal for as long as it's wearing the collar.

So it's an expandable VHF collar that as their neck grows, it will grow.

the loops will pop and the fabric will stretch.

It's like an elastic band and then eventually the fabric will wear through and fall off.

So ideally it will stay on for about a year.

We will take a series of body measurements and that will complement the weight.

So we'll weigh them at the end of the capture.

So this one is total body length.

So from the tip of the nose will fall all the way flat to the body along the curve of the spine.

We'll go to the base of the tail to where the tail meets the body.

So being 105 centimeters even.

so we'll do chest girth next.

we'll slide the tape upright under the armpits as close as we can and will cinch it tight but not too tight.

And so that'll be 60.2.

Body measurements kind of help to give us a better indication of are they leggier, what's their body proportions.

Measuring hoof growth.

So it's kind of the new hoof deposit since they've started to develop.

So this one is going to be the incisor measurements.

So these ones have barely erupted.

So it's going to be a really small measurement.

Some of them are out a lot.

We'll take a picture of the umbilical scar, that will tell us how old really this calf is and can kind of confirm the notifications that we got today.

We'll also take pictures of their hoof wear.

So if it's soft and spongy, it means they really haven't moved far.

They're pretty young.

And if that's harder than they may have traveled a distance, we're putting her in a scent free mesh bag to get a measurement of her weight.

17.04.

Once we've taken the weight, we'll put in ear tags.

And that's kind of their identification tag.

The whole capture process only takes about 15 or 20 minutes to collect all the data.

And as soon as we're done, we'll take the calf right back to where its original hiding location was pull the blindfold off and leave there.

the cow is usually around the area.

We may see her several times during the actual workup.

She's checking on us to make sure that her calf's OK.

So she'll come back in and she may nurse immediately afterwards.

So we want to get out of there as quickly as possible.

It's been a really productive spring so far and we hope it continues.

And I can't wait to see what we learn from this study.

Most folks don't understand the amount of time and work that goes into managing a particular species like this, but we feel very fortunate to get to conduct these research projects and get out and do some enjoyable field work and take satisfaction knowing that we're managing the resource the best way that we can.

Now let's check in and see who else has been out having fun in this week's Ones That Didn't Get Away.

Here we have Blake Williams with some nice bullfrogs that he and his papa gigged on opening day.

Nice job.

Now these are some nice bluegill caught by Reid Wagner and his cousin Braydon Glaser.

These fish were caught in Crittenden, Kentucky.

Nice job.

Here we have seven year old Jack Lobber from Burlington, Kentucky.

He said fisheries biologist Jeff Crosby was right when he said Bullock Pen had some big fish.

He caught this 15 and a half inch white crappie.

Nice job.

Wyatt Campbell of Russell County caught his very first fish all by himself.

He caught it at Lake Cumberland while using one of my favorite lures: a swim bait.

This fish measured 15 inches, and he released it to be caught again another day.

Nice job.

Check out this beautiful Tom turkey that was taken by Mason.

Look closely.

This turkey has two beards.

This turkey was taken in Metcalfe County.

Nice job.

Seven year old Gabby Mays caught this nice pound largemouth bass at a farm pond in Madisonville, Kentucky.

Nice job.

Hey, next weekend is Father's Day weekend.

Make sure you give your dad a call and make plans to get outdoors.

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.

Fishing is a great way to relax and enjoy the outdoors.

And it's best when shared with someone else.

if you are an experienced and licensed angler, The Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources encourages you to enter the mentor to win $1,000 kayak prize package.

Any licensed angler who takes a new angler fishing has a chance to win a Jackson kayak, a brand new paddle, Astral PFD, and two Abu Garcia spinning combos.

One for you and one for your newly mentored angler.

Go to fw.ky.gov and search kayak giveaway for more details.