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'll be in a deer stand for muzzleloader season.

Then we're going to float down the Green River in a jet boat in search of smallmouth bass.

But first, we're hitting the field for the opening day of dove season.

Well, today is the day that most hunters wait for, and that is September the 1st.

Every year in Kentucky, the opening day of dove season.

I look forward to this day every single year, because I know all the great hunting that is coming for the next 4 or 5 months here in the state of Kentucky.

Dove season is something that you see groups of people, family, friends all come together, spend some time out in the field shooting doves, which, if you've never done it, they're not really easy to hit.

When they're flying good, it's a lot of action and a lot of fun.

And I'll tell you what, they're fantastic on the grill.

So I absolutely love dove season.

And I'm out here in Henry County today on a small family hunt.

I think we've only got about 5 or 6 shooters.

20 acre farm.

Got a few sunflower seeds here behind me and I've already seen quite a few birds, so hopefully the birds fly good and we get a limit.

That would be a perfect day.

Look at there.

We've just got five hunters out in this field.

Little small family shoot.

But I guess there was some shooting going on.

We have a game warden over there that is out doing his job today, on the opening day of dove season and checking license and firearms.

Good to see you today.

Good to see you.

Any luck?

Well, we just got out here.

I don█t even need to check it.

Yeah.

It's hard to put three in there, isn't it?

It█s good to go.

Here's my license.

That just took a few minutes.

Came in, did what normal officers do.

They want to see your license, ask you how many birds you got, and check your gun to make sure you're legal.

He's on his way to check some other hunters, and we're back at hunting.

That bird went down.

Got a little help here.

Hey, thank you so much.

Yep.

Hey, look at that.

That's a collared dove.

See that black band?

And it doesn't have any white dots out on his wing.

You can eat them, and they look the same on the wing when they're flying.

But this is actually not a morning dove, so.

Hey, what do you know?

There we go.

Now, this is a normal morning dove.

Kind of got that light tan color underneath.

No ring on its neck.

That's what we're out here for today.

So you get 15 of these, and, hopefully they keep flying hard and fast, and we get a chance to get a limit.

Better get reloaded.

That bird landed over here in this corner somewhere.

Here it is right here.

There we go.

Almost made it to the water on me.

That would not have been any good.

Look.

Every time we leave, they fly right over my seat.

Look at that.

That's dove hunting for you.

I walked out to pick birds up, and both times I've had birds fly 15 ft over the top of my chair.

Let's go back and see if we can't get some action.

We had us a little twister.

It's been pretty calm.

Man, that thing picked up right here and shot right down this fence line.

That was pretty intense.

I'm glad I had my sunglasses on because I would have had dust and leaves in the eyes.

Felt great, though.

That thing need to come back every 20 minutes.

Coming to you, K.C.

Hunter is going to retrieve a bird, and we have a bird on a fence.

We'll see if he takes off here in a second.

Got him.

Good shot.

It's so nice having a bird dog like that to go retrieve your birds.

That is such a luxury.

Good shot.

Coming to you.

Right here.

Here we go.

Man.

I was on a dry spell there.

Seems like the birds been coming in either really, really high or too low to shoot at.

And, finally got another bird down.

Good shot.

Tell you what, let's go check in on this family.

We're hunting on the Adams farm.

Let's go check in with them and see how they're doing.

Good shot.

Good shot, Buddy.

I got one.

Good shot.

Pretty good day today.

Got 6 or 7 of them, I think.

Well K.C., you told me you're going to have a small little family shoot today.

And I appreciate you having me out.

How cool is it to get out here and hunt on your dad's property with your son and your wife?

So Hunter is just kind of getting in to...Hunter, behind you.

Coming right here, buddy.

There we go.

Took three of us on that.

Yeah there you go.

I'll tell you what.

What a cool experience.

Yeah.

We do this every year.

You know, we have one or two shoots up here and it's always a good time.

You know, a lot of people think you got to have a massive track of property.

You guys got a little ridgeline here with some sunflowers planted in, and they just fly right through here don█t they?

It's always been a good fly zone here.

And like, say, sunflowers brings them right in.

It's so cool.

Well Hunter, you're getting pretty good with that shotgun.

I've seen you hit quite a few birds today too.

That's a lot of fun.

Yeah it is.

What do you like about dove hunting?

I guess just doing it with family.

And how exciting it is to actually hit one and kill one.

Yeah, well, I tell you what, you get to shoot a lot too.

If you're on a good dove field and your family puts a pretty good dove field together here.

Yeah they do.

I'll tell you what.

You've done a great job today.

You got a pile of birds around you.

So congratulations.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Well, now I'm up here with the real hunter in the field.

And this is why all the birds have not made it down there to me because Ashley here keeps smoking them.

You got quite a few collared birds.

Yeah, yeah.

So how cool is it to be out here with your 13 year old son and your husband shooting birds?

Been doing this for six years with them.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah.

And I know you're a pretty good shot, too so you enjoy... I█ve gotten better.

You've done pretty well so far.

Yeah.

Good job.

Thank you.

There's nothing better than getting invited to participate in a family dove hunt.

I didn't get a limit, but I had a lot of fun.

And I can't wait to get out and do it again.

Kentucky's early muzzleloader deer season is October 18th and 19th.

And those are perfect dates to be in the woods.

Well i█m out here for the afternoon hunt for the opening day of the early muzzleloader season.

We've been seeing a lot of deer.

Was able to move a stand and get set up down in a corner of this field where the deer have been using it a ton.

There's bedding areas on both sides.

Got in here this morning, got set up and ended up seeing quite a few deer, had many deer in range, but I didn't see that buck that I've been waiting for.

I did see a pretty good buck right in that area where I placed this stand.

But I was bow hunting and I was three or 400 yards away.

Now I'm right in the zone.

Today I hunted until 11:00 this morning and I had does in range literally when I got down out of the stand.

I didn't want to shoot a doe in this bedding area because the area where they're going in there, I don't want to go in there to get a doe out.

Now, if I get in there this afternoon and a doe comes out early and gives me a chance to get a shot out in the field, I'll probably take that shot and then go back and buck hunt until dark.

I know the bucks are in there, but a shot early in the hunt I don't think will mess with that too much.

You know, I did have a coyote come through this morning.

I thought about trying to get a shot at that coyote but I really didn't want the smell of that coyote right there laying by my stand the whole time.

So pretty cool seeing.

I've been seeing tons of wildlife out of this location.

It's a pretty easy walk in, but I got to go through a little bedding area to get there.

I got to slip through real quiet, get up in this field edge and literally with a muzzle loader.

I am about 180 yards to the property boundary.

It's a pretty big open area for a muzzleloader hunt.

It's absolutely perfect.

I haven't muzzleloader hunted last few seasons, I haven't been taking advantage of it.

And I'm excited to be out here today.

Well we're up here ready to start this hunt.

I tell you what, I'm about as confident in today's hunt as I have ever been.

Just because of how many times I've hunted the other end of this field, four hundred yards away.

I've never hunted down there without seeing deer right here.

So hopefully get one out here early, get a shot, take it doe and buck hunt the rest of the way out.

That would be ideal.

Oh deer right over here to the left, 40 yards.

Look like there█s four.

Here they come.

This doe in the front she looks to be probably the biggest one.

Okay here she comes she█s going to move to our left.

I was surprised to see that deer run off, but a big smoke cloud came up.

I really don't know what happened.

Hopefully we've got dinner on the ground, so now we can just hunt for some antlers.

I'll tell you what, this buck hunt is about over.

We got a few minutes of daylight left, and I got to unload this gun.

I can't hunt tomorrow.

If I get a chance to take this big doe here I'll probably take it.

If I█m going to process one, might as well process two.

Well, I tell you what, usually we eat about four or five deer a year.

This puts me in a good situation where I know from here on out I'm buck hunting and buck hunting only.

Hopefully get to use that buck tag, but this was a great opportunity to do that today.

Just didn█t show up.

I ran out of light.

Well found my two does.

They actually ran on the same trail within 20 yards of each other, so I pulled them together here.

My trophy buck never showed up.

We did see a couple of small bucks, nothing that I was that interested in.

And I was sitting there thinking, You know what?

I can't hunt tomorrow.

Muzzleloader season is only two days.

I thought, you know what this is a great opportunity for me to unload my muzzleloader, go ahead and fill the freezer, top it off.

And now I can focus the rest of the season on some antlers.

If you like to fish secluded, shallow areas that you can't reach in a normal bass boat, a jet boat may be your solution.

This is a half drift boat.

Half power boat, half kayak, You can do it all from this boat.

We're out here today on the green River.

I'm here with good friend Bobby Carey.

Bobby, you█re taking us for a trip down one of the most diverse streams, not only in Kentucky but in the United States and world.

Yeah, I think so.

I mean, today we're hoping to see a muskie, at least to see one and and get on some rock bass and smallmouth and whatever else might bite, you know, you never know what type of what are you going to get.

And today, it's a pretty low flow.

and you've got a unique way that you like to fish this type of water.

And that's in a small boat.

This is a jet boat.

It█s a combination really.

the oars, the trolling motor and the jet motor gives us a lot of flexibility and we can kind of scout a stream kind of downstream with the oars, see what we're working against.

And when we need to head back to the boat ramp, we just power up and can move up through the riffles that way.

well, our blue water trails highlights a bunch of access to do this type of fishing out of, kayak.

But when you're doing that, typically you're looking at a put in and take out location and you got to have a way to kind of taxi yourself back and forth.

Well, today we're going to fish down.

We're not worried about takeout.

We're just going to power back up when we're done and hey, a lot of good looking water today.

Green River is one of the premier smallmouth fisheries in the state of Kentucky.

A lot of good fishing, kind of, no matter where you're at in this river.

Well hey, we█ve got the ability to move.

say we make a move, make it happen.

Let█s make a move.

I feel like we're exploring.

It's what it is.

It's a little rough and dirty, but that's just the nature of it.

it's kind of new territory all the time.

The streams are always different.

A little bit of water, a little more water changes your whole approach to a new space.

So.

You know when you're muskie fishing you're fishing for such a predatory fish in such big size that it's not like there can be like a small mouth hundreds in here, you're looking at potentially.

A couple of fish per quarter of a mile, maybe.

You know.

Yeah.

They're not really wanting to move too far off of their spot.

Doesn't seem like.

I do think that, the smallmouth fishing will get better throughout the day.

And the muskie fishing probably will not.

As that sun gets up and gets beaming down.

I think our chances of catching a muskie are going to, unfortunately, decline.

Yeah, I assume they have to diminish.

We're coming up on another smallie water bean in this deeper slack water, which is where I think we got our best chance at moving a muskie or catching one.

Now we're back into the small mouth area.

Yeah.

You want to see what happens?

I'm gonna at least swap out rods for a second and see what happens.

a little better fish.

all right.

What am I going to do now?

You know, I really, really want to catch a muskie, but I'm such a small mouth nerd.

Yeah, it's not a better fish.

He just was in that current.

That's hard to beat, though.

Yep.

Well lets see what we can do.

We can throw a little of both.

Might get a mixed bag today.

Satisfy our appetite on all of that.

I about dropped him on his head.

What█s the state record rock bass?

that's what I'm after today.

Planes have changed.

You got him?

Oh, I got a little one.

Oh, I chose to let him go.

I heard a drag going for a second.

Oh you go.

There you go.

There we go.

Oh, you said you were going to catch a world record rock bass.

Yeah, I'm working on it.

This is the.

We're just getting started now.

I'll tell you what those things are.

There's a lot of them in green River, and, they're a lot of fun to catch, too.

Make big, tasty nuggets, too.

Oh, yeah.

Make great table fare.

All right.

Oh, now, that was a little bit bigger fish.

This one's quite a bit bigger.

Hey, you got a small mouth now.

There you go.

All right.

You know what, though?

That was two cast real quick two bites.

Yeah.

Matter of fact, I just had a sunfish hit too right there.

Ooh, there's a better one Here we go.

Looks good.

Oh, what a beautiful stream fish that right there is.

Come on, buddy.

Oh come on.

Look there.

That█s not quite 16in, but it's probably 14 and some change.

I'll tell you what they█re a lot of fun on light tackle.

You know, we're throwing little bitty eight ounce Lot of fun on one of those, aren't they?

There you go.

Largemouth or spot one.

You may.

What do you think?

I think it's a largemouth.

Yeah.

There you go.

Hey, we catch a spotted bass, we'll have the.

Get the grand slam huh?.

Yeah, the three black bass species today.

There█s our lamprey fish coming back.

It's just a strange shaped fish.

I swear to you, I think it's catfish.

Forked tail.

The fish we saw come by, it looked like it was two fish.

And then you see him swim like this when they're spawning.

But we notice is that you could see the lips of a fish out in front of it.

And that those are actually like a parasite, like a leech almost, that have attached themselves to that fish.

And, those are freshwater lampreys that are literally I can't tell.

Looks like it might be a catfish is the host, but those are big ones.

I don't think I've ever seen him any bigger than that.

Have you?

No, I haven't.

I mean, those those things are solid 6 to 8in long.

You got him too.

There you go.

Hey, I'm not joking around.

They want the little swimbaits don't they?

Well, it's hard to deny it really.

They work Especially in a creek setting, because everything a bite on them.

You've got rock bass, large mouth, small mouth, all of them.

He█s on them now.

Yeah i█m catching up Chad.

You are.

Oh, I just got annihilated.

Look at that.

Didn't get the hook.

Pulled it down on me.

That was a good bite.

Oh, what have we got here.

He's not as big as he looks, but, man, he came up and just hammered that swim bait.

That's a 12 or 13 inch fish.

I saw his mouth open up.

I had, thoughts that with that mouth opened up, it was all white underneath.

I thought, oh my gosh, I got a muskie eating this little swim bait.

No, it's a 12 inch bass.

But, goodness sakes.

He choked it.

Look at that.

They fight so hard in his current, so aggressive.

You█ve got him.

This feels like a red eye.

That is a good observation, Bob.

Yeah, that was the feel.

oh nice dark colors.

Oh, yeah.

Pretty fish.

All righty.

well, Bob, this is the best part of, having a jet boat.

Let's run back up and check some more of that small mouth water.

And I really do feel as the water is cooler toward where we started, we probably got a better chance to move a fish too.

But hey, we've had a great day.

As far as getting on plane is concern.

Should be okay because we got, couple miles an hour the water moving towards us.

Yeah.

So it actually pretty quickly we, we use that jump up right on top of it.

A little lift action.

Yeah.

Well we can always make adjustments.

Ha ha ha ha.

Oh my.

It doesn█t get any better than that.

Well, in our trip down river, there was really 1 or 2 spots where it got so shallow.

We're talking, like less than an inch, two inches that we needed less weight.

So here he comes.

See if he can make it.

I tell you what.

If he could give boat rides.

That's worth the price of admission right there.

That's a lot of fun.

Oh man.

That's an old one that's been around.

Oh, that's a small mouth.

That█s a smallie.

I'll tell you what Bob, we've got to see a lot of water already today.

An insane amount of species.

Unfortunately no muskies yet, but we've seen about everything else haven█t we?

We have, a lot of species today.

And I think we caught about five species too.

Here we go.

Sounds better.

Oh, look at this.

We got an acrobat here.

Lookie there.

What a pretty fish.

I'll tell you what, it never gets old.

Catching these, catching these smallmouth out here in these streams, it never gets old.

Bob, I know today was kind of a mixed bag.

We came out hoping we might be able to put our hands on a muskie.

That did not happen.

But I'll tell you what.

It was a lot of fun.

And I'll never turn down an opportunity to run shallow water in a jet boat.

We got to go fish a lot more stream than I could ever fish today in any other method.

And I appreciate you bringing me out.

It was a blast.

Oh I think so, yeah.

Put a lifejackets on kill switch on.

Hold on tight and see if we can, when we get to the boat ramp if we can somehow get the smile off our face.

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

Six year old Keaton Bratcher hit Barren River and caught this beautiful smallmouth bass on a sinko.

Nice job.

13 year old Noah Staggs took this beautiful 27 pound blue catfish while fishing in a private pond in Floyd County.

Here we have five year old Case Chaney.

This is his first year ever that he took in Wayne County shooting the old lever action 30-30.

Nice job.

Check out this beautiful buck that was taken by Jeremy Roach with his crossbow.

He was hunting on his father in law's farm in Hopkins County.

Eight year old Branson Clements went crappie fishing and caught this beautiful black crappie in Grayson County.

Nice job Poplar Sweet from Nicholas County went squirrel hunting for the very first time with their dad and took this nice gray squirrel.

Congratulations!

Now is the time of year to start searching for scrapes and other pre-rut activity.

Start out by walking those field edges.

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.