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 to Rough River Lake in search of hybrid striped bass.

Then we're going to meet up with fisheries biologist to find out what they're doing to manage our small streams.

But first, it's May.

It is time to go frog gigging.

We're here in Woodford County tonight and it is July.

It's hot.

And tonight we are after what?

Bullfrogs.

Bullfrogs.

You know, Travis, you called up a couple of weeks ago and you were actually college roommate with one of our videographers, Jamison Standard and said hey Jamison, do you guys ever like the frog?

Jamison█s like man, this is one of Chad█s favorite things in the world.

And you said, I got a honey hole.

Yeah, this is one of our best spots.

We scouted it for a couple of days.

I think it's going to be a productive evening.

So how long have you guys been chasing frogs?

I've been chasing frogs since I was 16, 17 years old.

Oh, yeah.

It's something I really enjoy.

You can do it.

There's a there's a lull between turkey season and dove season.

And this is a perfect way to fill that lull.

So the goal is going to be let it get dark and try to fill a skillet full of frog legs.

Yeah, I'll tell you, it's one of my favorite things to eat and one of my favorite things to do is get out this time of year.

You know, there's tons of fishing opportunities, but if you want to get out and do something like this, listen, you will get out and do something like this.

You know, it gives you an opportunity.

It's kind of like hunting in a time of year where there's not a whole lot of that going on.

You can get a frog gig, you can get your pellet rifle, whatever you want to do.

Grab them by your hand if you want to.

Grab them by your hand, I mean, there's so many different ways to get them.

And frog gigging season is a long period of time.

You've got from the third Friday in May all the way till October.

What's your favorite conditions for frog gigging?

Well, you like it to be hot, You know, unfortunately, you know, a lot of us don't like to get out when it's this hot, but you get a nice warm still night, good humidity and get the bugs flying.

And that's when you really get into the frogs.

Oh, yeah.

Well I tell you what, let's get our gear together and kind of put a game plan and I mean, they're right here, right now.

We'll get it.

Get in there and get after them what do you think?

Yes, sir.

Let's do it.

All right, let's go.

Look at that one right there.

Let's try to make a move on that joker.

Ooh, big dude.

And there's a couple around it.

But let's move down here a little bit and we'll get him lit up when we get down on the water edge and try to get around top of him.

He jumped.

All right.

Well, that should be the first of many chances.

There's a couple right there.

We'll have to just check them for size.

That one right there is for sure.

big enough.

There█s one right there that might be big enough.

You got to start somewhere, right?

Right.

There yo go.

He█s big enough.

Chad let█s light this one up right here man.

Can you get that for out?

All right.

I believe we got a frog on the end of the stick there.

I don't know if I got him or not.

I believe you do.

Nice.

Nice little lean out there to grab that joker.

All right, I'll tell you what.

There is absolutely nothing better.

All right, Let's go up in these trees.

We're going find a bunch.

Okay.

You got to come up on the top side on these.

That's a big frog right there, guys.

Hold on don█t move.

Don█t move.

Drive it to the ground, Got him.

Wow.

That was awesome.

Where did you get him?

Barely got him back there.

You barely got him.

That's a big frog.

That's a now, that is that's 12 inch frog right there, I think.

Yeah.

He tried to jump in my pocket.

It's a good frog right there.

Now, I saw it go in and I could tell it was behind him a little bit and I saw that splash and I thought, what in the world just happened?

I guess with the trajectory, I was up on the bank a little bit.

I mean, when I launched, I was just right behind him.

Bice recovery.

This frog almost got away twice right here in front of me.

Oh, that's a good one there.

There we go.

Good deal man.

Nice.

I feel like a 16 year old kid right now.

I will tell you that.

Fun isn█t it?

It's just so it's so much fun.

There's something about it being out here.

I remember being a kid.

You're like, Oh, I'm out later than I'm supposed to be, and you're tired.

You wake up the next morning and second you wake up, head█s off the pillow, there█s a big smile on your face.

Like, That was cool.

That was fun.

Got one?

Yeah just a little small one.

We█re going to let him go.

But I tell you what, that was just showcasing another way to go out there and catch him.

Yeah, you can catch them.

There you go.

Alright.

Nice job.

Nice job Bruce.

That's a good one.

Eight foot gig is almost not enough.

When they start getting that big.

Watch out.

When they start getting that hump in their back right there.

And those disk get about the size of a dime.

You know you got a good one.

Big old frog.

I hear them back on that levy.

You know what they're doing?

They're making fun of us.

That's right.

Because we've been through there twice.

I say what we do this time, we█ll grab my pellet rifle, we█ll come up on that bank and see if we can't get down to some of these that are more difficult to get a gig in there.

Good shot.

Nice.

All right.

I got him right there.

You see him?

I see him.

Got him.

All right, Chad, He's right there.

Good shot.

Nice one.

I'll tell you what, the old pellet gun is three for three.

Guys I stepped over it, right beside the spillway here, and there's a big bullfrog sitting right up underneath the stream.

I█m going to see if I can't come over the top of him and get him this way.

I'll go down here and shine him.

If you try to get on top and see if you can get the shot down.

Nice.

Yes sir.

Look at that shot.

Look at big old white belly on that frog.

Wow.

Nice shot.

Got him.

Nice job, Got him?

Got it?

Nope.

Gone.

I thought it looked like it hit him pretty square.

Yeah.

I don't know, man.

I've missed a few myself.

So we gave it a good hour, let them settled back down.

I say we make one more trip around it.

There's a good chance we're going to be one sitting up here with a headache or a backache.

Backache.

Hold on, guys.

He's right here.

See him?

You want me shoot him again?

If you got a good shot on it go ahead.

Got him.

I'll tell you what.

This is just a lot of fun.

I really appreciate you having us out.

This has been an absolute blast.

Hey, thanks for coming out and hanging out with us.

We had a great time.

The hybrid striped bass is one of the most aggressive, hardest fighting fish that you'll find here in the state of Kentucky.

And Rough River Lake is a great place to go catch them.

We're out here on beautiful, Rough River Lake this May morning.

I'm here with good friend Billy Parish.

Billy, you were down here a week or so ago.

You were actually fishing for a bass tournament using the Garmin Panoptic.

And you located something not exactly largemouth bass, Me and a friend of mine were pre-fishin, for a bass tournament.

And, we saw some shad flipping on top of the water, so we thought maybe.

Maybe those are large mouth.

You know, they're kind of pushing the shad, so took the boat over there to it, and I could see them on my pan optics.

I took a little rattle trap out, you know, and came through and, caught a stripe, hybrid stripe about 17, 18in long.

I tell you, when you start catching those hybrids on a moving back to the water like that, it's hard to leave them isn█t it.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, we forgot all about pre-fishing.

I tell you what, I absolutely love fishing for the for white bass, hybrid stripers, whatever they are.

So today we're fun fishing.

Show me how you're doing this.

I can't wait to get that first hybrid stretch of my line.

We're going to hopefully locate and bait balls, find some fish, and hopefully put them in the boat.

Well, let's let's go see if we can do it.

All right, let's go.

Either somebody throwing something over there by that dock in the water or I've seen two blowups.

Where at?

Right that way.

I've seen two.

Just, like, way over there.

All the way to that bank.

I mean, because it was, like two blow ups right by that dock.

Start out with this big rattle trap.

That could be stripes, right?

The direction is, I know, based on that arrow right there.

And it says there about 30ft.

And we see them right there.

So that should put us kind of out in that area.

Right.

Look at that.

Is going after it.

Oh he hit it.

He hit it again.

Oh, here we go.

You got him.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You got a real good man.

It's a good one here.

This is what you come to Rough River for right here.

Hybrid bass.

Now, when they stack these, they're really, really small.

And they look kind of like a white bass.

This is a hybrid between a striper and a white bass.

You'll see there's two teeth.

Patch right there on the tongue.

And that's one of the ways you can tell the difference between this and a white bass.

Also, if you look how the lines come down and how on a white bass, you'll have one distinct line on these.

You're going to have multiple look at the side.

You got one, two, three, at least four.

Now on these fish there is no size limit.

You're allowed 15, but only five of which can be over 15in long.

This one's almost 20in long.

Nice fish.

There's some right there chasing the bait fish.

There he is.

Got it?

Yeah.

Got it on.

That's a good one.

You think you got this time?

Oh, that's a good one.

Gosh.

Yeah.

Look, look.

You got one too.

Yeah, I saw, I saw, I saw a fish hit it on that graph.

Well, you can tell they were pretty good sized ones on the graph.

Wow.

I got a tank right here.

Look at here.

This one here is probably five pounder.

What?

We got one that big.

Bigger than the last one.

That's a good fish here.

There we go.

You need the net.

I got him.

Look at that.

What a nice, nice fish.

Hey, we doubled up right there with two really good fish.

We saw him on the panoptic, right?

I could tell they were bigger than the other ones we've been seeing right out there.

You said you hit it, and I took two cranks to kind of get out of your way.

Yeah.

Picked it up.

Wham!

He hit mine.

I've just felt a tick.

And then I dropped it was letting it sink then Boom!

He nailed it.

That's so much fun.

I think we got a pretty good one here.

Here we go.

You got him.

The kind of thing that got me bent over this fish isn't as big as the last couple we've got, but it's still.

Look at that rod.

That's why I like doing this on a spinning rod.

Yeah.

Pretty good one, though.

Yeah he is.

I tell you the cool thing is too there's some of these fish are actually tagged here.

When I get this fish in I'll show you where the tag would be.

And then.

Oh, yeah, I got a pretty good one over here Chad.

They are such hard, hard, fighting fish.

Yeah, I don't see either one of these are not tagged.

Where would it be?

It would be right there.

Yeah, it'd be a piece that runs in and it would have a metal piece, and it'd be a tag on it.

So they put that in there when they're real small.

Yeah.

And then they'll have an, it'll have a tag number for a fish number as well as a number that you call to report it.

And then you need to take that information down and then release the fish.

And, you know, be very much appreciate because we're doing a study to talk about what the mortality rate is, how far they're moving.

It will produce additional information that hopefully will make them easier to catch.

He just hit your bait.

Yeah, he did, he did.

I don't know why you're not reeling that in.

Oh, man.

Yeah, I'm going to need a net.

That's fish is probably over 20.

I tell you what, there's not many under 15 today is there.

Oh, there he is.

You snagged him in the back.

This fish did not bite my lure.

I literally just accidentally snagged this fish.

So nice fish.

Glad to have it.

Got to go back.

Well Billy, seriously, It doesn't get much more fun than that.

I've had a blast.

Unless you can go find smaller fish, we got to be done for the day.

It's 11:00.

We're limited out.

It didn't take long did it?

But, you know, here's the thing.

When you got five big fish this size, if you're going to keep some, put some fish in the frigerator.

It doesn't get any better than this right here.

And why be greedy if we catch any more today, even if they are under when I know that in a year or two the fish can be this quality.

There's really no reason for us at this point in time to want to keep a smaller fish.

Right?

I agree.

I say we, try to catch a couple more.

Turn them loose.

We'll take these back and get them.

Get them ready.

I know what I'm having for dinner.

Sounds good.

Hey, thank you so much for for bringing me out here and showing me how you use pan optics to catch fish open water fish.

When you can keep your bait right on top of fish in the open water and come out and catch fish like this, it doesn't get any better.

Fun isn█t it?

On spinning tackle, what are you talking about.

Yeah good job man.

Now let's go meet up with some fisheries biologist to find out how they are sampling fish populations in streams that are too small for electroshocking boat.

Today we're here in Clay County, and I'm here with Jay Herrala.

Jay., what stream is this?

So we are on Redbird River, which is one of the two waterbodies that kind of feeds in and forms the south fork of the Kentucky River.

Okay.

today we're doing some fish sampling, but we're not using the typical equipment that we're used to seeing, which is a shocking boat and for obvious reasons.

Yeah.

So, you know, typically when we can get a boat in somewhere, that's our best option, right?

It's mobile.

Plenty of power in really small streams.

We can take a backpack, but we've got a lot of streams and water in the state that are kind of in between.

This being one of them.

It doesn't have a whole lot of access where we could even think about getting a boat in, So this is a micro shocking boat, but it just floats and you walk alongside it, which means you got to take a lot of extra precautions.

That's right.

We've got non-tradable waders on.

So, you know, neoprene canvas, you don't want to be wearing breathable waders.

You start sweating that gets kind of permeable.

And you can you can feel a little buzz coming through your suit.

So we'll also be wearing lineman's gloves.

So in the event that we accidentally maybe touch the water with our hand while we're dipping a fish, we don't get shocked.

So what type of fish are we looking to sample today?

So we'll be doing a general sport fish survey today.

Basically what that means is we're going to be looking for your black bass species.

So small mouth, large male spotted bass We'll also be looking for a rock bass bluegill crappie if we see them.

This is also a historical muskie stream, so we might have our hands full in the water with a muskie if we get one.

tell me the other components of this boat and how it's going to work.

Yeah.

So we've got a shock box, which is what you see on the back that's going to convert that AC power from the generator into DC.

what they're holding here are two anodes that are going to send the electricity into the water And any fish that is within range of us is going to be stunned by that anodes kind of flip over on its belly.

We'll be able to dip it, put it in our makeshift live well.

and after that transect is done, will measure and weigh those fish and send them back on their way.

You see they have to keep their elbows above the water If their elbows go down and touch that water It will literally give them a shock.

Any time you get in a stream and start moving.

You always want to make sure you█re moving up stream So that the So all the dirty water is going behind you.

A lot of the time what that does is pushes all the fish Up as far as they can go so, My guess is that when they get up here and push these fish up to the next riffle, they█re going to start seeing more fish.

what are the reasons why you'd want to know what species are in here, what the populations are like?

Well, quite frankly, this program was fairly young that we've just been strictly looking at streams.

So maybe ten, 11 years.

So we're still trying to get baseline data on a lot of streams and we haven't had this piece of equipment very long.

So we're still trying to get some of that.

The last time that this stream was sampled was, you know, back in the seventies or eighties when some Muskie projects were going on.

we really need to have an idea other than just what anglers tell us, which is honestly the best thing we have to go off some of these streams so you can create a baseline.

And if you see a huge decline, you can start looking at what the reason could be.

Could it be the lack of bait?

Could it be, you know, over harvest?

Could it be other environmental issues?

Could it?

It could be a multiple multitude of things.

And we also want to if we found a fishery, that's great, it may be underexposed and we want to promote it an opportunity for the people around here or for anybody to come in and create, you know, dollars and cents for for the towns around here.

So six, six.

Back in 20.

72 All right.

So your first little run here was literally just a small little section and we did see some other fish.

You never going to get them all in the stream like this.

So we got some that got over here in this deeper water, which it put you over your head.

Yep.

Can't quite.

Definitely one of the limitations of the gear.

We also just had a little rain, so we got a little mud.

So a few things and we may have pushed them up upriver.

We may hit them here on the next round or two.

So you guys are now going to make one more pass on up to the ripples and see what you may have pushed up and then you're going to bring back your next catch.

Absolutely.

We'll be back here to show you what we got.

How did you guys do on this trip?

Well, we did a little bit better.

We definitely got a a nice small mouth in here this time, so.

Oh, yeah.

There you go.

Now, that█s the kind of fish that people would come to the Redbird and, you know, that'd be a target species to come here and try to catch a nice.

Absolutely.

15 inch fish?

Yeah.

We'll see here in just a second.

16 two over 16 inches.

2.02 Yeah.

So this is a, you know, a smaller stream, obviously.

So I really wouldn't expect to see a whole lot of fish.

Much bigger than that.

That fish is probably getting close to the end of his lifespan.

But I mean, you know, for small water in some current.

That's a great fish.

Yeah, that's great.

Yeah.

Oh, that's a fantastic fish.

Did you guys see the fish before it come up?

No, he was hidin out underneath a log jam.

Wasn't he Brandon?

So that just tells you these type of fish.

You come in here and you look and you think, Well, there's no fish.

I can't see any one, they█re camo out very well.

Absolutely.

All the fish species that are in here.

And then you get some wood or some timber or some rock overhang, you never know what might be in there.

Yeah.

And as clear as this water can get, at times, they're going to see you before you see them a lot of the time.

So that's a good fish.

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

Bobby Anderson took trophy white and black crappie on a day of fishing on Green River.

Nice job.

Lance Mercer was fishing in Hancock County on the Ohio River and caught this beautiful blue catfish.

Italy Anne Guernsey didn't let a little rain stop her from going out and taking this nice tom turkey on derby day, using a 410 shotgun.

Check out this beautiful rainbow trout that was caught by Jesse Bott.

Nice job.

Nine year old Samuel McKinney took this nice, mature bird in Butler County with a 410 single shot shotgun.

Nice job.

David Doss from Franklin County hit the Kentucky River in search of crappie and caught this nice fish.

Jim Oaks of Florence, Kentucky, went to Cumberland Lake and caught this beautiful 4 pound walleye using a wiggle wart.

Nice job.

Steve Walters and David Baker from Chester County, said it took over two hours to sweet talk these Toms away from their hens.

Here we have Hayden, Edwards and Levi, who got both of these nice birds while hunting in Robertson County.

Nice job.

Kanen Childress caught this nice largemouth bass in Hardin County while fishing at the family farm pond.

Nice job.

You might be thinking about being on the water and fishing, but if you or someone you know is interested in hunting this year and needs their hunter saftey course, this is a great time of year to get that taken care of.

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.