Hello and welcome to Kentucky Af I'm your host, Chad Miles.

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

This week we're headed down to w Kentucky to run some swamp rabbi Then we're headed to Anderson Co for a squirrel hunt.

But first, let's grab our decoys and head to Barren County for a crane hunt.

We are set up in a hayfield this morning.

We got our decoys set.

We're using silhouettes.

We're using wind socks to give us a little bit of motion.

We got about a six mile per hour wind, so not a lot of wind.

The winds coming out of the west.

So we're facing east.

These birds will come from the lake because their roost is primarily down on the water's edge.

I'm out here in Barren County, this cold January morning in anticipation of having thousands and thousands of birds, sandhill cranes coming down and landing right here in this area.

Could not be more excited.

What we hope to do is to be able to use the decoys if they're off path, just a little bit if we are off the X, we'll use our goose flag to get their attention.

We're going to be using some immature crane calls to be able to just let them know, hey, we're over here.

Come over, check us out.

This field yesterday had a bunch of birds in it.

We've got a great guide down here with us Trinity Shepherd who's been spending a lot of time here in Barren County.

He witnessed thousands of birds here.

So I'm down this morning with my good friend Rachel Crume and we're hoping to get an opportunity to take a couple of sandhill cranes.

Our decoy set has two landing zones, gives us kind of a westerly land zone and then a southwest landing zone, and we hope to cup them up, landing gear down and put them right in our face.

I will be using a 12 gauge shotgun.

He can tell it all his tools.

I mean, what about you?

12 gauge shotgun same thing.

Now when they come, it's going to be head down.

Because if you're up like this, you will flare them, okay?

And they'll probably fly over and they'll twist and turn around and whatever.

And when I tell you where they're at, be ready to come up and to shoot.

If they're up in the air, you have to lead them.

It's going to feel like you're way out front unless you've got an extremely good swing game.

You're leading these things 2 or 3 ft.

Okay.

Yeah.

And remember when pick one out, if he's cupped up coming into the decoys you know, head, neck boom you know, the center mass.

But if they're flying left or right or something, then, you know, always you come across and you're leading them and you shoot if you don't get him lead him a little bit farther and shoot.

The sun is going to be right in our face, which is a bad deal.

But we have to sit it this way because of the wind.

They always land in the wind.

Okay.

Yeah.

It is legal shooting hours.

Y'all can go in and load up.

Well, Rachel, you and I have had a lot of adventures we have been coworkers and good friends.

Yeah.

Today is a little different experience, isn't it?

Yeah.

I'm so excited.

Sandhill crane hunting.

we've been talking to Trinity about doing this experience is something that you've hunted about everything in the state of Kentucky, but this is your first time crane hunting, right?

Yeah, second time crane hunting.

But I've never harvested one.

So super excited to hopefully get an opportunity today.

I'll tell you what, this is a really unique, cool experience.

I know you do a lot of waterfowl hunting.

This is a little different.

Yeah, it's definitely special.

We're just blessed in Kentucky to even have this opportunity.

A lot of states don't have a crane hunt.

And so I'm so excited to try a sandhill crane.

The table fair.

You get a little more than you expect.

And it is really, really, really good.

The whole ribeye in the sky thing.

I don't necessarily buy that.

I think it's more like flying fillets.

It's not marbled and fatty like like you'd find in a rib eye.

It really is closer to a back strap.

Or maybe, you know, a fillet.

That's really good for you, too, because it's a chance for you to get to eat red protein because you're not eating a whole lot of red protein are you?

Yeah.

So I have alpha gal, and so I got bit by a tick.

And I'm allergic to a specific amino acid in mammal meat.

Nothing really tastes like steak.

But I think these guys might, which makes me really excited.

We got a single.

Rachel, get ready.

Stay on the ready.

Circling over us.

Don't move.

Get ready.

To the left Rachel.

Kill him, kill him.

Kill him.

Kill him.

Back down!

Back down.

Big group coming straight ahead.

Kill him!

Rachel!

Kill him!

Straight up.

Rachel.

Straight up.

Lead him.

Lead him Rachel.

You got him, Rachel got him.

Yeah Rachel!.

You got him!

You got him Rachel.

Nice job.

Get ready, get ready, get get ready again.

Another big group coming.

Way to go!

Rachel.

Way to go.

Get ready Chad.

You're going to get your sandhill crane sandwich for sure now.

Lead them.

Straight out ahead.

Take them Chad.

Lead them Chad.

Lead them.

Lead them Chad!

Nope.

Kill them Chad kill them Chad.

Lead them.

Lead them Chad.

Lead them Chad.

You're got him Chad.

Sweet.

It took three shots.

We got one.

I'll get you what.

They were.

Load back up.

I did lead them further than I thought I had to.

Yeah Chad.

Way to go!

Right above us.

Right above us Chad.

Right above us Chad.

Right above us Chad .

Kill him.

Kill him.

Yeah Chad!

Oh, man.

That's awesome brother, that is awesome.

Rachel, we're tagged out.

Oh, you guys, thank you so much.

There you go.

Look at that right there.

Yeah.

It's all for me, man.

Look at the gray and the white.

That beige color in this.

Yeah.

Gorgeous bird.

I can't thank you both enough.

Beautiful.

I'll tell you what.

You spent your time and effort, and it shows.

I appreciate it.

You know, you got to be on the X, that's what we say in the waterfowl world.

You got to be on the X. And as you can see, you got to have a lot of patience.

It's more about what not to do.

But the Lord has blessed us with so much.

You know, harvesting this bird is icing on the cake for sure.

But just the experience we had this morning, all the birds around us, getting to hear them, I mean, it was just incredible.

Excited to eat this whole bird by myself.

It's been so long since you've had red protein similar to beef.

It is pretty similar.

Okay.

All right, let's go check out the other two birds we got down.

Tagged down in Kentucky.

Tagged out.

Let's do it.

This puts a bow on what's been a lot of anticipation a lot of excitement.

I know for myself and Rachel and I have been talking back and forth.

It's something you've been waiting for for a while.

A long time.

We've talked about this now for a little while and man, I'm just glad it all came together.

It did.

You put us right where the birds are at, got the decoys set out, and you kind of explain to us on why you put them out in those groups, allowing landing zones.

We've never had any birds land, but we had them get close enough in range.

Most of them were high, but we saw thousands of birds and we were lucky enough to harvest these three sandhill cranes.

And I can't wait for Rachel to try these on the kitchen table.

I think that she's going to be pleasantly surprised.

You know, after going without red meat for a while, these are going to be a great substitute.

And I think that we've probably got a crane hunter for life on our hands.

Oh, I think so.

It's going to be a tough one to beat for sure.

Yeah, it's going to be a tough one to beat.

Here at Kentucky Afield, we get a lot of question about swamp rabbit hunts.

And my advice to you, if you want to do a swamp rabbit hunt, is get some tall rubber bo and make sure your dogs are in s We got dogs everywhere today.

How many dogs got on the ground today?

I got three.

You got three?

I got two, four, five, six, seven.

Ten, ten.

Total ten.

Total dogs.

I'll tell you what.

If we can't, get a rabbit up here in Graves County with ten dogs, then, we got other problems.

Yeah, we just need to sell out and start deer hunting.

I guess.

Don█t say that I'm not ready for that.

Haffle, get there.

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

Get in there and look for him, get in there and look for him.

There it is.

Right here.

Right here.

Well, he squirted out right there.

And I did not have a good shot with the.

Hey.

Dead dead dead dead dead dead dead.

Waylon, You're carrying all the rabbits today, right?

Oh, man.

You're.

I love that.

I'm not going to have you do that.

I'm just teasing.

Now Waylon, you're in the second grade and you're no, no newbie to rabbit hunting are you?

All right, rabbit one.

Hopefully this is the beginning of a great day.

I hope so, everybody gets to pull the trigger.

All right.

This is a rubber boot kind of day.

I've took people from all over swamp rabbit hunting.

And, you know, I'll bring them to something like this, and we jump rabbits, and they just can't believe it.

Yeah.

You know, every time I've come down here to do a swamp rabbit hunt, it's this deer woods.

It is.

That's what the guys from Georgia and Alabama call it.

Deer woods.

Bring your rubber boots, get ready.

You're going to tromp through some stuff and i█ll tell you what.

A lot of times they're not only that long races out.

These rabbits are pretty good about tricking the dog.

Oh, yeah, they'll cross something high.

They'll run on logs up off the ground.

They'll set down off the ground.

Yeah, yeah.

There's a good open spot right.

Yeah, let█s go this way Leah.

Oh, there he goes!

Oh, there he goes!.

Get in there Hay Hay.

Norman, you just said they'll set the spot like that.

Well, see, they don't require a lot of cover.

Hey, you two, hop up here, see if they bring it right back.

Come on, bub.

They're out in front of you a little bit, so be looking coming through that woods.

He's going to be coming into this ditch.

Here he comes right here.

Get your gun up.

Get your gun up.

He's coming straight.

Click your safety off.

Get your gun up son, get your gun up.

Put that beed on him.

Smoke him, smoke him.

Look, he█s right there.

Put your safety on.

Right here, right here.

Get your gun up, get your gun up.

Turn your safety off.

He's right here.

Right here in front of you.

Shoot him.

Is he down?

No, no he's sitting right behind that tree.

Chad, you want to shoot this gun?

Shoot him.

Good shot Chad.

Good shot bub.

Hey, good shot.

You did a good job.

You slowed him down and stopped him right there.

Hey, you stopped him.

You sure did.

Hey, you got 90% tree, 10% rabbit.

I love you, boy.

Hey, good job buddy.

You're going to get another chance to.

But that was a great job.

Let█s get him before the dogs.

Yeah, let█s hop over there.

My buddy Waylon gets the assist on that one for sure.

That was.

That was fun.

You know, you're in western Kentucky.

Start seeing those cypress knees up there like that, yeah, yeah.

They get you tripped up quick fast.

Yeah.

They don't bend.

No.

There he goes.

See it?

Yeah.

He come right out of that brush right here.

Right there is where I saw it.

Shoot him.

Did you him him?

Hang on, hang on.

Where they at?

Got him!

Had to wait till he cleared you.

Yep.

Yep.

I did shoot it.

sure you're here?

I thought you hit him in the butt.

There you go.

Oh, the rabbit came through the woods, and I shot the first time, and I hit him a little bit too far back.

And then dad shot again, and I shot again.

And we finally got done after the fourth shot.

First rabbit in Kentucky.

Your first Kentucky rabbit, that█s a big old swamper isn█t it?

yeah, I█ve never killed a swamp rabbit before.

Yeah.

It's your first swamper isn█t it?

Yep.

That's a big yeah.

Show them dogs and they get up here and show them them dead.

Too far.

Norman, I got a rabbit right here.

Oh, they was in check and jumping him back up.

I saw him coming.

So I headed him off.

He was moving pretty fast.

come on, dead, Max No.

Come on now.

Dead rabbit.

So, Paul I appreciate you inviting us down.

You know, part of the state I live.

I don't get an opportunity to run swamp rabbits ever, unless I come down here to visit you.

Yeah.

Waylon was out of school today.

He got to join us.

Your other buddy, Brian, he got to bring his daughter.

So, you know, this is kind of rabbit hunting is all about, right?

Good thing whenever you can get the youth out, enjoy the wildlife and listen to the dogs run in and kill a few rabbits.

Hit me up.

We'll be glad to do it again, sir.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Are you dealing with cabin fever want to get out and do a little Well, consider doing a squirrel It stays in here in Kentucky until February the 28th.

Oh.

They're here.

I mean, we just we just got to run into the right ones.

I don't know that I've ever been skunked here before, we're in Anderson County and we're out.

a little bit past Beaver Lake so we're going to be hunting a mix of hardwoods with some cedars thrown in.

I mean if you look here on the log you can see squirrel prints.

We know they've been active today because the snow fell last night.

So we know that they've been around.

There's also a few nest around here.

So we know this there's been activity here.

we're just trying to catch up with them.

it's pretty cold, so I don't know how well we'll do, but.

Sun's starting to try and peek out a little bit.

The wind's not as bad as we thought it was going to be, so I think we might get lucky and be able to get a few.

I'm actually from a nontraditional hunting family.

Like, I always, I don't know what it is, I always wanted to hunt from the time I can remember.

I think the first hunt I ever when I was a deer hunt, and I pestered my dad, guy he worked with took me out on a youth hunt, and I was able to be successful and harvest a doe.

And from then on, like hunting is.

It's my favorite.

My favorite thing to do, really.

So it's, the farm we█re on today.

doing this squirrel hunt is actually a guy that I grew up with, and his dad taught us a bunch of stuff about hunting.

that's kind of the way it blossomed is, you know, I met some guys I went to school with and their dads were pretty big in the outdoors and stuff, and we're teaching them, and I kind of fell in with them and, got taught a lot of good lessons that way.

Oh, I see one.

It was up in that biggest cedar tree right there.

And he kind of got on that limb that kind of jets across right there.

he was kind of moving this direction.

So I think he's over this way somewhere, but it's just so thick in these, cedars that it's hard to see through there to, see where he's at.

There█s one.

Can█t get around.

Alright, we got them treed up.

We█ve got them treed up now.

Here we go.

daggum.

We got one.

We saw three squirrels go up this tree right here, we got one, but we're trying to see if we can.

If we can get another one.

They're still up there in this tree.

They█re just not showing theirselves, Sometimes that'll get them to show, but.

Oh, I see one.

Oh, gosh.

Oh, Should have shot.

That was a good one, too.

I should have shot, Those squirrels are just so fast that it's hard to when they're running, it can be hard to get on them.

we got a nice big squirrel.

Like I said, there's a couple more up here, so.

Put him in the pouch and.

That's a big tree.

They can be anywhere in that tree.

They█ve clearly got some kind of food source.

that they've probably buried or something.

And that█s probably where they're living in this tree.

So Can always swing back and check it.

It's not the fact of actually going hunting or anything that makes it so daunting.

It's you know, what do you do afterwards?

How do you how do you process that animal?

there are resources out there like, hunters of color, which I'm affiliated with.

I'm actually the state ambassador.

You can reach out to me about something like that, but also Fish and Wildlife.

They do the field to fork program.

I mean, it's awesome.

I mean, it teaches you everything you need to know to go out there and be successful.

Now that's going to take effort.

I mean, it doesn't happen easily every time, but it's like, you know, it█ll teach you.

What do I do if I am successful and I do harvest this animal?

And so, you know, I think that's a very important barrier to kind of break down.

It█s important to me because, being a minority.

if there weren't people that took the time to kind of show me things, then I wouldn't be where I'm at And so more representation, maybe more younger kids seeing people that kind of look like them out there doing that, could get more people out hunting.

And plus we just need more hunters.

We need more people that are there to pass on the pastime because, I mean, it's it's a great hobby, a great sport.

And, can keep kids out of trouble.

It's, it's good, wholesome fun.

I mean, you can provide a little extra food for your family.

I mean, I've seen so many back in here.

it's just a, it's a good.

Right there.

dang it!

Here he just come.

He's going up, up, up, up in that tree.

He█s on the back side of that one, I just seen his head.

He█s kind of got himself in a pickle there.

Here we go.

How in the world?

He's up there, he's on the.

All right, here we go.

There he is.

Now, you ain't got to tell everybody I missed like that.

I don't know how missed him that one time, but, Shoot.

All right, here we go.

Little success story Oh, yeah.

Here we go.

Here's another one.

We got enough to make something out of now.

Make us some good food right there.

Good looking, squirrel.

Two is a good number.

I'll take 3 or 4, but two is enough to make you something real good to eat.

That's enough.

You can.

He can kind of put them in the crock pot.

Maybe make you a little squirrel gravy or a little, squirrel and dumplings.

Action.

Pretty good little meal right there.

So I'm.

I'm feeling really, really, really, happy that we got two.

That's a ideal squirrel habitat.

It was a good day.

You know, We went for a walk is a beautiful day.

It ended up being awesome out here.

We were able to get a couple squirrels.

So, you know, we'll have a nice dinner.

Anybody can get out here and do this man, just come out and take a walk through the woods.

It's like, you may not be successful every time, which I'm not successful every time, but, you'll get to where you start to learn things and pick things up.

Don't get discouraged if you're not successful right away.

Just keep plugging away and you know, you'll get better and you'll learn more and you'll have fun.

And it's just like it's good exercise too.

And, you know, come out here with a buddy.

You're sitting here talking.

We're cutting up, having a good time.

So, all in all a great day.

Now let's check in and see who else has been out having fun in this week's ones that didn't Here we have Kaylene Blanford of Marion County.

This here is her first buck ever She took this deer while hunting on our pop pop's f Nice job.

Randy Sizemore got out for a little wintertime and caught this nice 45 inch muskie on the South Fork River.

Nice job.

Check out this beautiful blue ca that was caught by Robert Mason Dixon at Taylorsville Lake.

This fish weighed over 25 pounds Nice job.

Check out these smiles on ten ye Brant Drake as he holds his first striped bass that he c at Lake Cumberland in Pulaski Co Nice job.

Just a reminder, you're 2025 hunting and fishing license expire at the end of the To get your new license, go to your local retailer or to FW.KY.GOV.

And remember, hunting and fishin private property is a privilege.

Always ask permission and thank the landowner.

Until next week, I'm your host, Miles, and I hope to see you in or on the water.